Published by the Baltimore Banner – Alex Mann 1/6/2026
When an Anne Arundel County Circuit Court judge dismissed Carolynn Grammas’ boss from prosecuting a high-profile homicide case, Grammas knew it was time to do something.
A prosecutor in Anne Arundel County for more than two decades, Grammas was in the courtroom to observe the nearly unprecedented hearing over whether State’s Attorney Anne Colt Leitess could try a former Navy doctor, accused of fatally stabbing his estranged wife, amid questions about Leitess’ handling of evidence and witnesses.
After dismissing Leitess, the judge called on Grammas to assist the remaining prosecutor.
“That’s when I knew 100% that I could not be a part of this,” Grammas said, referring to Leitess’ office, which she described as having become tainted by “integrity issues” and evidence-sharing violations. “So that’s when I started thinking, what can I do about this?”
In October, Grammas resigned to run against Leitess.
Grammas, who now works for the St. Mary’s County state’s attorney’s office, launched a campaign website: “A New Era of Accountability Begins Soon.” A longtime Republican, she’s running as a Democrat, having changed parties because of her dismay at what was happening at the “federal level.”
Grammas, who’s begun fundraising for a run but has not officially filed yet, faces a tall task in taking on Leitess, who has served as the county’s top prosecutor for nine years and is seeking a third consecutive term. Political experts say incumbents have an even bigger advantage in down-ballot races, like for state’s attorney, compared to top-of-ticket campaigns, not to mention that Leitess has name recognition.
Unlike most of her peer state’s attorneys in Maryland’s largest counties, Leitess prosecutes some of Anne Arundel’s most high-profile cases herself. In recent years, she’s successfully convicted the Capital Gazette mass shooter as well as the leader of a white supremacist prison gang and the Aryan Brotherhood members he ordered to kill a fellow inmate.
“I know what it takes to prove a case in court,” Leitess said. “I know when I’m asking my prosecutors to take on very difficult cases, you know, other counties might hesitate. I still put myself out there on the front line and I would never ask my prosecutors to do anything I wouldn’t do myself. I am willing to go out on a limb for victims and justice.”
Leitess started as a prosecutor in Anne Arundel County in 1988 and quickly rose through the ranks. When then-State’s Attorney Frank Weathersbee retired in 2013, Anne Arundel’s circuit judges selected Leitess over his top deputies to carry out his term, making her the first woman to hold that office. After Republican Wes Adams defeated her in 2014, she reclaimed the office in 2019.
But the incumbent has stumbled recently. In February, a judge declared a mistrial in the case of an Annapolis man accused of shooting six of his neighbors, three fatally, after finding Leitess made several “transgressions” while cross-examining the defendant.
She was thrown off the doctor’s prosecution in May after Judge Mark W.Crooks determined she withheld evidence favorable to the defense, was misleading during testimony and worked on the case after he barred her from it.
The Appellate Court of Maryland was skeptical of Crooks’ reasoning to dismiss Leitess in an order halting the case. The matter is now pending before the state Supreme Court.
Leitess said she could not comment on pending cases.
“Lawyers and judges disagree,” Leitess said. “We have a system for resolving disagreements and that is our appellate system. When you have high-profile matters and you have high-stakes cases, you’re going to have differences of opinion.”
Grammas, who lives in Annapolis, said she was almost destined to be a prosecutor.
When she was a child in Florida, her mother was a police dispatcher. She worked summers at the local sheriff’s department, organizing files and “just reading case file after case file.” In college at High Point University in North Carolina, Grammas recalled, her friend Katherine was murdered by a serial killer known as “The Babyface Killer.”
The grief strengthened her resolve to advocate for crime victims and protect the public.
After college, she attended the University of Baltimore School of Law. She did a clinic one summer with Anne Arundel County’sOffice of the Public Defender, learning to view a case through a defense attorney’s eyes and the importance of fairness in evidence sharing. She clerked for a federal judge in Maryland after graduation and did a brief stint with the Harford County State’s Attorney’s Office.
She started as a prosecutor in Anne Arundel in 2000, working at first, as almost all new prosecutors do, in district court handling misdemeanor and traffic cases. She developed an affinity for the latter, particularly cases where someone was injured or killedin a crash.
During her stint away from the state’s attorney’s office after Leitess lost to Adams, Grammas completed Anne Arundel’s police academy training, with hopes of becoming a homicide detective. However, she returned to the state’s attorney’s office in 2019 when Leitess reclaimed the top job and offered Grammas a job she “couldn’t refuse in the sense of being able to really take on the auto manslaughter victim crimes,”she said.
Those cases became her specialty. She completed accident reconstruction classes and handled prosecutions for deaths or injuries caused by negligent or impaired drivers.
“People are very scared of the physics and the math,” Grammas said. “They’re like ‘Oh, I don’t want to touch that.’ The dynamics of a crash. How to explain it. How to talk to a jury.”
Defense attorney Peter O’Neill has sparred with Grammas in court. He called her “the finest state’s attorney I’ve ever had the pleasure of dealing with.”
“She has a unique ability to combine a strong work ethic as well as a standard of ethics that’s beyond reproach,” O’Neill said. “When you have a trial with Carolynn, you better be prepared.”
Grammas described herself as a victims’ champion, but said her zealous advocacy never comes at the expense of defendants’ constitutional rights. If elected, she said she’d provide more training to prosecutors to avoid the kind of missteps she claims have plagued the office lately.
“The leadership from the top has failed and there is not accountability, which has hurt the credibility of our office across the board,” Grammas said.
Leaving the Anne Arundel prosecutors’ office was a difficult choice, she said,but ultimately she decided she couldn’t run for state’s attorney while working there. With her three children now adults, she said the timing is right for her to become Anne Arundel’s top law enforcement official.
“I have been pressed by various stakeholders in the judicial system to run,” Grammas said. “I have prided myself throughout my entire career to ensure my word and integrity is intact. I think that’s part of the reason that people are turning towards me.”