Federal Judge

A federal judge has declared unconstitutional a provision in Maryland law regulating who can carry a handgun, effectively loosening the restrictions governing firearm possession on the state's streets. In a 23-page memorandum opinion, made public Monday, U.S. District Court Judge Benson E. Legg said a state requirement forcing those applying for a gun-carry permit to show that they have a "good and substantial reason" to do so "impermissibly infringes the right to keep and bear arms," as guaranteed by the Second Amendment.

Last week, a federal district judge in New York ruled that girls younger than 17 should be allowed to purchase the Plan B contraceptive pill over the counter. Unlike the Obama administration, Judge Edward Korman got this one right. The 2011 decision by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to restrict access for younger girls not only denied them a safe and legal means to prevent unwanted pregnancy but ignored all scientific evidence that supported its access. Emergency contraceptive pills, commonly known as "Plan B," are drugs that work to prevent pregnancy if taken shortly after sexual intercourse.

U.S. District Judge Alexander Williams Jr. is scheduled to speak Sunday morning at Asbury United Methodist Church in Annapolis. Judge Williams, who presides over cases in the federal court in Greenbelt, has been on the federal bench since 1994. "There is a need for our youth to see role models like Judge Williams," said Carl O. Snowden, director of the Office for Civil Rights for the Office of the Maryland Attorney General. Snowden said Williams will speak as part of the service, which is open to the public, at 11 a.m. Among his degrees, Williams received his undergraduate and law degrees from Howard University, as well a master's degree from the School of Divinity there.

A federal judge last week threw out a Baltimore security guard's copyright infringement case against National Football League Properties, saying there was no evidence the NFL had licensed the use of the Ravens logo he'd designed to a software company. Frederick E. Bouchat has been credited with designing the Ravens' first logo, known as the "Flying B logo," and is awaiting compensation. In this most recent case, Bouchat claimed he wasn't getting credit for the use of the logo in some Madden NFL video games.

A federal judge approved Wednesday a potentially multi-million-dollar bonus package for 10 RG Steel executives after the Baltimore County steelmaker modified the proposal in response to objections. The amount seems unchanged from the original proposal, which the U.S. Trustee Program calculated could be up to $20.3 million. But RG Steel altered the proposal to make some of the payments contingent on sales of its facilities to buyers who intend to operate them. Both creditors and the U.S. Trustee Program, which oversees bankruptcy cases, objected to the company's original plan.

Opponents of Maryland's strict gun laws have long complained that obtaining a permit to carry a handgun has been nearly impossible. Among the many rules, the state requires that applicants show a "good and substantial reason" to carry around a handgun. A federal judge has agreed with the opponents. U.S. District Judge Benson E. Legg called the "good and substantial reason" clause unconstitutionally broad -- an arbitrary regulation designed to minimize the number of guns on the street, but one that doesn't necessarily keep everyone safe.

A federal judge on Friday stopped Baltimore's housing agency from terminating an agreement with a private developer that wants to revitalize 14 acres of West Baltimore. U.S. District Judge Richard D. Bennett issued a preliminary injunction that prevents Baltimore Housing from ending its relationship with La Cite Development LLC, a New York-based developer that contracted with the city in 2006 to build residences and commercial space in run-down blocks of the Poppleton neighborhood.

A federal judge has ordered Baltimore police to halt a "veritable witch hunt" into the personal life of a man who alleges that his camera was seized as he filmed an arrest. In a ruling unsealed Friday, U.S. Magistrate Judge Susan Gauvey said the department must pay $1,000 for a "not so subtle attempt to intimidate the plaintiff" in a civil suit against the department. She took issue with tactics employed against Christopher Sharp, who sued the department two years ago, alleging that officers deleted images from his phone after he recorded a female friend being beaten by officers at the 2010 Preakness Stakes.

A lawsuit alleging that Maryland's historically black colleges and universities continue to suffer from policies that promote racial segregation is now in the hands of a federal judge, six years after it was first filed. U.S. District Judge Catherine C. Blake interrupted attorneys for both sides during the four hours of closing arguments Friday with questions and comments that gave hints at the issues she will weigh as she sorts through the six weeks of testimony and hundreds of pages of documents.

A Maryland federal judge ruled Tuesday that some Baltimore public employees' pensions were harmed by the city's elimination last year of payments tied to market returns. U.S. District Court Judge Marvin J. Garbis decided that police and firefighters who were either receiving benefits or eligible to retire were "substantially impaired" by the city's decision to eliminate a gain-sharing mechanism for retirees. Garbis also allowed the plaintiffs who are already receiving pension benefits to proceed as a class.

A federal judge has ordered Baltimore police to halt a "veritable witch hunt" into the personal life of a man who alleges that his camera was seized as he filmed an arrest. In a ruling unsealed Friday, U.S. Magistrate Judge Susan Gauvey said the department must pay $1,000 for a "not so subtle attempt to intimidate the plaintiff" in a civil suit against the department. She took issue with tactics employed against Christopher Sharp, who sued the department two years ago, alleging that officers deleted images from his phone after he recorded a female friend being beaten by officers at the 2010 Preakness Stakes.

The company affiliated with developer Patrick Turner that was planning to redevelop the waterfront of the Westport neighborhood in southwest Baltimore has filed for bankruptcy. Inner Harbor West LLC, the subject of a Chapter 7 involuntary bankruptcy petition filed by two creditors earlier this month, has asked a federal judge to convert the case to a Chapter 11 bankruptcy, according to documents filed Tuesday in Maryland's bankruptcy court. If the change is allowed, Inner Harbor West LLC could reorganize with trustee oversight and develop a plan to repay creditors.

Ruling in a bitterly contested case with national ramifications, a federal judge found Thursday that the Waterkeeper Alliance failed to prove that an Eastern Shore farm's chicken houses were polluting a tributary of the Chesapeake Bay. U.S. District Court Judge William M. Nickerson declared in a 50-page opinion that the New York-based environmental group had not established in a two-week trial in October that waste from chicken houses owned by...

Linda Malat Tiburzi wanted a front-row seat inside a 4th Circuit Court of Appeals courtroom Tuesday, so judges could get a good look at her during a hearing involving a convicted child rapist who had taught at a Baltimore Catholic school. Though it's traumatic for Tiburzi to relive her alleged abuse at the hands of John J. Merzbacher, she said she and the 14 other men and women who took a bus from Pasadena wanted to show their commitment to keeping him behind bars. "I want the judges to see my face," said Tiburzi, 51, who said she was sexually abused by Merzbacher while she was a Catholic Community middle-schooler from 1973 to 1976.

The fraud scheme — hiring homeless people to steal rent checks and deposit them in fake bank accounts — made a million dollars for Tavon Davis before one of his associates was caught on the job. Panicked at the notion that his man might flip, he ordered Isiah Callaway killed. Davis thought he might go to jail for decades for fraud, according to court records, and Callaway, 19, was dead before Davis realized the penalty for operating the scheme would have been much less. Davis, who now faces a likely 35 years in prison after pleading guilty to murder-conspiracy charges, told a friend that his decision to order the killing made him the "schmuck of the year," according to court filings.

A lawsuit alleging that Maryland's historically black colleges and universities continue to suffer from policies that promote racial segregation is now in the hands of a federal judge, six years after it was first filed. U.S. District Judge Catherine C. Blake interrupted attorneys for both sides during the four hours of closing arguments Friday with questions and comments that gave hints at the issues she will weigh as she sorts through the six weeks of testimony and hundreds of pages of documents.

Federal authorities say a Maryland inmate has been charged with threatening President Barack Obama and a federal judge in letters. Forty-year-old Willie Ray Bryant was indicted Monday in U.S. District Court in Greenbelt. According to the two-page indictment, Bryant mailed a letter on Oct. 12 with a threat to Obama. The indictment says he also mailed a letter in September to U.S. District Judge William Quarles that included a threat to mail an explosive device to the judge. Authorities say Bryant is serving a 40-year sentence for a string of robberies on the Eastern Shore.

A federal judge in Baltimore has denied efforts by state Sen. Ulysses Currie and two former executives of Shoppers Food Warehouse to throw out bribery and extortion charges, leaving the prosecutor's case intact. U.S. District Judge Richard D. Bennett ruled Friday that the government had correctly charged a case that alleges Currie was paid $245,000 in bribes over a five-year period for legislative favors and influence beneficial to the supermarket chain. Currie, a Democrat, is accused of using his influence as the chairman of a powerful Senate committee to do favors for Shoppers, a company headquartered in his Prince George's County district.

Baltimore's Fraternal Order of Police is celebrating what is, at most, a Pyrrhic victory in its effort to reverse the pension reforms Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake and the City Council enacted two years ago. Federal Judge Marvin J. Garbis' ruling that a key provision of the reform plan was unconstitutional appears to mean that the entire law has been struck down. But his ruling also made clear that the vast majority of the provisions in the law are permissible and that even in the part he objected to, a slight change in the plan's design could meet the city's fiscal objectives without violating the Constitution.

A federal judge approved Wednesday a potentially multi-million-dollar bonus package for 10 RG Steel executives after the Baltimore County steelmaker modified the proposal in response to objections. The amount seems unchanged from the original proposal, which the U.S. Trustee Program calculated could be up to $20.3 million. But RG Steel altered the proposal to make some of the payments contingent on sales of its facilities to buyers who intend to operate them. Both creditors and the U.S. Trustee Program, which oversees bankruptcy cases, objected to the company's original plan.