Family Law

The state's top judge told the General Assembly yesterday that the creation of a family court in Maryland would accomplish "absolutely nothing" unless the court were properly funded.After his annual address on the state's judiciary, Chief Judge Robert C. Murphy estimated that roughly 30 extra judges would be needed to staff a family court, which would handle divorce, juvenile delinquency and other family matters now heard in the Circuit Court system.Gov. William Donald Schaefer has said he will ask the legislature to back a measure that would set up a framework for a family court.

Christmas is supposed to be the season for goodwill, peace and family, and it is not the appropriate time for recriminations. But for a number of divorced mothers and fathers in Carroll and other Maryland counties, this festive holiday is an unpleasant reminder of the injustices they suffered in the state court system.In Carroll, the ranks of the unhappily divorced women keep increasing. Nearly all of them have lost custody of their children, are paying irrational levels of child support and spend much of their income paying lawyers' fees.

He's arranged seating for confirmations and weddings because warring parents couldn't agree on who would sit where. He's thrilled and disappointed thousands of adults in decisions on child custody and support. In nearly two decades on the bench, Judge James C. Cawood Jr. has presided over the dissolution of countless failed relationships, and he's patiently dealt with the couples who return to his courtroom year after year. "When a case comes in, everybody loves you. When they keep coming back, at least one of them doesn't love you," Cawood said with characteristically dry wit. At 65, Cawood, considered the grandfather of family law matters in the county and an expert in the field throughout the state, is leaving the Anne Arundel County Circuit Court bench.

Ralph K. Rothwell Jr., a law firm's managing partner, died of bone cancer Jan. 4 at Sinai Hospital. The Homeland resident was 58. Born in Fort Lee, Va., he was raised in Austria and Germany, where his father was stationed in the military. The family later relocated to Elkton, and he was a 1966 Tome School graduate. He was class valedictorian. He earned an English literature degree at the Johns Hopkins University, where he participated in the ROTC and was on the varsity swim team. He received a law degree at the University of Maryland.

He's arranged seating for confirmations and weddings because warring parents couldn't agree on who would sit where. He's thrilled and disappointed thousands of adults in decisions on child custody and support. In nearly two decades on the bench, Judge James C. Cawood Jr. has presided over the dissolution of countless failed relationships, and he's patiently dealt with the couples who return to his courtroom year after year. "When a case comes in, everybody loves you. When they keep coming back, at least one of them doesn't love you," Cawood said with characteristically dry wit. At 65, Cawood, considered the grandfather of family law matters in the county and an expert in the field throughout the state, is leaving the Anne Arundel County Circuit Court bench.

Gov. Martin O'Malley has appointed nine lawyers, one of them the son of state Sen. President Thomas V. Mike Miller, to be trial judges. Named to the Circuit Court bench in Baltimore were Kendra Y. Ausby, counsel for the Courts and Judicial Affairs Division of the attorney general's office and a former assistant public defender; Videtta A. Brown, a District Court judge and former prosecutor; Charles J. Peters, a federal prosecutor and former city...

Don't tell Roger A. Perkins any lawyer jokes.The recently elected president of the Maryland State Bar Association has probably already heard them. And he's tired of the stereotypes slapped on the legal profession.His mission, as head of the 15,500-member state bar, is to get people to recognize the flip side of the coin."I'm always on the lookout for negative things said about the legal profession, because there are a lot of positive things we do," said Mr. Perkins, 49, an Arnold resident who has a family law practice in Annapolis.

Family CourtThank you for your March 25 editorial in support of a family court for Maryland.I chaired the subcommittee of the Governor's Task Force on Family Law investigating the need for such a court.I, together with other members of the task force, traveled throughout the state listening to citizens' concerns regarding family law and the process available to them for resolving their issues.We heard repeatedly, and without solicitation, their unhappiness with our present system.The only opposition we heard then, and have ever heard since, has been from judges.

THOSE WHO DOUBT the wisdom of returning Elian Gonzalez to his father and half-brother ought to look at the photographs of the family reunion. They show the 6-year-old happier than he has appeared since arriving on these shores after the death of his mother. The authenticity of these photographs is now beyond doubt, and so should be the necessity of the raid that brought Elian back to his father. Though the raid on Lazaro Gonzalez's Miami house is being criticized, there is no dispute about the professional skill with which it was carried out -- successfully and speedily.

There is serious confusion about the basis (legal or otherwise) for redefining an ancient human institution (marriage) to fit the social mores of 21st century society. The conservative view is that marriage as traditionally defined is an ancient human institution that predates civil society and therefore deserves the respect of the more recently established civil institutions that may support it; the more modern view, apparently shared by the governor and by a majority of the Maryland legislature, is that the term "marriage" can be redefined by an existing legislative majority without regard to that tradition.