Court Ruling

John Merzbacher, a former South Baltimore parochial school teacher convicted of raping a student, will remain in prison after the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a decision Friday that could have set him free. In an emotional victory for the former students named in civil lawsuits and identified by prosecutors as his victims, the court ruled that Merzbacher is not entitled to a plea deal that his lawyers argued should have been offered to him nearly 20 years ago. "This is a man who held a loaded gun to my head at ages 11 and 12 and 13 and threatened to kill me if I ever told," said Elizabeth Ann Murphy, a former student raped by Merzbacher in the 1970s at Catholic Community Middle School.

The redevelopment of an 11-acre tract in Baltimore's Remington neighborhood can move ahead now that the state's highest court has ruled on a zoning appeal that held up the plan for years. "The project would have been done, generating benefits for the community and taxes for the city if these petitions had not been filed," said Jon Laria, the attorney for the developer of the mixed-used project, called 25th Street Station. On Tuesday, the Maryland Court of Appeals released its unanimous opinion that two people who live near the development site, one in Remington and the other in Charles Village, are not eligible to appeal the Baltimore City Council's decision to grant the zoning approval for the project.

Noel Tshiani wasn't at his wedding — he listened by phone in another country to the ceremony in the Democratic Republic of Congo, according to court records — but he's just as married as if he'd stood at his bride's side. And soon, he'll be just as divorced and responsible for alimony and child support, a Maryland court has ruled. A World Bank employee, Tshiani was working in another African country when he and Marie-Louise Tshiani married in a 1993 ceremony. He answered questions and listened to the ceremony by telephone, while his cousin stood in his place for the ceremony, court records say. The exchange among families included money, clothes and a goat, and within days, the bride flew to join her husband, according to court records.

About 400 retired Baltimore County Police Department employees could see their health insurance premiums reduced and past overpayments reimbursed, after the Maryland Court of Appeals ruled Monday in favor of a grievance brought by the police union. The Baltimore County Fraternal Order of Police, Lodge 4, filed the grievance after county officials approved changes in 2007 to the way the county subsidized health insurance for a group of police retirees. Under an agreement, Police Department employees who retired between Feb.1, 1992, and June 30, 2007, were required to pay 15 percent of health insurance premiums while the county would pay 85 percent, and the union believed that the plan was fixed until the retirees became eligible for Medicare.

In the wake of a court ruling requiring it, Anne Arundel County Executive John R. Leopold wants to give $1.6 million worth of raises to police officers and other county employees. Legislation introduced Monday would fulfill the contract an arbitrator recommended this spring for 3 percent raises for the more than 550 officers who belong to the Fraternal Order of Police. Another union with about 1,000 employees had what officials described as a "me-too" clause entitling its members to raises if another bargaining unit received them.

U.S. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.and the Supreme Court have not only upheld the Affordable Care Act, they struck down a barrier to universal health care for Americans. Looking forward from the Supreme Court's decision, by defining the cost of expanding coverage as a tax, the court has moved our thinking toward universal health care as a proper cost of the country's well-being. The Obama administration's defense of the individual mandate in the Affordable Care Act as a tax was widely second-guessed.

A controversial court ruling in April that pit bulls are "inherently dangerous" is not yet in effect and must survive an appeal before it can be applied as Maryland law, according to an opinion released this week by the state attorney general's office. The opinion, written by Assistant Attorney General Kathryn Rowe in response to a request from Montgomery County Del. Heather Mizeur for advice on how to understand the ruling, says a motion for reconsideration of the ruling now before the Maryland Court of Appeals "delays the effect of the decision.

When asked at the close of the Constitutional Convention in 1787 what the Founders had wrought, Benjamin Franklinfamously said, "A Republic, if you can keep it. " That question might also be put to the five Supreme Court justices who voted last week to uphold the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act, which mandates health insurance for most Americans, based on twisted logic that it is a tax and thus within the power of the Congress to impose...

The recent Supreme Court ruling on the Affordable Health Care Act surprised many. The reasoning given by the court for allowing the mandate is that it's a tax — and it's constitutional for Congress to pass a tax. While I believe that is a questionable interpretation at best, Americans now must buy health insurance or receive a tax penalty. In 2008, President Barack Obama said, "Health care should never be purchased with tax increases on middle class families. " During the lengthy debate on ACA, he stressed that it was not a tax. It seems that President Obama's promises usually have an expiration date.