Court Of Appeals

WASHINGTON -- Washington lawyer David S. Tatel strolled up and down the National Mall at President Clinton's inauguration, remarking to his friends about the crowds, the color, the pageantry.To his friends, the observations of this noted civil rights and education lawyer were nothing unusual. They are accustomed to what they say is his unusual vision, one that transcends eyesight and will serve him well if he is confirmed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and becomes the first blind person to assume a judgeship this high in the federal system.

The Court of Appeals has suspended indefinitely the license of a Bel Air lawyer for filing civil lawsuits that had no merit.It was the second time the court has sanctioned Stuart L. Alison. Alison cannot apply for reinstatement for two years, according to the 23-page opinion released Tuesday.Maryland's highest court agreed with a Baltimore County Circuit Court judge, who found that Alison twice filed civil charges without merit, once while working as a paralegal because he was suspended from practicing law. It found that he did not deserve sanctions in a third case.

A law that was used to charge people with soliciting sex from a minor cannot be used on defendants caught in cyberspace stings by police posing as children, Maryland's highest court ruled yesterday. However, a law was passed last year that allows such prosecutions. The Maryland Court of Appeals said that online propositioning of a minor who is really a police officer cannot be prosecuted because there is no child victim, as the law requires. But the practical effect of the ruling is limited because of the 2004 law, which was prompted largely by this case.

ANNAPOLIS -- The Court of Special Appeals upheld yesterday Maryland's drug kingpin law, which sets stiff mandatory prison terms for organizers of large drug distribution rings.Rejecting arguments that the law is too vague and broad, the state's intermediate appellate court affirmed the conviction of Ricky R. Williams, a New York drug dealer snared in March 1990 during a state police sting in Salisbury.Williams' appeal was the first challenge to the 1989 statute. But the final word on the law likely will come from the Court of Appeals.

No matter how Maryland's highest court rules on his death sentence, convicted killer John Frederick Thanos cannot be executed for at least a month now that his original death warrant has expired.The deadline expired at midnight Sunday night without a ruling from the Maryland Court of Appeals on whether Thanos was competent to fire his lawyers and waive further appeals.The expiration of the death warrant means that the soonest the 44-year-old killer of two Baltimore County teen-agers could be executed is four weeks from the day the Court of Appeals does make its decision -- if the judges rule him competent and say he can waive an automatic 240-day stay of execution provided by Maryland law.If they rule him incompetent or decide that he cannot waive the 240-day stay, the execution would be delayed until at least April.

A Baltimore lawyer who was a former assistant federal prosecutor and one-time deputy director of the Legal Aid Bureau had his law license suspended yesterday by the Court of Appeals. Michael G. Middleton, in private practice since 1988, received a suspension of at least three years. In a 16-page opinion, the state's top judges said he was incompetent in representing several criminal defendants and he had been found in criminal contempt last November for lying to a Baltimore County judge to win a delay for a trial.

A small group of protesters, demanding more sensitivity training for judges and sanctions for a Baltimore County judge they call sexist, rallied yesterday on the steps of the Maryland Court of Appeals in Annapolis.Members of the Maryland Coalition for Judicial Responsibilities went to the court -- the first step in the adjudication process for complaints against judges -- to announce the filing of a complaint against Circuit Judge Thomas J. Bollinger Sr. He issued a ruling in February wiping out the conviction of a man who beat his estranged wife -- then reinstated the conviction after criticism.

Wilson K. Barnes Sr., a former judge of the Maryland Court of Appeals, died Tuesday of respiratory failure at the Lutherville home of a son. He was 90 and formerly lived in Roland Park.In 1964, Gov. J. Millard Tawes appointed Mr. Barnes, then a judge of the old Supreme Bench of Baltimore, to the Court of Appeals.Judge Barnes resigned in protest in 1974 after Gov. Marvin Mandel appointed John C. Eldridge, his chief legislative aide, to the court, a move that Judge Barnes called "a political appointment of a real crony."

William H. Adkins II, a retired judge of the Maryland Court of Appeals and former Easton resident, died of cancer Monday at his home in Williamstown, Mass. He was 77. Judge Adkins was born into a family of lawyers and judges and had ties to the Eastern Shore going back generations. He was a well-known civil rights activist and judicial reform expert long before being named to the state's highest court in 1986. Born in New York City, he was the son of Leonard Dawson Adkins, a lawyer who headed a Manhattan law firm, and Grace R. Adkins.