Circuit Judge

Judge William R. "Bucky" Buchanan Sr., who served as a district judge and as a circuit judge for Baltimore County, died Friday of pneumonia at the Blakehurst retirement community in Towson. The former longtime Stoneleigh resident was 86. The son of an automobile salesman and a homemaker, William Raymond Buchanan Sr. was born in Baltimore and raised in the 3500 block of Greenmount Ave. in Waverly. After graduating in 1944 from Mount St. Joseph High School in Irvington, Judge Buchanan enlisted in the Army, where he served in Germany as a military policeman.

Thomas J. S. Waxter Jr., a former Baltimore City councilman, has won a long-coveted appointment to the city's Circuit Court, the governor's office announced yesterday.Waxter, a partner in the law firm of Semmes Bowen & Semmes, was named to the seat formerly held by Circuit Judge David Ross, who retired.Gov. Parris N. Glendening cited Waxter's "distinguished professional record in both the private and public sectors."The selection of Waxter, 62, came on a day when the governor's office announced four judicial appointments, including that of the first woman to be named to a judgeship on the Eastern Shore.

In the on-and-off legal drama surrounding the plan to deregulate the electricity market in the Baltimore area, yesterday ended up being another day with another stay. Just one day after Maryland's highest court lifted its stay that had delayed Baltimore Gas & Electric Co.'s deregulation plan for three weeks and sent the case back to Baltimore City Circuit Court, circuit Judge Albert J. Matricciani Jr. issued a stay putting deregulation back on hiatus until at least Aug. 4. "I'm going to impose an interim stay - which has absolutely no implications for how I will rule on Aug. 4, or whether the stay will remain in place," Judge Matricciani told the dozen lawyers involved in the case who were dialed in to a conference-call hearing conducted from his courthouse chambers downtown.

Paul A. Hackner just earned a promotion and one of the first things he has to do is figure out how to keep his new job. Chosen late Friday for a seat on the Anne Arundel County Circuit Court bench, Hackner, a District Court judge since 1997, suddenly has been thrust into an election campaign. He was one of four appointees to the bench, but is the only one who must run in the fall elections. The other three appointees are filling vacancies that were created less than a year before the 2002 election, so they don't have to run for another two years.

Crime is hardly a menace in Ellicott City's Bethgate neighborhood, with its well-groomed lawns and sturdy brick homes miles from inner-city violence.But Jonathan Scott Smith -- who alone among the candidates for Howard County Circuit judge has shown the kind of political instincts handlers can't teach -- simply counted the burglar alarms as he canvassed the neighborhood last Sunday afternoon.He knew these were his people, or potentially so."You know what I like about what you said on TV?" said Harold Kirkwood, a retired highway engineer whose Postwick Road home hasn't been robbed in 25 years but who tracks crime by listening to his police scanner.

After serving on the Carroll County Circuit Court for 4 1/2 years, Judge Michael M. Galloway is about to become the senior jurist among the court's three judges. With the retirement in January of Luke K. Burns Jr. and the imminent departure of Raymond E. Beck Sr., Galloway gives up his position as the junior member of the bench. The move makes him a little apprehensive, he said. But he looks forward to working with the new judges and soliciting ideas on how to improve the court system.

The White House nominated Baltimore Circuit Judge William D. Quarles yesterday to become the first federal judge for Maryland appointed under President Bush. Quarles, 54, has spent the past six years as a Circuit Court judge in Baltimore. He previously was a partner at the law firm Venable, Baetjer and Howard and was an assistant U.S. attorney during the Reagan administration. His nomination to the federal bench in Baltimore was expected. It was announced yesterday by U.S. Rep. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr., a Baltimore County Republican who lobbied for the appointment.

The judicial certificates are gone. So are most of the books.And in two weeks, their owner, Anne Arundel Circuit Judge Lawrence H. Rushworth, will also be leaving -- retirement-bound after about 15 years on the District Court and Circuit Court benches.At 65, Rushworth is five years shy of the mandatory retirement age. But he said recent knee surgery, a desire to travel, changes in the practice of law, and financial considerations led him to conclude that the timing was right."It's traumatic," Rushworth said.

A tough budget year has left an eagerly anticipated Howard Circuit Courthouse renovation in fiscal limbo next year, but county officials said they are proceeding as planned on designs for the space. County officials recently awarded a contract to York, Pa.-based NuTec Design Associates Inc. to draw up plans for the 6,300-square-foot office space vacated by the state's attorney's office in March - a process that county officials say likely will take about nine months. But while the county set aside $300,000 for the design, there is no new money in next year's budget for construction.

Vernell Wooden sat before the judge in the courtroom at the Baltimore Central Booking and Intake Center, looking for a break. His crime: carrying an open bottle of Banana Red wine on city streets.If the 2-month-old central booking court were operating the way criminal justice officials have wanted, Wooden's case might be closed by now. And Wooden, who has been in jail since May 8 awaiting trial, wouldn't be costing taxpayers $55 a day at central booking for an alcohol charge.But the court isn't working the way officials had planned.