Na'Im Anderson v. Baltimore County, Maryland

CourtCourt of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
DecidedDecember 2, 2025
Docket24-1314
StatusUnpublished

This text of Na'Im Anderson v. Baltimore County, Maryland (Na'Im Anderson v. Baltimore County, Maryland) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Na'Im Anderson v. Baltimore County, Maryland, (4th Cir. 2025).

Opinion

USCA4 Appeal: 24-1314 Doc: 70 Filed: 12/02/2025 Pg: 1 of 17

UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 24-1314

NA’IM ANDERSON,

Plaintiff - Appellant,

v.

BALTIMORE COUNTY, MARYLAND; STATE OF MARYLAND; OFFICE OF THE STATE’S ATTORNEY FOR BALTIMORE COUNTY; NICHOLAS WOLFERMAN; CHAD A. SHOLTER, in their individual and official capacities,

Defendants - Appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Maryland, at Baltimore. James K. Bredar, Senior District Judge. (1:23-cv-01842-JKB)

Submitted: September 30, 2025 Decided: December 2, 2025

Before WYNN, THACKER, and HARRIS, Circuit Judges.

Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.

ON BRIEF: Latoya Francis-Williams, LAW OFFICE OF LATOYA A. FRANCIS- WILLIAMS, Randallstown, Maryland, for Appellant. Anthony G. Brown, Attorney General, Wendy L. Shiff, Assistant Attorney General, OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL OF MARYLAND, Baltimore, Maryland, for Appellees State’s Attorney for Baltimore County and State of Maryland. James R. Benjamin, Jr., Baltimore County Attorney, Bradley J. Neitzel, Senior Assistant County Attorney, BALTIMORE COUNTY OFFICE OF LAW, Towson, Maryland, for Appellees Baltimore County, Maryland; USCA4 Appeal: 24-1314 Doc: 70 Filed: 12/02/2025 Pg: 2 of 17

Nicholas Wolferman; and Chad Sholter.

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.

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PER CURIAM:

Na’Im Anderson (“Appellant”) alleged that he was stopped, arrested, and

prosecuted for a marijuana offense, all without probable cause. So, he sued the officers;

prosecutor; Baltimore County, Maryland; and the State of Maryland.

The district court concluded that the Amended Complaint failed to allege facts

sufficient to bear out Appellant’s conclusory allegations or to pierce the applicable

immunities. As a result, the district court dismissed his Amended Complaint. We agree

with the conclusions of the district court. Therefore, we affirm.

I.

We recount the pertinent facts as they appear in Appellant’s Amended Complaint

and assume them true. Prince v. Sears Holdings Corp., 848 F.3d 173, 176 (4th Cir. 2017)

(“When reviewing the grant of a motion to dismiss, we assume all facts in the complaint

as true and resolve all doubts in favor of the non-moving party.”).

On July 13, 2021, Appellant was the backseat passenger in a car that was pulled

over by Officer Nicholas Wolferman of the Baltimore County Police Department

(“BCPD”). 1

Appellant’s Amended Complaint alleges that he did not own the car, nor was he the

driver. Appellant alleges that he brought nothing illegal into the car when he climbed in -

- which, according to him, was just one minute prior to the stop. Appellant also alleges

1 The Amended Complaint provides no other facts about the stop, not even the reason for it.

3 USCA4 Appeal: 24-1314 Doc: 70 Filed: 12/02/2025 Pg: 4 of 17

that he was unaware of any illegal substances in the car, and he could not access the locked

glovebox or trunk.

Officer Wolferman searched the car, found what he suspected to be marijuana, and

arrested everyone in the car. 2 Officer Wolferman and his fellow BCPD officer, Chad

Sholter, then filed a complaint charging Appellant with possession of marijuana. For six

months, Appellant was held without bail, from July 13, 2021 until January 13, 2022, when

he was released to a home monitoring program and placed on pre-trial supervision.

In the period following Appellant’s arrest, the BCPD experienced issues testing

suspected contraband. More specifically, the BCPD had been outsourcing all marijuana

testing to National Medical Services (“NMS”), a Pennsylvania laboratory. But on

August 5, 2021 (three weeks after Appellant’s arrest) Officers Wolferman and Sholter

received a letter from the Maryland State Police, informing them that NMS would no

longer be conducting such testing because NMS had issues certifying its chemists. That

left the BCPD unable to confirm that the suspected marijuana found in the subject vehicle

was in fact marijuana. However, neither the Officers nor the State’s Attorney for Baltimore

County ever disclosed this letter to Appellant. Then, on January 18, 2022, NMS officially

notified the State’s Attorney that it was unable to determine whether the sample the BCPD

had submitted was actually marijuana. NMS also notified the State’s Attorney that, unless

2 The Amended Complaint is devoid of any allegations as to where the suspected marijuana was located in the subject vehicle.

4 USCA4 Appeal: 24-1314 Doc: 70 Filed: 12/02/2025 Pg: 5 of 17

asked not to do so, it would be discarding the subject sample in six weeks. No objection

was made.

Appellant’s charges were dismissed a year later on January 23, 2023. As a result of

this failed prosecution, Appellant alleges that he “suffered physical and/or non-physical

injury, sustained economic damages for the cost of medical/mental health care expenses

and lost wages as well as non-economic damages for the pain, suffering, fear, fright,

humiliation, inconvenience, embarrassment and severe emotional distress for the totality

of the events that he was forced to endure.” J.A. 60.3

Appellant filed suit in the Circuit Court for Baltimore County, Maryland on April

25, 2023. He sued the State’s Attorney for Baltimore County (“State’s Attorney”), the

State of Maryland (the “State”), Officers Wolferman and Sholter (the “Officers”), and

Baltimore County, Maryland (the “County”) (collectively, “Appellees”). Appellees

removed the case to the District of Maryland. Once in federal court, Appellant amended

his complaint.

Appellant’s Amended Complaint maintained the same defendants, and it included

eight causes of action. These included common law claims for false arrest, false

imprisonment, malicious prosecution, abuse of process, and the intentional infliction of

emotional distress. The Amended Complaint also included a claim for an unreasonable

search and seizure pursuant to the Fourth Amendment as well as Articles 24 and 26 of the

Maryland Declaration of Rights. The Amended Complaint similarly alleged a claim for

3 Citations to the “J.A.” refer to the Joint Appendix filed by the parties in this appeal.

5 USCA4 Appeal: 24-1314 Doc: 70 Filed: 12/02/2025 Pg: 6 of 17

violations of the Fourth, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments, brought pursuant to 42 U.S.C.

§ 1983. Finally, the Amended Complaint asserted a Monell 4 claim.

Appellees moved to dismiss the Amended Complaint, and the district court granted

their respective motions. It first held that the State’s Attorney was entitled to absolute

prosecutorial immunity and thus immune from suit. The district court then held that the

State of Maryland could not be vicariously liable for any prosecutorial misconduct by the

State’s Attorney, as prosecutorial immunity extends to the State. Next, the district court

held that Appellant failed to state any claim -- constitutional or common law -- against the

Officers. Finally, the district court held that Appellant failed to state any claim against the

County. The district thus dismissed the Amended Complaint in its entirety.

This timely appeal followed.

II.

“We apply a de novo standard of review for appeals of . . . motions to dismiss for

failure to state a claim.” Benjamin v. Sparks, 986 F.3d 332, 351 (4th Cir. 2021).

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