Circuit Judge

Two prosecutors from the state's attorney's office and two attorneys with private practices in Bel Air have been recommended to the governor for a Harford County Circuit Court judgeship.The recommendations were made by the Harford Trial Courts Judicial Nominating Commission, which interviewed 23 applicants last week for the new fifth Circuit Court judgeship.The nominees sent to Gov. Parris N. Glendening are:* Diana Andrea Brooks, an assistant state's attorney from Thomas Run, north of Churchville.

A Howard County circuit judge dismissed charges last week against a 36-year-old Montgomery County man who was accused of violating his probation, which stemmed from a 1992 conviction for fatally injuring a Catonsville man in a car accident.William Scott Marcellino of Germantown was convicted last year in Howard County District Court of violating his probation by forging attendance slips at Alcoholics Anonymous meetings -- and was ordered to spend three years in prison.Marcellino appealed that verdict to Circuit Court.

Opening testimony in the murder trial of a 74-year-old North Baltimore woman whose body was found in a Hampstead cornfield is expected tobegin tomorrow in Carroll Circuit Court.Abras Morrison, the first of two defendants to stand trial, faces first-degree murder and kidnapping charges.Morrison, of the 6000 block of Lanette Road near Rosedale in Baltimore County, is in Baltimore City Jail on $1 million bond, as is hisfriend, Troy Dominic Shellington, of the 3600 block of Cottage Avenue.Both men were charged in August with the murder and kidnapping of Margaret Cullen, whose beaten, stabbed and decomposed body was found near a cornfield along Route 30.In recent suppression hearings, confessions from both men were ruled admissible for their trials.

A Littlestown, Pa., man who was sentenced to 20 years in prison June 26 on robbery and burglary charges pleaded guilty Wednesday to theft and burglary in six more cases.In exchange for his plea, Robert Carter Shore II, 21, received no additional prison time.Circuit Judge Luke K. Burns Jr. suspended two years of Shore's 20-year sentence.Because Shore was convicted of the violent crime of robbery, prosecutor Clarence W. Beall III said Shore would have to serve at least half the sentence before being eligible for parole.

A Finksburg man pleaded guilty yesterday to shooting his son during a domestic dispute in March, and a Carroll Circuit judge sentenced him to 18 months in the Carroll County Detention Center.Normand H. Hodges of the 1800 block of Tank Road pleaded guilty to one count of reckless endangerment, a misdemeanor, in exchange for the sentence and the dropping of five other charges, including attempted first-degree murder.Circuit Judge Raymond E. Beck Sr. sentenced Mr. Hodges to five years, then suspended all but 18 months.

A Mass of Christian burial for David Michael Byrnes, former operations manager for a Baltimore asphalt company, will be offered at 10 a.m. Wednesday at St. Mary's Roman Catholic Church, 5502 York Road in Govans.Mr. Byrnes, who was 43 and lived in the Cedarcroft section of North Baltimore, died of lung cancer yesterday at Greater Baltimore Medical Center. He retired because of illness in October from his job at E. Stewart Mitchell Asphalt Inc.A son of the late Baltimore Supreme Bench Judge Joseph R. Byrnes, he was a lifelong resident of the city.

A judge denied yesterday a request from a man convicted in the 1982 killing of a Baltimore County teenager that his punishment be reduced, seven years after the inmate's death sentence in the crime was voided in favor of a life term. Baltimore County Circuit Judge Vicki Ballou-Watts issued a written order denying the request from Michael Whittlesey, whose attorney argued during a hearing this month that a judge erred in 1984 in sentencing Whittlesey to consecutive prison terms of 10 years and 15 years for robbery and theft convictions stemming from the disappearance of 17-year-old Jamie Griffin.

A Westminster man who has served more than five years of a 15-year sentence for burning down the Gamber home of his girlfriend's sister asked a Carroll circuit judge yesterday to reduce his term.Circuit Judge Luke K. Burns Jr. listened as two former inmates and a prison minister testified that Walter Gilliam Mitchell, 42, has turned his life around and has helped in the rehabilitation of other inmates.Mitchell's son tearfully testified for the modification request, saying his father has been incarcerated "for about 16 of my 21 years."

An Anne Arundel circuit judge has postponed ruling on the insanity plea of a Bowie man charged in the 1995 shooting death of a Gambrills service station manager.Blake Allen Ohman, 38, who lived with his mother in the 3000 block of Tanbark Lane, is charged with first-degree murder in the slaying of Patrick William Clements Dec. 21, 1995.Clements, of the 1600 block of Midland Road, Edgewater, was shot to death at the Exxon station at Route 3 and Waugh Chapel Road.Ohman entered an insanity plea yesterday before Judge Clayton Greene Jr. after psychiatrists at Clifton T. Perkins Hospital Center determined that he lacked the mental capacity to intentionally commit murder.

David Michael Byrnes, 43, former operations manager for a Baltimore asphalt company, died of lung cancer yesterday at Greater Baltimore Medical Center.Mr. Byrnes had retired from his job at E. Stewart Mitchell Asphalt Inc. in October because of illness.A mass of Christian burial will be offered at 10 a.m. Wednesday at St. Mary's Roman Catholic Church, 5502 York Road in Govans.Mr. Byrnes lived in the Cedarcroft section of north Baltimore. A son of the late Baltimore Supreme Bench Judge Joseph R. Byrnes, he was a lifelong resident of the city.