Jill P. Carter
| Jill P. Carter | |
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| Member of the Maryland House of Delegates from the 41st district |
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In office January 8, 2003 – January 2, 2017 |
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| Personal details | |
| Born |
June 18, 1964 Baltimore, Maryland, United States |
| Political party | Democratic |
| Profession | Attorney |
| Religion | Episcopalian |
Jill P. Carter (born June 18) is a former American politician who represented Maryland's 41st legislative district of Baltimore City in the Maryland House of Delegates. She was elected to the Maryland legislature in 2002 and took office in January of 2003.
Carter is the daughter of the late Walter P. Carter, who was a civil rights activist and leader in the desegregation movement in Maryland in the 1950s and 1960s. Her mother, Zerita Joy Carter, is a retired public school educator. Carter graduated Western High School in Baltimore. Carter received her B.A. in English from Loyola College in Maryland in 1988, and her J.D. from the University of Baltimore School of Law in 1992.
Prior to law school, Carter worked for Baltimore Afro American Newspapapers.
Carter was admitted to the Maryland Bar in 1993. She has worked as a staff attorney for The Legal Aid Bureau, the Office of the Public Defender, and the Office of the City Solicitor. She is a member of Monumental City Bar Association, the Maryland Trial Lawyers' Association and a founding member of the Black Lawyers Group. She is founder and president of the Walter P. Carter Foundation. She was the Executive Director of the Maryland Minority Business Association in 2002, chair of the Baltimore Branch NAACP Legal Redress Committee.
Carter has individually represented more that 200 individuals in the District and Circuit in Baltimore City and 6 of Maryland's 23 counties in addition to the hundreds of cases she handled on behalf of the Office of the Public Defender.
Carter was elected to the Maryland House of Delegates in 2002. She was the third African-American female attorney elected to the Maryland Legislature. During her first term from 2003–2006, she was the only African-American female attorney serving in the Maryland House of Delegates. She and was assigned to the House Judiciary committee where she served as chair of the Estates and Trusts Subcommittee, the Legislative Black Caucus of Maryland, and the Women Legislators of Maryland. Carter voted against legalizing slot machines in Maryland in 2005. Prior to her re-election in 2006, she became a vocal critic of then mayor (and later Governor Martin O'Malley's "failed policing policies". She posited that the so-labeled, zero tolerance, arrest strategy failed to cause significant reduction in a soaring crime rate in Baltimore City, but, rather, pressured police officers to make tens of thousands of arrests that did not produce criminal charges. She has oft been referred to as a lone voice in the wilderness for her challenges to established politicians on matters of adequate housing for the poor, lead poisoning of children, to adequately fund public education, both in the legislature, and in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City., and, in 2007, calling for a special session of the legislature to deal with the BGE utility rate increase.
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