Judgment

IN THE Maryland State House, they called him the Abominable No Man. And Killer Joe.As chairman of the House Judiciary Committee in the 1970s and 1980s, Joseph E. Owens was the designated spiker of half-cooked legislation.He relished his role, disdaining what he called "60 Minutes" bills -- legislation dashed off in reaction to Sunday evening exposes and sob stories.At a time in U.S. history when social and political movements were challenging "the system," Mr. Owens happily stood in their path.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- Barely two months after trading for Gold Glove catcher Charles Johnson, the Orioles are scheduled to argue against him in an arbitration hearing inside a Tampa hotel suite today. The outcome could be the second-largest judgment since the owners and players instituted the process.Johnson, who won a controversial $3.3 million judgment over the Florida Marlins last February, is seeking $5.1 million compared with the Orioles' offer of $3.9 million.Barring a last-minute compromise, which Orioles general manager Frank Wren described yesterday as unlikely, a panel of three arbiters must choose one of the two figures.

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- As if this country didn't have enough problems, it is confronted these days with the highest recorded incidence of rape in the world.But in a violence-prone society in which women have traditionally been viewed as second-class citizens and subjected to widespread abuse, rape only now is attracting as much outrage as other violent crimes.Steve Tshwete, the tough-talking safety and security minister, suggested last week that harsher laws might be needed to deal with the sort of criminal he described as "a prowling beast that mutilates, murders, robs and rapes with impunity."

A Baltimore lawyer has been found negligent in representing an Eastern Shore man whose stepdaughter won an $885,000 judgment against him for sexual abuse.A Baltimore Circuit Court jury returned its verdict last week against attorney Michael P. May.The jury found that the client, Symcha Shpak of Neavitt, near St. Michaels in Talbot County, was entitled to $500,000 for humiliation and embarrassment.But it also found that Shpak did not deserve to get back $1.1 million -- the amount of the judgment his stepdaughter won in a Baltimore County Circuit Court case seven years ago, plus interest and legal fees.

The timing was coincidental when Time magazine saluted Pete Rozelle last week as one of the "builders and titans" of the 20th century.It just happened that the late NFL commissioner was honored in a week that showed how much pro football misses his leadership.The officiating controversy illustrated the void that has existed in the league office since Rozelle stepped down in 1989 and was replaced by Paul Tagliabue.The problem with the officials, surprisingly enough, probably isn't the officials.

Larry Young erred when he played the race cardWhen Maryland Gov. Marvin Mandel was ousted from office, no one complained loudly that this was an anti-Semitic action.Nor was there criticism in the wake of Vice President Spiro Agnew's departure that certain people were out to get the Greeks.Ditto for many white politicians nationwide who had one thing in common: They were caught abusing their elective office for personal gain.Larry Young deserved no special privilege just because he is African-American.

Ten years after a secretary first complained that her boss handed out crude jokes with the paychecks at Westminster Woodwork and Lumber Co., a drawn-out case of sexual harassment has ended.Eugen Williamson delivered a check for $3,390 in back wages last week to Carroll County Circuit Court, beating yesterday's court-ordered deadline and avoiding jail.The state has never gone to such lengths to collect a sexual harassment judgment, said Lee Hoshall, assistant general counsel for the Maryland Commission on Human Relations.

On the field: Just off the disabled list, Anaheim's Jim Edmonds sent a long fly ball to center field that drove Jeffrey Hammonds to the fence, where he leaped and momentarily made the catch. But as his body struck the fence, the ball popped out of his glove and dropped over the other side for a two-run homer and a 2-1 lead.In the dugout: Manager Davey Johnson took a cautious approach with his lineup, sitting Brady Anderson (sore knee) and Jeff Reboulet (slight muscle pull in side) even though both players said they could start.

NASCAR means big money for BaltimoreI enjoyed Elise Armacost's opinion on NASCAR's traffic problem (Sept. 28). I'm one of those white-collar types who gravitated to NASCAR during the baseball strike.If Ms. Armacost thought crawling along U.S. 13 is bad, I've been in a four-hour standstill at Michigan International Speedway on Father's Day and five-hour backups in the Poconos. But race tracks in Talladega (Alabama) and Indianapolis move 200,000 people like they were 200.The point of this letter is not to agree about a traffic problem you would expect at any major event.

Triumphant Kurdish troops have driven the vanquished Kurds from Sulaimaniya.Dole cannot drive Clinton from office. Saddam has a shot.When the Potomac rises up to cover Washington, the implied judgment is nearly Biblical.The BSO cannot survive without David, just as it could not without Sergiu.Pub Date: 9/11/96

Can a company put a lien on your house or property if you're incarcerated? My brother has been in jail for 10 years. He returned his car to the finance company and they in turn auctioned it off for $4,000 less than what he owed on it. Can they sue or take his house? Whether a person is incarcerated or not isn't the issue. If a creditor is able to get a judgment against the person who owed it money, that creditor can then try to satisfy that judgment anyway it can. One of those ways is to go after assets owned by the debtor: his bank accounts, cars and even real estate.

OXFORD, Miss. - In a momentous first meeting, the two presidential candidates sparred intensely and at times heatedly last night over the financial crisis consuming Wall Street and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The first of three televised presidential debates at the University of Mississippi came at the end of an already dramatic week in Washington and on Wall Street, as the administration, congressional leaders and the two candidates wrestled over a bailout package for the financial industry.

A civil court case filed last month in U.S. District Court in Baltimore - alleging racketeering by Sparrows Point shipyard owner Vincent F. Barletta and others - has been settled for an undisclosed amount, according to the plaintiff's attorney. The suit was filed by ship-breaking company Clean Venture Inc., which had won a $750,000 judgment earlier from the North American Ship Recycling company, or NASR, where Barletta was a vice president. NASR disappeared from its Sparrows Point location before the judgment - money owed for contracting work - was paid, leading Clean Venture to sue Barletta along with his brother, their attorney, multiple colleagues and affiliated businesses.

The Baltimore school system has dropped its appeal in a lawsuit alleging that a 12-year-old girl was sexually assaulted in math class five years ago, and it will pay the girl and her mother a $100,000 judgment ordered by a lower court. The system's action came after a Sun article Sunday detailed the family's plight. The girl, now 17, has been hospitalized in psychiatric facilities 21 times since the incident on Nov. 27, 2002, and she is now living in a residential facility for vulnerable adolescents.

The Kansas-based anti-gay church that was smacked with a $10.9 million jury award against its members has asked a federal judge in Baltimore to review the judgment. The father of a Marine killed in Iraq successfully sued Westboro Baptist Church and three of its leaders for invading his family's privacy when church members waved anti-gay signs at his son's funeral in Westminster. The verdict late last month in U.S. District Court in Baltimore was the first against Westboro Baptist Church, a small but vocal Christian group based in Topeka that has protested military funerals with placards bearing shock-value messages such as "Thank God for dead soldiers."

Any lingering doubts that Lindsay Lohan's judgment isn't all that it should be are answered with I Know Who Killed Me, forever hereafter known as the movie that came out the week her personal life may have hit rock bottom. It's an unintentionally hilarious disaster, a movie seemingly built on wickedly ironic prescience. What else would you call a film about a woman who loses a leg and is fitted with a rechargeable one that beeps, a movie starring an actress infamous for wearing (and ignoring)

The president defended his decision last week to commute the 2 1/2 -year prison term of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby Jr. in the CIA leak case. Libby was convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice. "I rule nothing in or nothing out," Bush said when asked about whether he might pardon Libby before leaving office in January 2009. Democrats and the prosecutor in the case were sharply critical of the move. ?I made a judgment, a considered judgment. I stand by it.? President Bush

President Obama? No, not yet. But the intention of Democratic Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois to move toward that goal seems clear with last week's news that he is forming an exploratory committee to raise money toward a possible White House bid next year. Count me among those who regard it as a foregone conclusion. Strike while the iron is hot. Isn't that what the axiom says? And whose iron has ever been hotter than Mr. Obama's? The man is a combination plate of handsome, intelligent and charismatic that has his supporters giddy.

Back in the 1990s, when Francis Fukuyama spoke, the emerging neoconservative movement listened. This Johns Hopkins University professor was often saying - especially in his 1992 book The End of History and the Last Man - what the neocons wanted to hear. Now he is not. His new book, America at the Crossroads: Democracy, Power and the Neoconservative Legacy, takes the neocons to task for, among other things, getting the United States involved in the Iraq war. That judgment from someone once considered a neocon icon appears to be cementing a consensus among both experts and the general public - as expressed in recent polls - that the United States made serious errors when it invaded Iraq three years ago this week, errors in intelligence, in strategy and in tactics.

Dear Mr. Azrael: I loaned my daughter $1,600 to close on her house and $1,500 to put a boiler in it. I also let her use a credit card of mine which she took to its $5,000 limit. Now she has become angry with me because I asked her to start paying me back. How can I go about putting a lien on her house? I am 65 years old, and I need my money. Dear Reader: A lien is a claim on a home or other property. If a validly recorded lien is not paid, the lien holder can institute a legal proceeding to sell the property.