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civil cases and criminal cases where a capital offense
was involved. There is some language at the end of the
present constitutional provision. I am reading now from
the present Constitution which says, "In regard to this
unqualified right of removal and the General Assembly
shall make such modification of the existing law as may be
necessary to regulate and give force to this provision."
This language is so much simpler to the last
sentence in Amendment 13. In Barnes against Meliski, a
decision by the Maryland Court of Appeals, the Court held
that that language did not give the General Assembly the
authority to modify the unqualified right of removal.
In other words, ladies and gentlemen, the
language on lines 11, 12, and 13 of Amendment 13 may not
give the Court the right to modify the unqualified right
of removal which is contained in the first section, first
sentence.
Now, turning to Amendment 13A, this would give
unqualified right of removal in all actions at law or in
equity upon the request of a party except that actions
involving real property, removal in those cases would be