A federal judge ruled last week that a lawsuit challenging Baltimore Police’s firing of an employee based in part on its policy barring members from associating with persons of “questionable character” can move forward.

According to attorneys for Djene Traore, who was fired in 2019, the policy is overly vague and a violation of federal rights around marriage.

The department told Traore she was fired for violating that policy by visiting her husband, who was incarcerated at the time on a murder conviction for which he has maintained his innocence, according to legal filings. Police had accused Traore of failing to disclose her ongoing contact with her husband and denying she visited him.

Traore worked as a policy analyst for Baltimore Police between August 2017 and April 2019, first in the department’s Best Practices Unit and later with its Professional Development Section.

U.S. District Judge Matthew J. Maddox wrote in an opinion issued last week that Traore’s suit, first filed in 2022, had adequately claimed the policy language was unclear about whether it prohibited contact with her husband. Maddox also wrote that the suit adequately argued the department might have enforced the rule arbitrarily.

The judge did not specifically weigh in on the validity of Traore’s constitutional claims. He wrote that, as they were “closely related” and “intertwined” with her vagueness argument, it would “not be appropriate to dismiss” them.

David Baña, an attorney for Traore, said Friday that the decision means constitutional arguments about the freedom of association and the right to marriage can move forward. Marriage has been placed at a “very high level” in terms of fundamental rights, Baña said, and any infringement on those rights “really requires the strictest of scrutiny.”

Other claims made by Traore, of racial discrimination and retaliation, were not adequately argued, Maddox wrote, so he dismissed those.

Baña said he was unaware of similar legal challenges to Baltimore Police’s Policy 302, which he said was vague, particularly in the current landscape.

“Questionable character is something that is very fluid, in my opinion, and therefore vague,” he said, pointing to changes in the legality of gambling or marijuana use, both of which once could have been considered questionable. “Companies and governments, in general, like to keep things broad to be able to shoehorn conduct they want into a policy violation.”

Baltimore Police did not respond Friday to a request for comment sent by email.

Attorneys for the department have argued in legal filings that in addition to the alleged Policy 302 violation, Traore was fired for making a false statement during an internal investigation on the matter.

She argued that the statement was based on “gotcha” tactics and that she’d clarified her answer.

The police department also argued that she did not sufficiently disclose her relationship with her husband, while Traore claims she did so in her hiring process and did not deny visiting him.

Policy 302, now the crux of the remaining claims of the lawsuit, lays out a series of rules for employees, including that they refrain from “making personal contacts with persons of questionable character, or visiting places where known violations of the law are occurring, unless necessary to do so in the performance of their duty.”

In legal filings, Traore cited other police employees who have visited incarcerated family members without being terminated and listed people convicted of murder who were subsequently exonerated. Her husband, Daryl Taylor, has maintained he was wrongfully convicted and is petitioning for exoneration, attorneys wrote in this case. (The Washington Post reported in 2022 that witnesses at his early 2000s murder trial recanted and claimed they were pressured by Baltimore Police detectives to make up the story.)

Baltimore Police have published a draft revision for Policy 302 on their website. In the draft policy, which is not active, according to the website, the language around “questionable character” is changed.

The draft version lays out specifically that members cannot begin or maintain a relationship with anyone who “is under criminal investigation, indictment, arrest or incarceration by this or another law enforcement or criminal justice agency,” or who they have reason to believe is involved in criminal activity, unless it is unavoidable “because of family or marital relationships.”

“In such cases where regular household, physical or telephone contact is unavoidable, the member shall inform their supervisor of the relationship,” the draft policy says.

Baña said in a news release that the proposed changes directly address this case’s issues and that the carve-out for family relationships and marriages is “potentially acknowledging the policy’s current shortcomings.”

Baltimore Police did not respond to a question about whether the draft revision attempts to clarify the language that Traore is challenging.