District Court

The Baltimore County Bar Association will host its annual Technology Fair on Friday, March 30, 11 a..m.-2 p.m. at the Baltimore County Public Library's Towson branch, 320 York Road. Some 1,600 attorneys, as well as sponsors and affiliates, have been invited to attend the fair. The event's keynote speaker will be Chief Judge Ben Cyburn of the District Court of Maryland, who will discuss the Maryland Electronic Courts project, designed to help all court levels file and store records electronically.

The case that led the Court of Appeals to conclude that indigent defendants arrested in Maryland should have the right to counsel when they appear before a district court commissioner put the state Office of the Public Defender in an awkward position. On principle, it agreed; the initial phase of the criminal justice process is crucial to determining the liberty of a person who is arrested, and without the benefit of counsel, far more people than necessary wound up confined to jail while awaiting trial because of excessive bail requirements.

Judge Francis Miller Arnold, who had a first career as an employee relations director and later became a lawyer and then a judge of the District Court and the Circuit Court, died Wednesday of esophageal cancer at his Westminster home. He was 83. "Judge Arnold was a wonderful human being and a superb jurist. He was the kind of judge that any judge would want to emulate," said Howard County Circuit Judge Lenore R. Gelfman. "I'm so sad. It's a great personal loss for me. We were like a father and daughter.

At 10 a.m. on a recent weekday, roughly a half-dozen District Court commissioners were individually processing 120 arrestees at Baltimore's Central Booking and Intake Center, and making big decisions about whether to set bail or release the accused with instructions to come to court when called. They work out of tiny concrete cells in the detention center, similar to those packed with waiting prisoners. For protection, they have a window partition between them and the defendant, who is locked in during the proceeding.

Former U.S. Rep. Frank M. Kratovil Jr. may not have gotten a more Democrat-friendly district in which to attempt a return to Congress, but he's received a consolation prize in the form of a judgeship. Gov. Martin O"Malley announced Wednesday that he has appointed Kratovil, who served a single term in Congress after scratching out a narrow victory over then-state Sen. Andrew Harris in 2008, to the District Court in Queen Anne's County. Kratovil, 43, whose voting record in Congress was well to the right of the typical Democrat,  was nevertheless defeated by Harris in a 2010 rematch as the district swung back to its Republican leanings.

Gov. Martin O'Malley announced Wednesday the appointment of former Rep. Frank M. Kratovil Jr., who was defeated in his re-election bid in 2010, to a District Court judgeship in Queen Anne's County. Kratovil, a Democrat, served a single term in Congress after scratching out a narrow victory over then-state Sen. Andrew P. Harris in 2008. Kratovil, 43, whose voting record in Congress was well to the right of the typical Democrat, was nevertheless defeated by Harris in a 2010 rematch as the district swung back to its Republican leanings.

Maryland's District Court said Wednesday that it had frozen nearly 3,900 debt-collection lawsuits because the state suspended the licenses of the affiliated companies that filed them. Ben C. Clyburn, chief judge of the District Court, ordered the stay to temporarily prevent the cases from proceeding or the companies from collecting. State regulators announced Friday that they had suspended the collection licenses of the firms, LVNV Funding and Resurgent Capital Services, and ordered them to cease attempting to collect on consumer debts.

Gov. Martin O'Malley announced the appointment of seven new circuit court judges Wednesday, including a woman whose promotion makes her the first judge of Asian descent at that level. "The appointment of judges is one of the most important responsibilities of any chief executive," O'Malley said in a statement, describing his selections as "highly qualified, talented and diverse. " Two judges, including Jeannie J. Hong, were appointed for the city. Hong, who is one of two Asian Pacific-American judges in Maryland, has served at the District Court level in Baltimore for nine years, most recently as its judge in charge.

The names of three assistant state's attorneys for Harford County are among four lawyers and a district court judge who have been recommended to Gov. Martin O'Malley for appointment to the vacancy on the Harford County Circuit. But the county's chief prosecutor, Joseph Cassilly, who also applied for the judgeship, did not make the final cut when the Judicial Nominating Commission for District 4-Harford County sent its five nominees to O'Malley Thursday. There are five circuit court judgeships in Harford County.

A veteran Baltimore County police detective will receive $225,000, and his lawyer could get more in fees now that the county has lost a case in which the officer claimed that his rights were violated under the Americans with Disabilities Act. The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit has upheld the $225,000 award to Detective William Blake delivered by a U.S. District Court jury after a six-day trial in Baltimore in April, 2010....