Dr. James Houston was due in two courtrooms Monday, but the former health care executive was in jail, accused of killing his wife in a bloody double stabbing. In both hearings, a civil matter in Annapolis blocking him from his wife’s assets and a failed attempt to have bail set in Glen Burnie, Anne Arundel State’s Attorney Anne Colt Leitess took center stage. Even in the civil case, a judge paused to take note of her presence. At the end, lawyers for both parties flocked toward her.

“I’m not used to seeing you in a civil courtroom,” one said.

Leitess, Anne Arundel’s top prosecutor since 2019, has taken the rare step of heading the murder trial against Houston, whose arrest Friday brought the gruesome details of a waterfront killing to light.

In Glen Burnie, Leitess painted a picture of a woman trying to escape her marriage. Yes, on Aug. 9, Nancianne Houston went to her husband’s Edgewater apartment, but it was on business. She had no interest in rekindling her relationship, police learned. About a week before her death, she had told Houston she was dating another man.

On Aug. 9, however, tax forms needed to be signed. By the time officers made it to the apartment, she was dead. Her husband was bleeding out next to her.

Monday afternoon, Leitess successfully appealed to a district court judge to keep Houston in the Jennifer Road Detention Center without bail. After hearing from Leitess and Houston himself, who appeared virtually, the judge said there was “no way” she’d allow the defendant back on the street.

As of Tuesday, Leitess is the only prosecutor to sign onto Houston’s case from the state.

Atop an office of nearly 60 attorneys, Leitess has plenty to do. Recently, she joined a team of attorneys trying to remove a judge from the retrial of a Naval Academy midshipman acquitted of rape. The case was later dismissed, but Leitess’ “forte,” she told the Capital Gazette last year, is litigating complicated homicides. Along with the Houston matter, Leitess is trying another murder case, looking to convict the alleged shooter in an incident that marked Annapolis’ deadliest day in over six years. If the case goes to trial, she will attempt to prove it was a hate crime.

Charles Robert Smith, 45, was arrested at his mother’s home on June 11, 2023, after gunfire sent city police to the 1000 block of Paddington Place. Witnesses at a nearby birthday party told investigators his mother was angry a car was blocking her driveway. Witnesses said she stopped by the party, interrupting it, and then called a government agency to report the vehicle, according to charging documents.

Mario Mireles, who had a history of disagreements with the Smiths, went to the Smiths’ house and confronted the mother. Smith came home shortly thereafter, and the argument became physical. Police said Smith shot and killed Mireles and his friend Christian Segovia before retreating into his house and firing a rifle from his front window. Mario Mireles’ father, Nicholas Mireles, was shot in the head and killed, and three others were injured.

It was the deadliest single event in Annapolis since the 2018 attack on the Capital Gazette newsroom.

Like Dr. Houston, Smith has been held at Jennifer Road without bail since his arrest, though threats against his life have kept Smith largely in isolation, his attorneys said. The next hearing in that case is scheduled for Nov. 12 in Anne Arundel Circuit Court.

Houston’s next hearing is set for Oct. 23 in Annapolis District Court, according to the Maryland Judiciary.

Leitess usually gets involved in high-profile murder cases that she said “hurt” the community. In 2021, she secured a conviction for the man who killed five Capital Gazette employees, which resulted in six life sentences.

Leitess’ work in that case, which included proving the shooter was mentally competent, not insane, at the time of the killings, highlighted her reputation for preparing complicated cases, a compliment that has been extended by prosecutors and defense attorneys alike.

In 2023, after Leitess signed onto Smith’s case, Baltimore City State’s Attorney Ivan Bates said “no one will be more focused” on the proceedings than the Anne Arundel prosecutor.

Speaking to the Capital Gazette last year, he recalled facing her and Assistant State’s Attorney Jason Steinhardt in a murder trial involving one of his clients. He said he dreaded the case after learning Leitess was one of the prosecutors, at one point trying to push the case forward after hearing she was sick. His client opted to wait the extra weekend and is now serving a 30-year prison sentence.

Steinhardt is working with Leitess again on Smith’s murder and hate crime case.

Between her 2014 appointment and two election victories in 2018 and 2022, Leitess has led six prosecutions, with Houston’s being the seventh. She may not be in the courtroom as often as she once was, but she remains active behind the scenes of her colleagues’ cases.

Leitess said she makes herself available to help strategize arguments and sometimes sits in on trials to offer her team advice. She also must approve any plea offer made in a murder case.

Leitess and a spokesperson in her office declined to comment for this story.

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