Carmen Johnson, according to The Washington Post, was one of the only ones on Court Watch for bail hearings every week across Maryland. Johnson would drive copious amounts of miles, and sit down to take notes for tremendous amounts of hours. However, the pandemic has made Maryland adapt to online. Since then, access to court hearings was easier than before. “With that increased accessibility came an influx of hundreds of new Court Watch PG volunteers who could suddenly help observe proceedings through remote video or through phone across the region and nation: law students, high-schoolers, retirees…”

One of these volunteers was none other than Grammy-award-winning singer and songwriter Fiona Apple. According to ConsequenceSound, Apple has played in the political game before, “In the past couple of years, the musical powerhouse has protested and donated her royalties to charitable causes. With the pandemic coming to a slow conclusion, many, like Apple, are trying to keep the transparency within the court sessions.

In a two minute video, the famous artist encouraged her loyal fans to make two phone calls. One for Chairman Luke Clippinger, and the other for Chairman Will Smith. Once they make the call, they would state their name and that they vote for both House Bill 647 and Senate Bill 469.

Apple is known to do other tremendous acts of generosity. On August of 2021, the remake of the classic movie Candyman was released, featuring the song from Apple, “Shameika”. All of the royalties from featuring the song in tv or movies were donated straight to Harlem’s Children Zone.

Photo Credit: Raymond Flotat