A Maryland appellate court declined to reinstate Anne Arundel County State’s Attorney Anne Colt Leitess to the prosecution of a retired Navy doctor accused of fatally stabbing his wife as their polyamorous relationship deteriorated.

In a unanimous opinion Tuesday, three judges of the Appellate Court of Maryland granted Dr. James Strachan Houston’s request to dismiss Leitess’ appeal, ruling they did not have legal authority to consider the case.

The appellate ruling prompted Circuit Judge Mark W. Crooks to hold a hearing Wednesday afternoon. Crooks did not rule on when Houston’s case would proceed, saying he wanted further guidance from the higher court on how to proceed with another appeal potentially forthcoming.

Before Leitess’ appeal, Houston’s murder trial had been slated to begin May 23. It was scheduled for nine days, ending Thursday.

A spokesman for Leitess declined to say whether the office would appeal and otherwise declined to comment.

The Maryland Office of the Attorney General, which is representing Leitess as it does all state’s attorneys offices, filed a request to the appellate court to freeze Houston’s case while it pursues an appeal to the Supreme Court of Maryland on what it describes as an unprecedented legal question: Whether the state can appeal the removal of an elected state’s attorney from a prosecution.

Houston’s attorneys declined to comment.

“This is all frivolous,” defense attorney John Robinson told Crooks in court Wednesday. “This is designed to postpone this case.”

Describing the prosecution as being based on “unethical behaviors and ethical issues,” Robinson added, “they want to benefit from their own misdeeds.”

Prosecutors allege Houston, 58, lured his estranged wife, Nancianne, to his waterfront Edgewater apartment Aug. 9 under the guise of completing tax documents as their divorce progressed.

Houston stabbed 47-year-old Nancianne to death with a kitchen knife. But he also sustained serious stab wounds during the encounter.

While Houston’s attorneys argue he was defending himself, prosecutors believe he used his medical knowledge to injure himself without risking death to make it look like a knife fight.

Save for a March 2023 incident when Nancianne alleged in an application for court protection that he threw a drink in her face, there was no record of violence in their marriage.

As part of routine trial preparation in April, Leitess called one of the witnesses in the case, Houston’s neighbor and friend Steven Valladares, to go over his testimony. During that call, Valladares reported to Leitess that Houston once told him that Nancianne pulled a knife on him.

Leitess did not disclose what Valladares told her to the defense, later admitting in court that she was required to.

Crooks said he believed Valladares’ statement was evidence that could be used to support the defense’s theory that Houston acted in self defense. On May 6, he threw Leitess off the case for withholding evidence favorable to the defense and “irreparably” making herself a witness in the case by speaking to Valladares and about 15 other witnesses without anyone else present.

The state appealed, arguing that Crooks overstepped by removing an elected prosecutor from a case and barring her from speaking about the case to anyone in her office.

But before getting into the merits of Crooks’ decision to toss Leitess from the murder case, the appellate judges had to decide whether they had the power to consider a mid-case appeal.

The attorney general argued that the appellate court could hear its case under a judge-crafted legal theory known as the “Collateral Order Doctrine.”

In order to consider an appeal under the doctrine, the trial judge’s ruling in question must meet four criteria: that the ruling was definitive, that it resolved an important issue, that it was completely separate from the ultimate question of the case — in Houston’s case, whether he is guilty or not — and that the legal question couldn’t be appealed after the case concluded.

The appellate court judges — E. Gregory Wells, Kevin F. Arthur and Stephen H. Kehoe — determined that the state’s case met three of four prongs. The prosecution cannot appeal regardless of whether Houston was convicted or acquitted, they found, and Crooks’ decision to remove Leitess was conclusive.

Furthermore, Arthur wrote for the panel, “the issue of whether a circuit court can disqualify the elected State’s Attorney and limit her ability to communicate with her subordinates is obviously an important one.”

The judges, however, determined that the question of whether Leitess would need to testify in the case was not separate from determining whether Houston is guilty.

Although they ruled in Houston’s favor, the judges seemed to express some doubt about Crooks’ ruling. They said Valladares’ statement was likely inadmissible at trial because it’s hearsay.

“We express no opinion about how the State — intentionally or otherwise — could have ‘withheld’ information about what the defendant himself claims to have previously said to one of the witnesses,” Arthur wrote in a footnote.

Kehoe authored a concurring opinion, focusing much of his two-page brief on Crooks taking issue with Leitess speaking to witnesses without someone else present. He said it was “best practice” for attorneys to have someone else with them when they interview witnesses, but described that as not always practicable.

“A finding that an attorney has inextricably made himself or herself a witness by speaking directly to a witness would circumscribe an attorney’s ability to prepare for trial,” Kehoe wrote.

“Attorneys, including State’s Attorneys, routinely speak to witnesses without others present. In these conversations, the attorneys will assess the credibility of the witness, the strengths and weakness of their possible testimony and the impact of the possible testimony.

“These conversations,” he continued, “are often done alone because the attorneys do not have the resources to bring other people into the conversation.”

In court Wednesday, Crooks said the appellate court addressed only a fraction of the reasons he dismissed Leitess from the case, not to mention problems that would arise from her rejoining it.

He noted that Leitess’ testimony last month about the efforts she made to have police interview Valladares differed from the testimony of two detectives who took the witness stand.

Leitess, Crooks said, also appeared to violate his order barring her from working on the case by altering documents and communicating with expert witnesses.