District Court

Two more African-Americans than previously reported have applied for a vacancy on the Howard County District Court bench -- boosting the number of black candidates to four of nine.The state's Administrative Office of the Courts reported last week that seven attorneys had advanced their names for the vacancy created by the elevation of Judge Lenore R. Gelfman to Circuit Court.But yesterday, Michael O'Malley, assistant state court administrator, said two other applications "were inadvertently placed in the wrong location."

Veteran prosecutor Sue-Ellen Hantman was sworn in as Howard County's fifth District Court judge yesterday during a ceremony filled with tributes to a woman whom speakers hailed as a worker bee who has long been committed to community building - and who never gave up on her dream of becoming a judge. Thirteen years after she first applied for a District Court judgeship, Hantman, 57, was tapped last month - as one of Gov. Parris N. Glendening's last three judicial appointees - to fill the vacancy created by the death of Judge C. James "Kit" Sfekas in June.

State officials are eyeing property off Bestgate Road near the Annapolis Mall as the site for a $15.7 million Annapolis District Court.Maryland District Court Chief Judge Robert F. Sweeney said he was told two weeks ago that the state Department of General Services plansto purchase at least part of the 55-acre tract, in the 800 block of Bestgate Road just north of the mall.The site was one of about 30 proposed by developers and landowners as part of a yearlong search by state officials to find an alternative to the District Court quarters in the Millard Tawes complex on Rowe Boulevard, he said.

Carroll County's new District Court building -- the first major public project in downtown Westminster in years -- is on a pace to finish almost four months ahead of schedule. Construction on the nearly $7 million project at North Court Street and Greenwood Avenue was expected to be completed Aug. 8 next year, but the building could be ready as soon as April 15, said Roy Kirby Jr., president of Roy Kirby & Sons Inc. of Baltimore, the general contractor. A stepped-up work schedule, as well as dry, mild weather and cooperation from the state and the building's architect, has helped move the project along, Kirby said.

The two-story iron skeleton of a new District Court building has taken over the intersection once dominated by an Elks Lodge and the Naval Academy stadium.The building, to be completed next summer, will give judges, lawyers and other court personnel more than double the space they have had in the cramped Tawes Office Building across Taylor Avenue from the new building."It's overcrowded there," said Betty Thompson, clerk for Chief District Judge Martha F. Rasin.On a typical day, the entrance to the Tawes building is jammed with police officers, judges, lawyers and people with traffic tickets awaiting hearings in one of the three small courtrooms.

THE ELECTORATE opted against diversity for the Howard County Circuit Court. Maryland's seriously flawed method of selecting circuit judges has left Howard with a bench that fails to mirror its population or the parties in courthouse disputes of the most serious civil and criminal nature. An all-white judiciary is incongruous in such a heterogenous, growing suburb.Circuit Judge Donna Hill Staton was appointed last year as the county's first African-American jurist. Her loss in last week's election leaves Howard with two all-white courts.

Baltimore County legislators are girding for a renewed campaign to retain District Court facilities in Owings Mills and Dundalk, even as a long-debated plan to close those court operations is to move forward with the start of the new year.With state law requiring the facilities to be closed by 1999, officials will begin to reduce the number of cases heard at the Owings Mills location starting next month, said Martha F. Rasin, chief judge of Maryland District Court.Noting security problems at the Owings Mills facility, the judge said only small claims civil cases will be heard there.

The long-anticipated appointment of House Judiciary Committee Chairman John S. Arnick to a District Court judgeship was announced yesterday by the governor's office.Delegate Arnick, a 59-year-old Democrat from Dundalk, was named along with Assistant Attorney General Alexander Wright Jr. of Reisterstown to fill vacancies on the Baltimore County District CourtAlso appointed to a District Court seat in Montgomery County was Rockville attorney Martha Gamble Kavanaugh, 51, a former assistant state's attorney in Montgomery.

Judge Daniel E. Klein Jr., former chief magistrate judge for the U.S. District Court for Maryland who was active in Scouting and the Episcopal Church of the Redeemer, died of cancer at his Hunt Valley home Tuesday. He was 67. In 1978, Judge Klein was appointed as a magistrate to the U.S. District Court for Maryland by President Jimmy Carter. He was appointed chief magistrate judge in 1997 and retired in 1999. Judge Klein, who presided over felony criminal, civil and settlement cases, continued working on active recall status until his death.