Garbis

In West Baltimore, a staircase with a missing second step leads to a porch strewn with toys. In Pimlico, weeds and trash clutter a lot where a ramshackle house once stood. In Govans, mismatched brackets anchor a downspout to the rotting, wood siding of a house.These are the monuments to Morris Garbis, dubbed a "slumlord" more than three decades ago and, at 78, the city housing court's most enduring defendant. When he was sentenced recently to a year in prison -- after proving to be no more conscientious about brokering real estate than he was about maintaining it -- few who have followed his career in low-rent real estate were surprised.

After handing out the exam that led to the Naval Academy cheating scandal, then winding up in the middle of an auto-theft ring at the academy, former midshipman Christopher Rounds had his final say before a federal judge in Baltimore yesterday."

A federal judge has ruled that a Baltimore public housing discrimination lawsuit should go forward, rejecting arguments from government lawyers that residents can freely choose whether to live in subsidized, often racially segregated, housing. The distinction is important because the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that government agencies have a greater obligation to desegregate institutions where participation is not voluntary, such as attendance at public schools. "Of course there is no law that compels people to abide in public housing," U.S. District Judge Marvin J. Garbis said in a ruling Thursday.

A federal judge today sentenced a former State Department official to 27 months in prison and three years of supervised probation for illegally exporting weapons to the Dominican Republic and accepting payments for them.George R. Mitchell, 43, was released on bond pending appeal of his conviction in U.S. District Court in Baltimore.Prosecutors had sought a stiffer penalty against Mitchell, but Judge Marvin J. Garbis acknowledged that Mitchell had risked his life while working as a security officer with the State Department, including one incident in which he was credited with saving the life of a Turkish ambassador during an assassination attempt.

One judge is known as a peacemaker. One judge is known as an enforcer.They are unlikely partners now, a formidable team, drawn together by their desire to see Baltimore's struggling public schools reclaimed before the end of the century.Partners in justice, they are Joseph H. H. Kaplan, administrative judge of the Circuit Court for Baltimore, and U.S. District Judge Marvin J. Garbis.Each has handled headline-making cases. Now, they preside over a tug-of-war between the city and state for control of the vision, the management and the money of school reform.

Melvin "Little Melvin" Williams, considered one of the worst drug lords in Baltimore history, returned to prison yesterday while a federal judge deliberates whether to release him early. But even if U.S. District Judge Marvin J. Garbis rules against Williams, "we're almost home anyway," defense attorney Michael E. Marr said after court yesterday. The parole board has determined that Williams is eligible for release in September, and Marr said he is optimistic that his client will be released to a halfway house before then.

Rejecting claims that the crime was partially caused by the drug Prozac, a federal judge sentenced an Edgewater man to 27 months in prison yesterday for stealing $1.6 million from his workplace -- the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing in Washington."

In a diatribe from the bench, U.S. District Judge Marvin J. Garbis said yesterday that he would only approve a settlement in a lawsuit over special education in Baltimore if there were clear objectives and consequences for school system failures."

Court-supervised settlement talks have broken down over ways to remedy the federal government's discrimination against black public housing residents in Baltimore, a judge said yesterday. The breakdown sets the stage for a second trial in the 10-year-old case to decide on court-ordered remedies that could involve providing more opportunities for black public housing residents to move to the suburbs. U.S. District Judge Marvin J. Garbis ruled in early January that the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development violated fair housing laws by failing to take a regional approach to public housing and instead concentrated the poorest residents within the city limits.

Former Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke's failure to pursue integration in public housing continued the segregated practices that existed before 1954, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union said yesterday. "There is no way this court can find that segregation has been eradicated. Each period built on the previous period," Susan Podolsky told U.S. District Judge Marvin J. Garbis at the end of a three-week trial. The ACLU represents 14,000 tenants who accuse the city and the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development of practicing systematic and continuous discrimination since the late 1930s.