Administrative Judge

Protesters held signs reading "Leopold must go!" "Spying un-American" and "Resign now" outside Anne Arundel County government headquarters Monday, criticizing an embattled county executive who faces allegations that he used his county police detail to investigate political opponents. About a dozen people attended the protest near the Arundel Center to voice their disdain for County Executive John R. Leopold. He was indicted and charged March 2 with four counts of misconduct in office and one count of misappropriating county funds.

Michael E. Loney, a retired Anne Arundel County Circuit Court judge recalled for his moderate temperament, died of congestive heart failure Oct. 5 at his Arnold home. He was 73. "He was a gentleman and a gentle man," said a friend, Judge Nancy Davis-Loomis, administrative judge of the Anne Arundel County Circuit Court. "He loved the law, and he loved helping people in his private life and on the bench. He was always fair and always of moderate temperament. " Judge Davis-Loomis said, "He was the kind of judge you hope you get. " Born in Baltimore and raised on Monastery Avenue in Irvington, he was the son of a homemaker and a hardware salesman.

Clayton Cann Carter, a retired Queen Anne's County Circuit Court judge who was a Maryland history buff and a collector of Maryland-related objets d'art, died July 30 of an apparent heart attack at Chesterfield, his Centreville home. He was 92. The son of a miller and a storekeeper, Judge Carter was born and raised in Centreville. He was a 1935 graduate of Centreville High School and earned a bachelor's degree in 1939 from Duke University. "There were only 11 grades in those days at Centreville High School and he was 16 when he entered Duke, where he earned his degree at 20," said a daughter, Rachel MacDonough Carter Gross of Chestertown.

H. Emslie "Lee" Parks, former Baltimore County attorney and school board president who was also a highly regarded litigator, died Monday of cancer at Rutledge on Wye, his Queenstown home. The longtime Granite resident was 81. The son of a lawyer and a schoolteacher, Mr. Parks was born in Baltimore and raised in Catonsville. He was a 1949 graduate of St. Paul's School and earned a bachelor's degree in business from the Johns Hopkins University in 1953. After earning a degree in 1956 from the University of Maryland School of Law and entering the Maryland Bar, he began practicing law with his father, Zadoc Townsend Parks Jr., and two years later, became a partner in the firm of Parks and Parks in their One Charles Center office in downtown Baltimore.

The brinkmanship of the budget season is always something to behold, but with the anticipated $54.1 shortfall for fiscal year 1992, the next few weeks will be an even sterner test of the mettle of Baltimore's agency heads and finance officers.Consider, for example, the dilemma of Joseph H. H. Kaplan, administrative judge of the Circuit Court.Judge Kaplan is being asked to hold the court to its fiscal 1991 funding level while somehow finding a way to absorb the cost of mandated raises for 160 union employees.

Judge James N. Vaughan has recently been appointed as administrative judge for the District Court in Howard and Carroll counties.Judge Vaughan, who was appointed to the District Court in 1982, will succeed Judge Francis M. Arnold, who was appointed to the Circuit Court for Carroll County by Gov. William Donald Schaefer.Vaughan, a graduate of the Mount Vernon School of Law, will assume his new duties on Dec. 27.

David D. Merrill, a retired state administrative law judge, died Tuesday of pneumonia at Howard County General Hospital. He was 73 and had lived in Randallstown for the past 20 years.Mr. Merrill counted former Gov. William Donald Schaefer among his friends, and they were members of the Gourd Heads Club."Their motto is: 'Big Heads Full of Brains,' " said Mr. Merrill's wife of 44 years, the former Shirley Clark."He was a very bright, young man who had a quick wit," said retired Baltimore Circuit Court Judge Mary Arabian.

The Social Security Disability Insurance system is supposed to provide a financial safety net for workers and their families in the event that a serious medical impairment prevents them from working ("Judges sue Social Security over 'quotas' on disability decisions" April 29). But it's really a parachute that often fails to open in time, sending the individual into a financial free fall with years of uncertainty over whether or not they are going to hit the ground - and it only opens for about a third of applicants.

Kenneth H. Moyer, a retired Social Security Administration administrative law judge, died of cancer May 29 at his Timonium home. He was 81. Mr. Moyer began his SSA career in the Office of Hearing Appeals in 1955. He retired from the agency as an administrative judge in 1981. Born and raised in Harrisburg, Pa., he earned his bachelor's degree from Lebanon Valley College. During World War II, he served with the Army Transportation Corps in Europe and the Pacific. He remained in the Army Reserve, attaining the rank of colonel.