Court Of Special

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.

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.

Former Baltimore police Commissioner Kevin Clark was fired on Nov. 10, 2004, when then-Mayor Martin O'Malley said that domestic violence allegations against Clark, while unsubstantiated, "distracted" the imported New Yorker from effectively doing his job. I knew more than a year before that Clark wasn't long for the job. It was when he attended a fellowship meeting at the Union Baptist Church coffeehouse. A man questioned Clark about Baltimore's "investment" in black youth. "The only investment y'all made in 'em is that jail down there," the man all but snarled.

Deandra M. Gaskins once pointed a handgun at the face of a woman leaving a corner store and demanded money, saying, "Kick it out." The armed robber is also a convicted car thief and drug dealer who has been arrested at least eight times on Baltimore's streets. In May 2005, less than two weeks after he was charged with selling heroin out of a gas station, Gaskins was wounded in a drive-by shooting in South Baltimore. When thousands of dollars in hospital bills came in, he turned to the state for help.