Court

A cabal of corrupt corrections officers and members of the Black Guerrilla Family gang enjoyed nearly free rein inside the Baltimore City Detention Center, federal authorities allege, smuggling drugs and cellphones into the jail and having sexual relationships that left four guards pregnant. An indictment unsealed Tuesday names 25 people - including 13 women working as corrections officers - who face racketeering and drug charges. Twenty of the accused also face money-laundering charges.

The Maryland Tax Court has frequently failed to rule on residential property assessment cases as promptly as the law requires, according to a state audit made public Thursday. The court, which hears appeals in cases involving state and local taxes, must hear and decide residential property assessment cases within 90 days. But 41 percent of the cases heard between July 2010 and mid-February took longer - as much as a year past the 90-day point, the Office of Legislative Audits said.

A prominent Ellicott City blogger and businessman was stabbed to death by his daughter's 19-year-old boyfriend, who plotted with the 14-year-old girl to kill him so the two could run away together, Howard County police said Friday. Dennis Lane, 58, was found before dawn in his Winding Ross Way home. Police charged Jason Anthony Bulmer and Morgan Lane Arnold, both students at Mount Hebron High School, as adults in his killing; they both face conspiracy and murder counts. Both were held without bail, according to online court records.

In the face of a threatened lawsuit by the National Rifle Association, Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler has formally advised Gov. Martin O'Malley that he can sign the bill next week without fear of any part of it being overturned in the courts. In a detailed 25-page letter, the attorney general laid out the reasons he believes all of the provisions of Senate Bill 281 that the NRA might challenge are “constitutionally and legally defensible.” Among the provisions Gansler said federal courts would uphold are a ban on the sale of guns classified as assault weapons, restrictions on the sale of gun magazines holding more than 10 bullets and licensing and training requirements for handgun purchasers.

On Thursday, the day the Supreme Court upheld Obamacare, a 47-year-old Baltimore woman went to the drugstore, and pulled out her debit card to pay for a prescription refill. But she didn't have enough money in the account to cover the $425 charge. So she asked the pharmacist and staff for a favor. "I asked them to break up the prescription to give me one-third," says the woman, who would not allow her name to be published because she didn't want to disclose her medical conditions.

The 19-year-old man charged with fatally stabbing Dennis Lane allegedly told investigators that his girlfriend had instructed him to kill her father and his fiancee, specifying the number of times each was to be stabbed in the throat - 10 for him and 15 for her. Jason Anthony Bulmer charging documents In a conversation at school hours before the Ellicott City blogger and businessman was killed, Jason Anthony Bulmer said, 14-year-old Morgan...

Nicole Stall boarded the first plane to Maryland she could catch when she heard of Benjamin Boniface's death last June. She was there to grieve the death of a boy she had known since his birth. But also to work. In the days after the 20-year-old's death in an early-morning car accident on the farm, she went to the barns where she had fallen in love with horses as a teenager. “I was completely out of it,” said William K. Boniface, known to most as Billy. “She just went out to the stallion barn, kept it running.

The escape of a convicted murderer from a Maryland prison serves as a way to highlight the severe waste of both time and money in the judicial branch of government. Why must we move a convict's body to a new place to attend a court hearing? This could be done very inexpensively via Skype or any other teleconference service that allows the accused to have his/her day in court without the enormous expense, time and risks of physically moving a prisoner from place to place. When you multiply this movement to and from court hundreds (or more)

Dan Rodricks ' May 1st column ("Pit bulls: Own at your risk") effectively condemns all pit bulls to death. It demonstrates how fear combined with ignorance can lead to prejudice. It's too bad that Mr. Rodricks, who has spent years trying to counteract this phenomenon among others, does not recognize it in himself. Jeanne Bilanin, Baltimore

The state senator accused of bribery is set to make his first appearance in federal court at a hearing Sept. 17. Sen. Ulysses Currie, a Prince George's County Democrat, is expected to plead not guilty. The senator was indicted last week for allegedly accepting $245,000 in payments from Shoppers Food Warehouse in exchange for his help removing state bureaucratic hurdles. He stepped down from his position as chair of the senate's Budget and Taxation Committee to focus on his defense.

Ravens linebacker Rolando McClain, who was originally scheduled to be at the City of Decatur (Ala.) Municipal Court tomorrow, has pleaded guilty to a window tint violation stemming from his arrest in January following a traffic stop. In exchange, the city has dismissed the charge of providing false information to police during the arrest. McClain, who signed an expletive on the citation rather than his real name, thus resulting in the providing false information charge, made an online payment of $186 to settle the fine and court costs and any other fees associated with this case.

Four judges and one lawyer have applied for the Court of Appeals seat that will become vacant July 6 when Chief Judge Robert M. Bell reaches the mandatory retirement age of 70. The applicants for the judgeship on the state's highest court are Judges Stuart Ross Berger, Albert Joseph Matricciani Jr. and Shirley Marie Watts, all sitting on the Court of Special Appeals; Baltimore City Circuit Court Judge W. Michel Pierson; and Baltimore attorney Mary...

A Baltimore judge sentenced Policarpio Espinoza Perez to life in prison Monday for conspiring to murder his brother's two children and their young cousin nearly a decade ago in a killing described as the "most horrific" to ever come before the court. The parents of Ricardo and Lucero Espinoza, 8 and 9 years old, came home to their Fallstaff apartment in May 2004 to find the boys and their 10-year-old cousin, Alexis Espejo Quezada, beaten and mutilated, their throats cut and bleeding.

The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in the insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning but without understanding. - Louis D. Brandeis Just a few words and little thought separate yet another stronghold of the American economy from ruin. It doesn't have to be that way. The U.S. patent system has made America's biotech and pharmaceutical industries the envy of the world. This month, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case posing the question: "Are human genes patentable?"

A group of alleged Black Guerrilla Family members met last December to discuss a robbery with a confidential source, who, unbeknownst to them, was working with the Drug Enforcement Administration. The price of cocaine in Baltimore City at that moment was "high" at $40,000 per kilogram, agents wrote in court documents, making the proposed robbery "especially lucrative. " "Coke price [is] high and everything, but a better price is free," the source told the group. In a more recent court document, however, that estimate had tumbled by 30 percent.

A lawyer for John Joseph Merzbacher, a former Catholic school teacher imprisoned for raping a student decades ago, has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hear his case after a federal appeals court rejected an earlier argument that he should be set free. In a 21-page petition, Merzbacher's attorney H. Mark Stichel asks the high court to resolve several legal questions, including whether a defendant's claim that he would have taken a plea deal if offered, even while proclaiming his innocence, demonstrates a "reasonable probability" that he would have followed through.

NJIT at Maryland When: Tonight, 8 Radio: 105.7 FM, 1300 AM Outlook: The Terps (7-4) return to action after a 10-day layoff with the Highlanders (2-6), who have not won on the road this season. Maryland has been led by sophomore Jordan Williams, who has nine double-doubles this season and five in a row. Senior Dino Gregory leads the Terps in blocks (19) and steals (14). "I think Dino, first of all, has done a great job for us," Maryland coach Gary Williams said Tuesday, according to the university website.

All of us were gripped into the tragedy of the Boston Marathon massacre. Our hearts were broken at the loss of lives and how so many lives were changed in an instant. We all cheered at the death of Tamerlan Tsarnaev and the brilliant capture of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. And we all breathed a sigh of relief for Boston. Yet, we cannot respond as Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham would like us to ("A case for civilian court," April 23). We cannot twist the law to fit our anger and grief.

An Anne Arundel County judge handed the Key School a victory Tuesday, allowing the 55-year-old Annapolis private school to go ahead with plans to turn the 70-acre Annapolis Golf Club into an outdoor campus for athletics. A request by residents of the surrounding Annapolis Roads community to block the proposed landscape of playing fields, tennis courts, parking lot and a maintenance facility was turned down by Circuit Judge Paul G. Goetzke. An appeal, however, is possible. "This is an important day for us," said Marcella Yedid, head of the school, noting that the school has been working with Anne Arundel County on the site plan.