Court Of Appeals

Court of Appeals disbars Anne Arundel lawyer An Anne Arundel County lawyer was disbarred yesterday after the Court of Appeals said he wrongly disbursed thousands of dollars from escrow accounts set up for people looking to invest in transactions of the company that hired him, then lied to try to cover it up. The court disbarred Scott G. Smith of West River, who contended in part that he followed instructions of his client, the Stateline Capital Corp.,...

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...

The Maryland Court of Appeals has suspended the law license of a Baltimore lawyer for at least six months after finding that he failed to deliver on agreements to represent clients. William Michael Monfried charged one client for doing little or no work and neglected another client, according to the ruling. His lawyer, Gregg L. Bernstein, characterized the incidents as misunderstandings between clients and Monfried, whose career has been as a Baltimore prosecutor and defense attorney.

Maryland's highest-ranking judge, Robert M. Bell, likes that his courthouse is dedicated to his predecessor, pointing out that the letters etching Robert C. Murphy's name on the building's exterior are filled in gold paint to make sure even nighttime drivers can see it. As Bell approaches retirement, mandatory when he turns 70 in July, he scoffs at the notion that his name might someday grace a building as well. But then, his name is forever etched in legal history by virtue of the Supreme Court case Bell v. Maryland.

Maryland's highest court yesterday threw out the drug conviction of a 27-year-old Northwest Baltimore man, saying that city police did not have sufficient cause to stop the man's car and subsequently find marijuana. In a 4-3 decision, the Court of Appeals ruled that "police did not have an articulable reasonable suspicion to stop [Lamont Anthony] Lewis based upon the fact that he `almost' hit a police car." Lewis was parked in his sport utility vehicle near the area of Oswego Avenue and Park Heights Avenue in April 2005 when three Baltimore police officers in a patrol car - who were searching for a rape suspect - pulled up alongside his vehicle and stopped just in front.

There isn't much Judge John F. McAuliffe would change about his eight-year stint on the Maryland Court of Appeals. But if he could, he'd change the name of the state's highest court."

Two judges and three lawyers have been nominated to fill the Maryland Court of Appeals seat of Judge John C. Eldridge, who had to step down on reaching the mandatory retirement age of 70 last week. The Judicial Nominating Commission has forwarded to Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. the names of five of the eight applicants for the 5th Appellate Circuit seat, which includes Anne Arundel, Calvert, Charles and St. Mary's counties. The list includes judges Clayton Greene Jr., 52, and James A. Kenney III, 66, both of the Court of Special Appeals; Linda M. Schuett, 53, county attorney for Anne Arundel; and two private practice attorneys, Timothy E. Meredith, 51, and David A. Roling, 41.

The Maryland Court of Appeals has agreed to decide whether Baltimore Police Officer Edward T. Gorwell III can be retried for manslaughter in the shooting death last year of a teen-ager.The Baltimore state's attorney had appealed the case to the Maryland Court of Special Appeals, the state's intermediate appellate court. But the Court of Appeals, Maryland's highest court, decided to rule on whether a second trial would violate the officer's double-jeopardy protections.The seven-member panel will decide whether Baltimore Circuit Judge Ellen M. Heller made a mistake by ruling that Officer Gorwell cannot be retried for manslaughter in the April 17, 1993 death of 14-year-old Simmont Donta Thomas.

Neighbors do not have the authority to stop property owners from building a 610-foot pier and bridge, the state's highest court ruled unanimously yesterday, dealing a decisive blow to a Severna Park community association. The Court of Appeals upheld a February ruling by the Court of Special Appeals, which found that Paul and Joan Gunby had the right to expect access to a Severn River cove, and that it had never been expressly denied. The case is expected to return to Anne Arundel County Circuit Court, which had sided with Olde Severna Park Improvement Association Inc., for a ruling on the issuance of a state license to allow the 410-foot bridge and connecting 200-foot pier.

John Mitchell Jupiter had hunted ducks and had helped two buddies knock off 2 1/2 cases of beer one day in January 1990 when he went to buy a six-pack of Budweiser.Warren Yates, owner of Captain John's Crab House and Marina, refused to sell the beer because Jupiter was drunk. Not one to argue, Jupiter left but returned moments later with a shotgun."Are you going to sell it to me now?" he asked Mr. Yates."Yes, sir," replied the Charles County proprietor, pulling a six-pack from the cooler.

The Maryland Court of Appeals ruled Monday that a man convicted of child sex abuse did not have to register as a sex offender because it would violate the state constitution's provisions against retroactive punishments. The ruling was split, with a plurality of three of the court's seven judges agreeing on one interpretation of the law, while others had different opinions and one dissented from the opinion. The man, identified only as John Doe in his appeal, was convicted in 2006 of child sex abuse stemming from an incident in the early 1980s when he was a middle school teacher in Washington County and the 13-year-old child was his student, according to the ruling.

Pat and Henry Bradley say their landlord decided to suddenly kick them out of his waterfront Dundalk house, changing the locks while they were still frantically trying to remove their belongings. The couple, who didn't have a lease, are to testify about their experience in Annapolis this week when House and Senate members convene hearings to decide whether to stop landlords and property owners from locking out residents without court orders and sheriff's deputies on standby to evict them.

For 17 generations, members of Catherine Webb's family have worked or lived on Springfield Farm in northern Baltimore County, where chickens and turkeys roam the hilly ground and, three days a week, Webb sells eggs and chicken meat from a farmhouse garage-turned-store. In Webb's view, such direct-to-consumer sales will sustain the farm's operation for future generations, which include her two daughters and her sister's children. But neighbors have fought a 2006 proposal by her parents to build a farmer's roadside stand inside a three-level barn.

The state's highest court will review a Baltimore judge's declaration that contracts at the heart of the long-planned State Center redevelopment are void. Maryland's Court of Appeals granted the review on Tuesday. The decision means the case will skip the state's intermediate appellate court. In January, Judge Althea M. Handy voided the development contracts that set up a framework for a mixed-use overhaul of a 28-acre site in midtown Baltimore that houses several state agencies.

Maryland's highest court has ruled that the state police must give the NAACP access to internal affairs files on racial profiling complaints. The civil rights group had requested the documents under the Maryland Public Information Act but the police agency denied the request, saying the records were protected personnel files. The Maryland Court of Appeals rejected that argument, agreeing with a Baltimore County court that the information could be shared if identifying information is redacted.

With all due respect to bail bondsmen who play a necessary role in the criminal justice system, the case pending before the Maryland Court of Appeals involving illegal immigrants and whether bondsmen should be liable for illegal immigrant defendants who have been deported raises some troubling questions about the profession. As reported last week by The Sun's Andrea Siegel , the facts in the case of Big Louie Bail Bonds v. State of Maryland are fairly clear cut. Ten individuals, all found to be without proof of legal presence in this country, were arrested on a variety of minor charges in Baltimore County.

Maryland's top court could make it much more difficult for undocumented immigrants to secure bail bonds, in a case likely to resolve long-standing questions about whether bondsmen are on the hook when clients get deported before trial. In a case pending at the Court of Appeals, Big Louie Bail Bonds has been ordered to pay more than $100,000 in Baltimore County in bail forfeitures after 10 defendants were deported before their criminal trials. Lower courts ruled that the company knew — or should have known — it was taking on clients with a high risk of deportation.

Attorneys challenging a death sentence before the state's highest court last week dug deeply into online historical documents to divine the intention behind what they think is a never-before-interpreted part of the state's constitution. Public defender Brian Saccenti and a team of lawyers rested their argument in part on a once-famous 18th-century book by a young Italian nobleman named Cesare Beccaria, who suggested that capital punishment should be reserved for treasonous criminals.