Ok, so let me see if I understand you correctly: You're saying it's "all state land" (regardless of "type" of state land) that prohibits detecting there.
No that isn't what I said. Quotation marks are used to indicate a direct quote. In this case no such phrase was used. Just something to be aware of in your writing. If you are paraphrasing then you probably shouldn't use quotes.
What I said was that the regulation covers all areas under control of the Maryland Department of Resources (DNR) and my suggestion is that covers the vast majority of state property, though I did not say all. For instance, whether the regulation has effect on state highway right of ways as in your example, depends upon the right of way. A little background. I'm a retired LEO that got paid by this lovely state to enforce it's laws for many years. While I can promise you that I never had the opportunity or desire to enforce the Code of Maryland Regulations (COMAR), I do know how they are interpreted by those who do enforce them. In this state we have statutes, which are created by the legislature and are contained in the Annotated code of Maryland. Those are the laws I was charged with enforcing.
But agencies can be given authority by the legislature to create their own regulations which are also enforceable laws, though typically only enforced by the creating agency. These regulations are contained in the COMAR. The particular regulation we are discussing is contained in Title 8 of the COMAR which are those regulations adopted and enforced by the DNR. Maryland Parks are a sub-agency of the DNR, but the DNR covers a lot more territory than parks.
The specific regulation that does the prohibiting states:
"Without a permit from the Office of Archeology, Maryland Historical Trust, Department of Housing and Community Development, and the Department, an individual may not dig in search of buried relics or treasures, remove prehistoric or historic artifacts, or use metal detectors, except as provided in §D of this regulation, within the boundaries of lands, beaches, or under waters controlled by the Service." §D describes the aforementioned exception for swimming beaches.
So the question you seem to want to discuss is what property is under control of the DNR, since the law clearly states that MD'ing is prohibited in areas that the DNR controls. The last modification to the law that I'm aware of came in 1995 as a result of the activity of some clever underwater metal detectorists. The area they were hunting was in the South River near its mouth at the Chesapeake Bay, directly in front of a county owned museum on a county owned historic colonial site, but was not part of that site, being in the river. It also was not a park, state or otherwise. They managed to collect a large trove of colonial era artifacts, apparently to the great annoyance of those archeological folks who were responsible for the historic site. As a result the wording "or under waters" was added to the description of the territory covered by the regulation. Apparently the original writers had failed to account for scuba diving archeologists. Though in that case prosecution was still enabled through The Maryland Submerged Archaeological Historical Property Act, passed in 1988, which makes it illegal to dig historic objects from beneath state waters except under certain narrowly prescribed conditions. But since the violation occurred in the water, the County Police who had been called to the scene and were anxious to pass it off, called the DNR Police whose regulation at the time did not seem specific enough, forcing the County Police to actually have to do something. So the wording was added to broaden the scope of the regulation to include "under waters controlled by the service" which I assure you covers every square inch of water in the state, so that henceforth in such cases the DNR Police could enforce the law without jurisdictional confusion.
Now as to your highway right of way example. If the right of way is a roadside rest area, then yes the regulation applies as such areas are specifically named as areas under the control of the service. Also the regulation would apply for the same reason if the right of way was "an area of special or unique State historic interest or scenic interest" or a "Natural Environment Area", or "an area where multiple-use management practices are employed for the maximum use of the natural resources of the area" or "as an area of land or water which has retained its wilderness character, although not necessarily completely natural and undisturbed, or has rare or vanishing species of plant or animal life or similar features of interest worthy of preservation for use of present and future residents of the State." The list goes on, is quite exhaustive and certainly does include your favorite, " Multi-use State Parks."
Notwithstanding the over broad nature of the letter of the law, the question that really matters is where would this regulation be enforced? And this is where I can provide some insight. This regulation was enacted to placate the state archeologist and was fully intended to be used wherever historic artifacts could be found on public property so that those artifacts could be protected by archeologists. As asinine as that may be, I will tell you without hesitation that the regulation would be enforced on any state property where a historic artifact was found by the person detecting. Without question. But of course, that's only if someone notices. In the South River example above, the mistake made by the hunters was they were doing their thing in plain site of the employees of the county museum and refused to stop when asked to by those employees and even after the police arrived claiming that they knew their rights. They said later that they were under the assumption that by being below the mean low water mark they were outside of any regulation as nobody owns that property. Well, that didn't work out as they had hoped.
The OP asked a simple question regarding his trip to an unfamiliar state. While you were critical of his question, it seemed reasonable to me. He gave fairly specific information as to where he would be during his visit and mentioned the desire for a civil war relic and inquired of Maryland specific laws regarding the hobby. Given that information, I tried to answer his question as I do have some familiarity with some of the unique features of our laws as they pertain to metal detecting. Looking back at my original post, I still can't see anywhere that I led him astray. I never claimed to agree with or abide by all of these laws, nor did I suggest that everyone does or should. I wasn't asked about my opinions. And I did try to give at least a little thought to the types of places such a tourist might end up detecting in my answer. One of our state highway right of ways did not occur to me as being a likely candidate, in any event. My point is that I think a reasonable question was asked and answered and really didn't require much in the way of supervision.
Also hows the weather there in late June?
