By Michael Phillips

In Reichert v. Hornbeck, the Circuit Court for Anne Arundel County has set one of the most dangerous legal precedents in recent memory — and it did it without even pretending to justify the decision.

On August 7, 2025, Judge Elizabeth S. Morris signed an order granting John H. Michel’s Motion to Intervene in an ongoing custody case, formally adding him as a respondent and allowing him to file a motion to dismiss Jeffrey Reichert’s Amended Petition for the Emancipation of Minor Child. The order does not cite any law, reference any facts, acknowledge any marriage between Michel and the child’s mother, or even suggest that the court considered the child’s own wishes. It is a blank check ruling — and it risks rewriting Maryland family law by judicial fiat.

Let’s be clear: John Michel is not the biological father. There is no evidence in the public record that he is married to the child’s mother. No hearing was held to establish a legal relationship. No factual findings were entered into the record. And yet, with the stroke of a pen and without a single line of reasoning, Judge Morris effectively placed Michel in the role of de facto father — giving him standing to derail a fit biological father’s legal efforts.

This is not due process. This is judicial overreach.

The implications are staggering. If Maryland courts can grant “parent” status to an unrelated third party without proof of marriage, adoption, or consent of the fit biological parent, then no mother or father in this state is safe from legal erasure. All it takes is a judge willing to hand over parental standing to someone else — no evidence, no questions asked.

Family law has always been a battlefield where fit parents fight for their children against unfit ones. But this new precedent opens the door to something far darker: fit biological parents being stripped of their rights simply because a judge decides to favor someone else. And if it can happen in Reichert v. Hornbeck, it can happen to any parent reading this.

The Maryland General Assembly should take notice — and act — before “parent” becomes a status that can be granted to anyone who files the right paperwork and lands in front of the right judge. Otherwise, the next time it won’t just be Jeffrey Reichert. It could be you.