Robin Ficker

Robin Keith Annesley Ficker (born April 5, 1943) is an American political activist, real estate broker, disbarred attorney, former state legislator, sports heckler, and perennial candidate from Maryland.

Ficker also received an M.A. in public administration from American University in 1969.

Ficker was a member of the Maryland Bar from 1973 until his disbarment in 2022.

His first case went to the Supreme Court of the United States seeking to end the National Football League's blackout of sold out home football games.

In 1973 Ficker, representing Deborah Drudge, gained a consent judgment signed by Federal District Court Judge Roszel C. Thomsen, forbidding evaluations based on facial features and physique, for positions in the office of the Montgomery County Attorney.

The judgment said no future applicant could be asked any questions regarding marital status or child care arrangements.

Ficker served one term in the Maryland House of Delegates from 1979 to 1983, and has since run for office unsuccessfully numerous times, including for U.S. House (1972, 1976, 1980, 1984, 2012 and 2016), U.S. Senate in 2000, Montgomery County Executive in 2018, and governor in 2022.

He is currently a candidate in the 2024 United States Senate election in Maryland.

Ficker was born in Takoma Park, Maryland, attended Takoma Park Elementary, and graduated from Montgomery Blair High School.

Ficker attended the United States Military Academy for five semesters.

He received a B.S. in electrical and mechanical engineering from Case Western Reserve University.

Ficker attended the University of Pennsylvania Law School, receiving his J.D. from the University of Baltimore School of Law.

On January 6, 1986, U.S. District Court Judge Norman Ramsey ordered, in a suit brought by Ficker against the Montgomery County Board of Elections, that Md. Election Code Art.

33, S 23-5(4) limiting the payment of money to petition circulators for initiative measures be declared null and void under the First and Fourteenth Amendments.

Ficker won two landmark injunctions preventing the state of Maryland from denying access to serious traffic and criminal court records.

In 1990, Ficker was publicly reprimanded by the Maryland Court of Appeals upon a finding that he had violated ethical rules prohibiting neglect, engaged in conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice, and lack of diligence.

In 1992, U.S. District Court Judge Eugene Nickerson granted Ficker an injunction against provisions of the Maryland Public Information Act that denied access to police reports, criminal charging documents, and traffic citations in the Maryland Automated Traffic System.

In 1997, in the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, Ficker successfully challenged the constitutionality of a Maryland law forbidding lawyers from targeted direct-mail solicitation of criminal and traffic defendants within thirty days of arrest.

In March 1998, he was indefinitely suspended from the practice of law, with the right to reapply for admission after 120 days, arising from violations related to competence, diligence, fairness to opposing counsel and parties, supervising lawyers and conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice.

In August 1998, he was privately reprimanded by the Maryland Attorney Grievance Commission for a violation related to competence.

In January 2002, he was privately reprimanded by the Maryland Attorney Grievance Commission for a violation related to client communications.

A 2003 Attorneys General opinion said the 1992 "Ficker order is still in effect and enforceable."

Ficker was again indefinitely suspended from the practice of law in 2007.

A dissenting judge in that suspension commented, "If disbarment is not warranted in this case for these types of issues, with a respondent with this history, it will never be warranted."

Ficker's law license was reinstated on December 8, 2008.

In October 2009, represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, Ficker convinced parks officials in Montgomery and Prince George's counties to rescind enforcement of a rule requiring a permit before a person could carry signs or solicit signatures in county parks.

In 2013, Ficker represented a Hyattsville man who was found not guilty by a jury of all 23 counts in a case of attempted murder, armed robbery, carjacking, assault and eluding police among other charges.

In 2013, Ficker received widespread attention for securing school suspension reversals and disciplinary record expungement for children, ages 5- to 7-years old.

A 6-year-old in Maryland had been charged with threatening "to shoot a student" for pointing his finger and saying "pow".

A Pennsylvania 5-year-old was said to be making a "terroristic threat" by talking about a Hello Kitty bubble-blowing gun.

A Virginia 6-year-old had been suspended for pointing his finger at another student who pretended to shoot him with a bow and arrow after their class had studied Native American culture.

A 5-year-old Southern Maryland child had been suspended for 10 days for bringing a cap gun onto a school bus to show a friend.

Still pending in Maryland is the matter of a suspended seven-year-old who chewed a toaster pastry into the shape of a gun.

When ex-convict Daron Dylon Wint was arrested and charged in the deaths of three family members and their housekeeper, in which a ten-year-old child was tortured in order to extract money from the child's father, Ficker said Wint didn't seem violent when he defended him in earlier cases.

"My impression of him — I remember him rather well — is that he wouldn't hurt a fly. He's a very nice person", Ficker said.

Ficker characterized Wint as "kind and gentle", and added that authorities have arrested "the wrong guy" in the murder case, claiming, "They've made a big mistake here."

The Court of Appeals order also stated he violated the Maryland Rules of Professional Conduct in 2013 by hiring a disbarred lawyer in a non-lawyer capacity without alerting bar counsel.

In 2022, Ficker was found to have intentionally lied to a judge in 2019 and disbarred by the Maryland Court of Appeals.

In 2017 he was again reprimanded by the Maryland Court of Appeals for showing up late to Howard County District Court for a scheduled hearing in December 2015.

Wint was found guilty in 2018 and sentenced in 2019 to four consecutive terms of life in prison without the possibility of parole.