Republican Del. Mike Griffith has again filed legislation in the Maryland General Assembly that, if passed, would allow state’s attorneys to notify public school systems when a student is suspected of a felony or violent crime.

Similar legislation proposed by Griffith in 2025 failed to get the state legislature’s OK. The delegate said he is taking a new approach this session. The General Assembly’s three-month session begins Jan. 14.

Griffith, who represents parts of Harford and Cecil counties, said his bill is in response to the 2022 murder of Aberdeen resident Kayla Hamilton, 20, who was killed in her home by Walter Javier Martinez, who was 16 at the time. Police said Martinez entered the U.S. from El Salvador illegally prior to the killing. Martinez pleaded guilty in August to the murder.

While Martinez was under investigation for the murder, he attended Edgewood High School. School officials were not made aware that he was a murder suspect.

“With [the] Kayla Hamilton situation, there is no reason why we are going to have the sole and primary suspect of a very violent felony be allowed in school with other children,” Griffith said. “It doesn’t make any sense to me.”

The 2025 version of the bill aimed to enable notification to school systems and also to expand the list of crimes classified as “reportable offenses.” Other legislators questioned the bill’s implications for student privacy, and the legislation ultimately failed.

Griffith said last year’s debate prompted him to submit the legislation as two separate bills this time around. He hopes this will allow for more focused discussions.

“We cut them into their own bills because the conversation was so intense around students suspected of committing a violent felony, and I felt that part of the conversation consumed the whole conversation and the other piece didn’t have its day,” Griffith said.

The first bill enables state’s attorneys to inform school superintendents when students are suspected in felony or violent crime cases, at the discretion of the state’s attorneys.

Griffith’s second bill expands the list of reportable offenses outlined in state law so that local law enforcement could inform school systems when students are suspected of crimes such as fourth-degree sex offense, threats of mass violence and stalking.

“It makes sense,” Griffith said. “You shouldn’t be able to distribute child pornography and be in a school; you shouldn’t be able to call a bomb threat or threaten to do a mass shooting at school and that not be told to school officials.”

When the original bill went before the General Assembly, Harford County Public Schools Superintendent Sean Bulson testified that if he had been given the necessary information about Martinez at the time, he could have had him enrolled in the district’s virtual learning program to keep him away from other students.

Harford County State’s Attorney Alison Healey also testified last year in favor of the bill, emphasizing that it would give state’s attorneys discretion when to inform school systems, which allows prosecutors to ensure student safety without jeopardizing criminal cases.

At the federal level, Congress is considering a different piece of legislation tied to the 2022 murder. The Kayla Hamilton Act aims to mandate background checks for unaccompanied children crossing the U.S. border to determine whether they are a flight risk; are a danger to themselves or the community; have been arrested, charged or convicted of any criminal offense; or are participating in any gang-related activities.

The act passed in December by a 225-201 vote in the House of Representatives, with eight Democrats joining Republicans to support it. It will next go before the Senate.

U.S. Rep. Andy Harris, Maryland’s lone Republican representative whose district includes Harford County, was the only representative from the state to vote in favor of the bill. The state’s Democratic senators expressed concerns that the measures it outlined could cause unnecessary harm to children.

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