Kangaroo Court

When Iranian human rights activist Shirin Ebadi won the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize, Iranian-American scholar Haleh Esfandiari remarked that the choice would improve Iran's image across the globe. The Islamic Republic, she said, "has been seen as this rogue state, a hostage taker. Now people will see the other side." Ms. Esfandiari was right on both counts, only now she is the hostage, held in a notorious Tehran prison on trumped-up charges, and Ms. Ebadi is preparing to fight for her release.

City plans children's baseball leagueYoung baseball stars in Annapolis could be playing for a league of their own as early as this summer.City officials are teaming up to organize a baseball league for children ages 9 to 16 for the first time in a decade. Ed Stubbs, a Hillsmere resident who has coached baseball for years, will run the league.The city has offered to contribute about $7,000 to defray the cost of equipment and hiring umpires for the Annapolis City Pony League. Another $6,500 would go toward building a baseball diamond behind the old Wiley H. Bates High School, said City Administrator Michael Mallinoff.

Homebuilders as a rule are not known for their largess when it comes to preserving or planting trees in the communities they erect. That tendency has been a blight on the suburbs and often results, comically, in the naming of subdivisions after forests and woodlands that have been bulldozed bare.That's why a recent award to a Howard developer caught our eye. As winners of the 1995 Project of the Year, Chateau Builders of Columbia has illustrated that giving quarter to the environment makes solid business sense, too. Sponsored by the Land Development Council of the Homebuilders Association of Maryland, the award was made because of extensive tree and foliage plantings at Chateau's townhouse and condominium development known as the Woodlands.

A House of Delegates committee rejected Wednesday a Republican lawmaker's attempt to impeach Maryland's attorney general over an opinion he issued recently on same-sex marriage. Del. Don H. Dwyer Jr. of Anne Arundel County had asked fellow delegates to initiate the impeachment process for Douglas F. Gansler, a Democrat, who said Maryland should recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states. Dwyer says Gansler's opinion wrongly overturned state policy on such unions. The House Judiciary Committee rejected Dwyer's effort, voting 15-5 that Gansler's conduct did not merit impeachment proceedings.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Ross Perot's allies moved yesterday to reclaim control of the Reform Party in a rowdy and hostile showdown that at one point required police intervention. Before the day's end, the party's national committee had removed Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura's hand-picked party chairman and was on the verge of rejecting Ventura's efforts to hold the party's summer convention in St. Paul, Minn. Ventura, the party's highest-ranking elected official, anticipated yesterday's votes and quit the party Friday, declaring it to be a "dysfunctional family."

A Maryland House of Delegates committee on Wednesday rejected a Republican lawmaker's attempt to impeach the Maryland attorney general over a controversial opinion he recently issued on same-sex marriage. Del. Don H. Dwyer Jr. of Anne Arundel County had asked his fellow delegates to initiate the impeachment process for Douglas F. Gansler, a Democrat, who said Maryland should recognize same-sex marriages performed out of state. Dwyer believed Gansler wrongly overturned state policy on such unions.

Oates happy with Mesa's early outingsEffective despite scattered scheduleKANSAS CITY, Mo. -- John Oates says he is more than satisfied with the first two starts by Jose Mesa."

Annapolis Mayor Alfred A. Hopkins has replaced a member of a retirement board that was called a "kangaroo court" by attorneys for three injured police officers and ordered a new hearing of their case.Clearly angry that the officers still are waiting to be retired with benefits, Mr. Hopkins dismissed a member of the Public Safety Disabilities Retirement Board who failed to show up for a court-ordered hearing Wednesday. Lawyers for the officers threatened to have the city held in contempt after Bruce Hogg, one of five volunteers on the board, did not arrive.

THE OPENING HEARINGS in the cases of four of the 585 U.S.-held terrorist suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, last week showed what many had feared: The system isn't working. It's not just the trouble with interpreters, who occasionally but repeatedly mistake "decision" for "confession" and whose regional accents can't be understood by some defendants. Nor is it just the lack of law experience of four of the five judge-and-jury panelists, one of whom couldn't describe the Geneva Conventions, the chief source of international law. Nor even the strange lack of assistance for defense attorneys while prosecutors are stacked up on one another.

John McCain has denied Olympic sprint champion Marion Jones' impassioned request to use his Senate committee as a forum to publicly answer questions about possible steroid use that could keep her out of the Summer Games. On Wednesday, Jones, in a San Francisco news conference, had called for a "public forum that will be open for the entire world to see, hear and evaluate." Jones suggested that the Senate - because of its visibility and interest in the issue - would be a better place to respond to drug-related allegations than the Colorado-based U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, which she called a "secret kangaroo court."