Attorneys General

The report that a lawyer in Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler's office sent an email and left a voicemail message suggesting that the state should act quickly on a request from someone who claimed to be an important political supporter of the lawyer's boss contains a number of revelations that are unflattering — but not all that surprising. A person trying to get the state government to do something plays up a tenuous connection to a politician. That politician has ambitions for higher office, and the people working for him know it. And the politician reacts angrily and indignantly when that ambition is discussed in public.

The Obama administration has some very pressing matters on its hands: Three overseas wars, an economy struggling to recover and a massive budget shortfall.  So, what are administration officials spending their time doing? Why, ordering more episodes of "The Wire," of course.  Earlier today, Attorney General Eric Holder met with three of the show's actors -- Wendell Pierce (“Bunk”), Sonja Sohn (“Kima”) and Jim True-Frost (“Prez”) -- as part of a forum about preventing child abuse.  But, according to Reuters , Holder couldn't resist issuing an order to the Baltimore-based show's writers, David Simon and Ed Burns, for more content:  “I want to speak directly to Mr. Burns and Mr. Simon: Do another season of 'The Wire',” Holder said, drawing laughter and applause from the audience.

Lawsuits brought by government and private parties to address damage done to the environment became a necessary fact of life in this country long ago. In a perfect world, perhaps nobody would pollute — or at least those who did would immediately and appropriately be corrected by a government agency. But the real world sometimes requires court orders. It is in that context that Maryland Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler's recent decision to file notice of intent to sue Chesapeake Energy Corp.

All of Baltimore's uncollected trash — from the bottles tossed in storm drains to the litter dropped carelessly on the streets — seems to wash into Back River. At least, that's the way it looks to residents along the eastern Baltimore County waterway. A trash boom installed a year ago was filled Thursday with bottles, tires, balls, logs, even a small appliance. Crews will remove all that debris to prevent it from flowing downstream into the Chesapeake Bay. But the task is never-ending, especially after a heavy rain.

The civil rights director for the state attorney general's office was convicted Friday of driving while impaired, but the sentence for Carl O. Snowden remained the same as before an illegal disposition was tossed out last month. "An appeal will be filed," Snowden said after leaving the courtroom, where Anne Arundel County Circuit Judge Ronald A. Silkworth changed the initial outcome for the drunken-driving charge. In November, Snowden, 57, received probation before judgment on a drunken-driving charge from the previous June.

Carl O. Snowden, who heads the Maryland attorney general's civil rights office, is appealing an Anne Arundel County Circuit Court judge's decision to cast aside a lenient sentence Snowden received last year in a drunken-driving case. The case initially had resulted in Snowden's second probation-before-judgment on a drunken-driving charge since 2003. A change in the law in 2009 bars more than one such disposition every 10 years. Before that, it had been permitted once every five years.

A judge turned down a request Thursday by the head of the Maryland attorney general's civil rights office to keep a lenient sentence for drunken driving that the prosecutor and judge belatedly realized was illegal. Anne Arundel County Circuit Judge Ronald A. Silkworth gave Carl O. Snowden a week to decide whether he wants to withdraw his November plea and start over the case with a different judge or have a conviction on his record and possibly a harsher sentence. In what has turned out to be a high-profile mistake, the original outcome was probation before judgment.

A group of lawmakers and election lawyers called Tuesday for tighter state regulations on giving by political slates and limited-liability corporations, two-oft criticized ways that donors may flood candidates with money. The recommendations are among 25 proposed by the group convened by Maryland Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler last fall to study the state's campaign finance system. Many of the changes would require legislative action. Top lawmakers have said they expect to entertain many bills this year aimed at reforming campaign finance, a hot topic after the Nov. 2 gubernatorial election.

The former dean of the University of Maryland School of Law has agreed to return more than $300,000 of a $350,000 bonus questioned in a state legislative audit earlier this year, the attorney general's office announced Wednesday. The legislative audit, released in February, revealed that former dean Karen Rothenberg received $410,000 in "questionable" payments between fiscal 2007 and fiscal 2009. The audit embarrassed the state university system and hastened the retirement of Rothenberg's former boss, University of Maryland, Baltimore President David Ramsay.

For the second time in eight years, Carl O. Snowden, current director of the civil rights office in the state attorney general's office, received probation before judgment for drunken driving, and questions have been raised illegalities. "I'm going to have to figure it out myself," said prosecutor Henry Dove. The Talbot County assistant state's attorney was assigned to the Anne Arundel County case because Snowden, a former Annapolis alderman and aide to the previous county executive, has long been involved in civil rights and politics in the county and had worked with the Anne Arundel prosecutor's office.