Arraignment

A Baltimore Circuit Court judge today delayed the arraignment of Comptroller Jacqueline F. McLean on theft and misconduct charges for six weeks.Judge Joseph P. McCurdy Jr. agreed to reschedule the date Mrs. McLean or her attorneys must enter a plea to May 2. And he arranged for the trial to begin June 8.Both Mrs. McLean's attorney, M. Cristina Gutierrez, and Maryland Special Prosecutor Stephen Montanarelli refused to say why they had agreed to the delay.Mrs....

Before self-proclaimed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was brought into court Saturday, Carole Reuben of Potomac said his arraignment would mark "the beginning of the end of the process. " Her son, Todd Hayes Reuben, was a passenger on American Airlines Flight 77, the airliner that was hijacked by five al-Qaida operatives and flown into the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001. The Potomac man was 40. But any hope that the arraignments of Mohammed and four alleged co-conspirators might bring some healing to family members, a decade after they lost loved ones in the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, was stymied Saturday by a halting proceeding in which the defendants refused to participate.

An arraignment has been scheduled Oct. 8 for a former Howard County property title insurance agent accused of defrauding clients of more than $1.1 million.At a hearing Tuesday, Howard County Circuit Judge Diane O. Leasure set bail for Joseph E. Goldberg Sr. at $12,500 and ordered the gun collector to turn all of his guns over to his attorney, Michael Zwaig of Towson, said Michael DiPietro, an assistant attorney general for the Maryland Insurance Commission.Goldberg, 43, of Elkridge also was ordered not to leave the state and to report daily to the county's pretrial services department, DiPietro said.

Members of the public may watch the arraignment of self-proclaimed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other terror suspects Saturday at Fort Meade, a Pentagon spokesman said Monday. Mohammed and his co-defendants are to be arraigned at Guantanamo Bay on charges of terrorism and murder in the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people in the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and United Airlines Flight 193. Fort Meade is one of four military bases scheduled to receive a secure, closed-circuit television feed of the proceedings, Lt. Col. Todd Breasseale said.

Minutes after being arraigned yesterday on a manslaughter charge, Officer Edward T. Gorwell II received a line of well-wishers filing out of the Clarence M. Mitchell Jr. Courthouse. Dressed in suit and tie, he stationed himself outside the heavy ornamental doors and shook hands with two dozen fellow city police officers.Nearby, on the sidewalk, protester Rashaad Ali taunted in sing-song: "Gor-well is a mur-der-er. Gor-well is a mur-der-er."Officer Gorwell, who fatally shot a 14-year-old suspected car thief in the back, is scheduled to stand trial July 27 before Judge David Ross.

The couple accused of stabbing Johns Hopkins researcher Stephen Pitcairn to death as he walked home along St. Paul Street last month is scheduled to be arraigned on murder, assault and robbery charges Sept. 24. A city grand jury indicted Lavelva Merritt, 24, and John A. Wagner, 34, both of the 2600 block of Maryland Ave., last week, the Baltimore State's Attorney's Office announced over the weekend. They have been held without bail since late July. Pitcairn, 23, had visited his sister in New York and was walking home from Penn Station to his Charles Village apartment July 25, about 11 p.m. He was talking to his mother on his cell phone when two robbers, alleged to be Wagner and Merritt, demanded cash and stabbed him in the chest.

Orioles pitcher Sidney Ponson could be arraigned today on assault and battery charges in Aruba after a fight on Christmas that put a local judge in the hospital. Ponson, 28, was detained on suspicion of assault at a beach in Boca Catalina after several people accused him of harassing them with his personal watercraft and operating it recklessly. According to police, Ponson allegedly struck one of the men, later identified as a judge, several times before fleeing the scene. The judge's condition was not released last night, but it's believed he suffered a black eye. Police detained Ponson, a native of Aruba, late Saturday night.

A Baltimore grand jury has indicted Sian James on murder charges, alleging that the 25-year-old killed an off-duty city police officer last month. James, of the 2800 block of Dillon St., was scheduled to appear Tuesday in District Court for a preliminary hearing on the charges, but the indictment moves the case to Circuit Court, where James will be arraigned Dec. 10. According to the city state's attorney's office, James was arguing Oct....

A 24-year-old construction worker accused of causing the deaths of five members of a Parkville family in a head-on highway collision is scheduled to be arraigned this morning before a judge in Toledo, Ohio. Michael P. Gagnon of Adrian, Mich., faces five counts of aggravated vehicular homicide as a result of the accident Sunday night. Police said Gagnon drove about four miles in the wrong direction on Interstate 280 before smashing into a minivan carrying the family. Police said Gagnon, whose pickup truck almost destroyed the minivan, had a blood-alcohol level of 0.25 percent, more than three times the 0.08 percent legal threshold of intoxication in Ohio.

YORK, Pa. - Mayor Charlie Robertson and five other white men accused in the 1969 shooting death of a black minister's daughter will stand trial on murder charges, a county judge ruled yesterday. Judge Emanuel A. Cassimatis scheduled arraignment hearings for Robertson and the others for July 23. Defense attorneys said they expect the trial to begin in late fall or early winter. Three additional defendants have agreed to plead guilty to reduced charges and testify for the prosecution. Lawyers said the judge's decision did not surprise them, given the low threshold of evidence prosecutors are required to produce at a preliminary hearing.

Members of the public may watch the arraignment of self-proclaimed 9/11mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other terror suspects from Fort Meade on Saturday, but seating for the video feed will be limited, a spokesman for the Army base said Tuesday. Mohammed and his co-defendants are to be arraigned at Guantanamo Bay on charges of terrorism and murder in the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people on Sept. 11, 2001. The proceedings are scheduled to begin at 9 a.m. Saturday.

Private First Class Bradley E. Manning, the former intelligence analyst awaiting a court-martial on charges of aiding the enemy and violating the Espionage Act, will return to Fort Meade this month for his arraignment, the Army said Thursday. Manning, who is accused of giving hundreds of thousands of classified documents to the anti-secrecy organization WikiLeaks, appeared at the Army base in Maryland in December for a preliminary hearing. The arraignment is scheduled for Feb. 23. The decision on when and where his court-martial will be held is up to a military judge, who will be appointed by the Army Trial Judiciary.

Lawyers for an abortion doctor charged with murder under Maryland's fetal homicide law filed court papers Friday calling the statute illegal and saying that prosecutors are using the law to effectively ban the constitutionally protected medical procedure in Cecil County. The motion - the first detailed defense in the groundbreaking case - also calls the grand jury indictment filed against Dr. Nicola I. Riley, 46, "an attempt to intimidate" physicians into not performing abortions. Riley was ordered held on $300,000 bail.

A doctor was freed on $500,000 bail Friday after a brief court hearing in Cecil County, the first time since his arrest in New Jersey last month that he publicly faced charges that five abortions he performed in Maryland were murder. Dr. Steven Chase Brigham's appearance prompted increased security at the historic courthouse in Elkton and was added to the public docket at the last minute, a testament to the volatile debate over abortion. A judge ordered the 55-year-old not to perform abortions and to surrender his passport.

— The lanky Ellicott City teenager and Pakistani citizen walked into the federal courtroom here on Monday dressed in an olive drab, one-piece prison jumpsuit, his hands cuffed behind his back, and muttered barely two words during his arraignment on terrorism charges — "not guilty. " And with that, the public proceeding began for one of the country's youngest people charged with aiding a terrorist. A U.S. District Court judge ordered Mohammad Massan Khalid detained until his trial, scheduled for Dec. 13, and defense attorneys asked for a hearing next month to find an alternate holding facility for their young client.

A federal judge ruled Thursday that a civil complaint about allegedly fraudulent robocalls made on behalf of gubernatorial candidate Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.'s campaign may proceed at the same time as state criminal cases. Political operative Julius Henson, a consultant to the Republican former governor, has acknowledged ordering a batch of Election Day robocalls. Prosecutors say the recorded message urged Democratic voters in Baltimore and Prince George's County to "relax" and stay home because Democratic Gov. Martin O'Malley and President Barack Obama "have already been successful.

Private First Class Bradley E. Manning, the former intelligence analyst awaiting a court-martial on charges of aiding the enemy and violating the Espionage Act, will return to Fort Meade this month for his arraignment, the Army said Thursday. Manning, who is accused of giving hundreds of thousands of classified documents to the anti-secrecy organization WikiLeaks, appeared at the Army base in Maryland in December for a preliminary hearing. The arraignment is scheduled for Feb. 23. The decision on when and where his court-martial will be held is up to a military judge, who will be appointed by the Army Trial Judiciary.

Judge David B. Mitchell, one of Baltimore's most persistent and effective judicial reformers during his 17 years on the Circuit Court bench, has accepted a job as head of a national judicial organization based in Reno, Nev. Trustees of the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges voted yesterday to hire Mitchell as their executive director and chief executive officer. He will oversee the council's 110-member staff, which works on policies regarding children's issues such as abuse, foster care, family violence and juvenile delinquency.

Seven months after Baltimore prosecutors dropped gun and drug charges against teenage twins accused of setting fire to a pit bull puppy, one of the young men was arrested again — this time on attempted murder charges. Travers Johnson, 18, is slated for arraignment Jan. 27 on charges of attempted murder, assault and handgun violations — roughly a week after he and his brother, Tremayne Johnson, are scheduled for trial in Baltimore City Circuit Court on animal cruelty and mutilation charges.

A Baltimore grand jury has indicted Sian James on murder charges, alleging that the 25-year-old killed an off-duty city police officer last month. James, of the 2800 block of Dillon St., was scheduled to appear Tuesday in District Court for a preliminary hearing on the charges, but the indictment moves the case to Circuit Court, where James will be arraigned Dec. 10. According to the city state's attorney's office, James was arguing Oct....