Court Of Special

The O'Malley administration has joined the chorus calling upon Maryland's highest court to review a decision by the Court of Special Appeals that would render all but meaningless the extensive work local governments and citizens contribute to shaping comprehensive development plans. The state's request to file a supporting motion on behalf of the citizens group appealing the ruling, which was announced last week by state Planning Secretary Richard E. Hall, reflected both short-term and long-term concerns horrifying enough to keep an anti-sprawl advocate up all night.

Bruce C. Bereano, one of Annapolis' top lobbyists, will appeal to Maryland's highest court to overturn a suspension of his lobbying license, his attorney said yesterday. The Court of Special Appeals issued an amended ruling yesterday, reiterating its November decision that upheld Ethics Commission sanctions against the lobbyist for entering into a contract that paid him in part based on his success at securing government work for a client. Bereano is fighting a 10-month suspension of his lobbying license and a $5,000 fine.

Opponents of a 4,300-home planned community near a state forest in eastern Allegany County have asked the state's highest court to review whether local officials acted properly in approving the project. A lawyer for a group of residents opposed to Terrapin Run filed an appeal with the Maryland Court of Appeals challenging the development's approval in 2005 by the county Board of Zoning Appeals. The appeal is the latest move in a two-year political and legal dispute over the development, which would create Allegany's second-largest community if built as planned.

Maryland's Court of Special Appeals has ended a lengthy effort by former parishioners of a Fells Point church to spare their old sanctuary from redevelopment and turn it into a Slavic heritage museum. Early last year, a grass-roots group - members of the closed St. Stanislaus Kostka Roman Catholic Church - sued the Franciscan friars who own the South Ann Street building. The group claimed that the friars reneged on a deal to sell the building to them, giving it instead to developers with plans to expand a nearby parochial school and build townhouses.

Courts Krauser named to lead appeals courts Judge Peter B. Krauser, a seven-year member of the Court of Special Appeals and a former federal prosecutor, will take over as chief judge of the state's second-highest court, Gov. Martin O'Malley announced yesterday. Krauser will replace Chief Judge John G. Murphy, whom O'Malley appointed this week to the Court of Appeals, Maryland's highest court. A graduate of Northwestern University and the University of Pennsylvania School of Law, Krauser will be responsible for assigning cases, ruling on motions for injunctions pending appeal and other tasks.

Loyola College, which has been locked in a lengthy dispute over its proposal for a retreat center in northern Baltimore County, should receive approval for the project, the state Court of Special Appeals decided this week. The ruling reverses a decision by a Baltimore County Circuit Court judge, who sided with Parkton-area residents opposed to building the retreat center in an area designated for agriculture. A lawyer for the group that objects to the retreat center said he will ask the state's highest court to review the appellate decision, which was issued Wednesday.

Ten months ago, the Maryland Court of Special Appeals overturned the child molestation conviction of James T. Brown Jr. because his trial had been delayed many times in Baltimore Circuit Court.The court's action brought to light problems in the city's court system that led to large-scale reforms, including a crackdown on trial delays and construction of courtrooms.Yesterday, the court reinstated Brown's conviction, ruling that his constitutional right to a speedy trial was not violated because any delay did not harm his defense.

The Court of Special Appeals has unanimously decided that a Howard County prosecutor's plea agreement with an accomplice in the 1990 murder of a state trooper must be upheld, allowing him to go free by 2006.The office of the Maryland attorney general appealed the 1991 agreement with Francisco Rodriguez, saying he obtained the deal using fraudulent information. Additional data in the shooting death of Cpl. Theodore Wolf might have led Howard County Circuit Judge Raymond J. Kane to reject the agreement in an August 1997 appeal, the office said.

IN THE NEXT COUPLE OF months, Gov. Parris N. Glendening faces a ticklish decision.The governor must name a replacement for Howard S. Chasanow, who is retiring from the Maryland Court of Appeals after 28 years as a state judge.Typically, handing out a seat on the state's highest court is the kind of chore that makes it fun to be a governor.But Glendening might end up having to choose between two longtime friends from his home county of Prince George's -- Court of Special Appeals Judge Glenn T. Harrell Jr. and Circuit Judge Sherri L. Krauser.

The Maryland Court of Special Appeals ruled yesterday that Michael R. Ruben -- a suspected armed robber who was among the Baltimore defendants ordered released for lack of a speedy trial -- was not denied his rights in spite of multiple postponements of his case.The decision clears the way for Ruben -- charged with attempted first-degree murder and armed robbery in October 1997 -- to be charged again.The Baltimore state's attorney's office, which learned of the ruling last night, said it will soon decide -- perhaps today -- whether to re-charge Ruben, who was accused of firing a shotgun at husband-and-wife liquor store owners in a robbery that netted $3.Last night, Haven H. Kodeck, deputy Baltimore state's attorney, said his office would have no decision until this morning.

Maryland's second-highest court has ruled that Gov. Martin O'Malley's administration was within its rights to fire a holdover patronage employee from former Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.'s term. Monday's ruling - the latest in a long-running legal saga surrounding state personnel practices - was in the case of Gregory Maddalone, who was fired shortly after O'Malley, a Democrat, came into office in 2007 after defeating Ehrlich, a Republican. Maddalone, a former ice dancer, was a central figure in an investigation by Democratic lawmakers who accused the Ehrlich administration of firing longtime state employees for political reasons and hiring "loyalists" to replace them.

A second Maryland firm has sued the owner and general contractor of Baltimore's historic B&O Building in an effort to get paid for work done to complete the $65 million Hotel Monaco that opened there in late July. Attorneys for D.F. Smith Inc. of Glen Burnie, a masonry subcontractor, filed a complaint this week in Baltimore Circuit Court to establish and enforce a mechanic's lien against the property. The complaint filed by Michael P. Darrow of Hillman, Brown and Darrow PA states that Smith is seeking $29,761.

Attorneys for the owner of Baltimore's historic B&O Building, home of the new Hotel Monaco, have taken legal steps to block a possible September auction of the property by appealing a Baltimore Circuit Court decision that enables a Millersville lumber company to hold a sale on the premises. Attorneys for Baltimore and Charles Associates, owner of the B&O Building at 2 N. Charles St., on Monday filed a notice of appeal of an Aug. 5 ruling by Circuit Judge Evelyn Omega Cannon. Cannon had issued a final order establishing a mechanic's lien and directing the sale to move forward unless the building owner pays the J. F. Johnson Lumber Co. $184,000 plus interest and attorneys' fees by this coming Monday.

The Maryland Court of Special Appeals has ruled against a former chief business officer for the Howard County school system who was dismissed by then-Superintendent John R. O'Rourke in September 2003. Bruce M. Venter was fired after failing to inform O'Rourke, top-ranking administrators and the board that construction of Marriotts Ridge High School was off schedule. Venter sued the school system in 2003. Before the Court of Special Appeals' decision, Venter had lost decisions by the Circuit Court for Howard County, the Maryland State Board of Education and the Board of Education of Howard County.

Senator still a link to cinemas past Thanks for your editorial "City to the rescue" (April 3). There can be no doubt: The Senator Theatre must be saved. In historic preservation, you must pick your battles, and this is a battle that must be joined and won. Baltimore has lost too many of its historic theaters - the Stanley, Century, Royal and Grand, to name a few. The Senator is the work of an outstanding Baltimore architect and is one of the best examples of an art-deco neighborhood movie house in the country.

Squandering funds on garden, theater A few days after reading that Baltimore is scaling back its the Police Athletic League program ("Police withdraw from PAL centers, relationships with kids," March 29), I read that the city is considering putting more money into the Senator Theatre ("Senator scramble," April 2) and will plant a vegetable garden to help feed the homeless ("One-upping D.C.: Baltimore will plant bigger plot, feed the poor," April 2). The Senator has repeatedly proved itself to be a financial black hole.

A federal judge has granted class action status to two categories of people in a civil suit that claims officers at Baltimore's Central Booking and Intake Center regularly and illegally detained certain arrestees too long and strip-searched people without cause. The ruling, issued Thursday in U.S. District Court in Baltimore, opens the door for tens of thousands of people processed from May 2002 through April 2008 to join the suit, which seeks unspecified monetary damages. Central booking processes everyone arrested within city limits.

Maryland's second-highest court resolves hundreds of disputes a year - on issues ranging from whether companies really have to pay millions to wronged customers or whether a convicted murderer deserves a new trial. But the resolution of those cases is not usually made widely available to the public. Nine out of every 10 opinions from the Court of Special Appeals are labeled "unreported," virtually closed off from public scrutiny and never bound in legal volumes. Google and more powerful legal search engines won't turn up the opinions either - even when the name of a company or defendant is instantly recognizable.

Teen doesn't take plea in deaths of his family The deadline for filing a motion that a Cockeysville teenager accused of killing his parents and younger brothers is not criminally responsible for the deaths came and went yesterday without any paperwork being filed by lawyers representing Nicholas W. Browning. Baltimore County Circuit Judge Thomas J. Bollinger set yesterday as the deadline for defense attorneys to file a motion of their intent to argue that the 16-year-old is not criminally responsible - Maryland's equivalent of an insanity plea - in the fatal shootings of his family.

Gov. Martin O'Malley yesterday announced appointments of 13 judges, including one to the state's highest court - but did not tap the Senate president's son for a seat on the Anne Arundel County District Court. Thomas V. Miller III's nomination in May for a trial bench vacancy led to the protest resignations of three members of the county's judicial nominating commission. At the time, Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller, a Prince George's County Democrat, said he worried that political fallout from the protests would likely hurt the chances for his son, a commissioner on the state parole board, to be appointed.