Magistrate

A cabal of corrupt corrections officers and members of the Black Guerrilla Family gang enjoyed nearly free rein inside the Baltimore City Detention Center, federal authorities allege, smuggling drugs and cellphones into the jail and having sexual relationships that left four guards pregnant. An indictment unsealed Tuesday names 25 people - including 13 women working as corrections officers - who face racketeering and drug charges. Twenty of the accused also face money-laundering charges.

Vernon Harry Wiesand, a retired attorney and police magistrate who was a former city Recreation and Parks Board president, died of stroke complications May 26 at the Anchorage Nursing Home in Salisbury. The former Mount Vernon Place resident was 92. Born in Baltimore and raised on Wilke Avenue, he was a 1938 City College graduate. He earned a degree at Western Maryland College, where he met his future wife, the former Shirley Jones. His son, Mark Wiesand of Kingsville, said his father overcame polio as a child and volunteered with charities active in disability work.

Vernon Harry Wiesand, a retired attorney and police magistrate who was a former city Recreation and Parks Board president, died of stroke complications May 26 at the Anchorage Nursing Home in Salisbury. The former Mount Vernon Place resident was 92. Born in Baltimore and raised on Wilke Avenue, he was a 1938 City College graduate. He earned a degree at Western Maryland College, where he met his future wife, the former Shirley Jones. His son, Mark Wiesand of Kingsville, said his father overcame polio as a child and volunteered with charities active in disability work.

On its face, this strikes me as a pretty good idea: Allow police or federal agents to use the "ping" signal or GPS in a suspect's cell phone to track him down and execute a warrant for his arrest. This seems like a reasonable and even wise use of "location technology. " It would likely save time and money, and give cops and marshals another tool in their efforts to bring the accused to the bar presto, pronto, post-haste. But not so fast. Magistrate Judge Susan K. Gauvey, of the U.S. District Court in Baltimore, just issued an exhaustive, 139-page opinion on this matter, saying it is no small matter - and raising the large matter of the Fourth Amendment.

A Mass of Christian burial for William F. Laukaitis, a former magistrate who served as Baltimore's postmaster for nine years, will be offered at 9 a.m. tomorrow at St. Philip Neri Roman Catholic Church, 6405 Orchard Road, Linthicum Heights.Mr. Laukaitis, who was 90 and lived in Homeland, died Wednesday at the Meridian Nursing Center-Homewood of complications from a broken hip.He returned to the practice of law for several years after his retirement from the post office in 1966. He had become postmaster in 1957, two years after resigning as Baltimore's chief police magistrate.

Charlotte Main Monaghan, one of Baltimore's first female police magistrates and a lawyer known for her compassion and equanimity, died Wednesday of heart failure at Sinai Hospital. She was 69.In May 1951, she was named a justice of the peace by Gov. Theodore R. McKeldin, who in 1952 appointed her magistrate of the Women's and Children's Court at the Pine Street police station.The state legislature's rejection of her reappointment in 1955 caused a furor, with politicians refusing to give women's groups an explanation.

George E. Heffner, a former member of the House of Delegates and a Baltimore County police magistrate who for many years was a stock-car racing enthusiast, died of a heart attack Wednesday at his Kingsville home. He was 85. Mr. Heffner was born and raised in Fullerton and attended St. Joseph parochial school. He left school to help support his family after the death of his father. During World War II, he served in the Navy as a mechanic. For many years, he was the owner of Putty Hill Garage and Towing, which he sold to a cousin in the late 1970s.

ATLANTA -- Lawyers for Richard Jewell, the security guard being investigated in the July 27 bombing at Centennial Olympic Park, filed court papers yesterday asking a federal magistrate to unseal any affidavits that were used to justify a series of searches of Jewell's property.Jewell's criminal defense lawyer, Jack Martin, said he is convinced that the searches of Jewell's house, truck and storage shed were unconstitutional because federal authorities did not have enough evidence against Jewell to justify them.

Howard L. Muhl Jr., a retired lawyer and former Baltimore County magistrate who had fought in the Korean War, died of renal failure Oct. 12 at St. Agnes Hospital. The longtime Catonsville resident was 79. Mr. Muhl was born in Baltimore and raised on South Monastery Avenue. He left City College in 1948 and enlisted in the Marine Corps, where he earned his General Educational Development certificate. While serving with the 1st Marine Division in Korea, Mr. Muhl participated in the Inchon landing in 1950.

Avrum K. Rifman, a former Baltimore Municipal Court judge and police station magistrate, died yesterday at the age of 85. He had been hospitalized with pneumonia.Services will be at 3 p.m. today at the Sol Levinson & Bros. funeral home, 6010 Reisterstown Road.Noted as a philosopher who enjoyed spinning tales and quoting such diverse literary figures as Shakespeare, Milton and Mencken, Mr. Rifman retired at the mandatory age of 70 as a juvenile court master.Born in Baltimore and a resident of Wabash Avenue for more than 40 years, Mr. Rifman was a 1922 City College graduate.

Maryland's federal bench has selected two new U.S. magistrate judges to fill an open position in the northern division of the state's U.S. District Court, based in Baltimore, and an expected vacancy in the Greenbelt southern division. Final interviews occurred this week, and the nominees are undergoing background checks, which could last six months, said Chief Judge Deborah K. Chasanow. She declined to release the nominees' names until "they're ready for actual appointments. " But sources familiar with the selection process identified the two nominees.

William I. Weinstein, a retired attorney and former Baltimore County magistrate, died of multiple myeloma July 26 at Sinai Hospital. He was 82 and lived in Northwest Baltimore. He was born in Baltimore, raised on Ridgewood Avenue and was a 1945 City College graduate. He met his future wife, Loraine Goldsmith, in 1945, when he was 17 years old and she was 15. "It was at my 15th birthday party," his wife said. "My best friend, Dolly, brought him, and my mother said, 'That's the kind of guy I'd like you to marry.

The Orioles are putting together a kangaroo court, with catcher Gregg Zaun as judge. One of the most famous courts was here in the early 1970s, with Frank Robinson perhaps the most famous kangaroo magistrate in baseball history. (For more, go to baltimoresun.com/schmuckblog)

Howard L. Muhl Jr., a retired lawyer and former Baltimore County magistrate who had fought in the Korean War, died of renal failure Oct. 12 at St. Agnes Hospital. The longtime Catonsville resident was 79. Mr. Muhl was born in Baltimore and raised on South Monastery Avenue. He left City College in 1948 and enlisted in the Marine Corps, where he earned his General Educational Development certificate. While serving with the 1st Marine Division in Korea, Mr. Muhl participated in the Inchon landing in 1950.

George E. Heffner, a former member of the House of Delegates and a Baltimore County police magistrate who for many years was a stock-car racing enthusiast, died of a heart attack Wednesday at his Kingsville home. He was 85. Mr. Heffner was born and raised in Fullerton and attended St. Joseph parochial school. He left school to help support his family after the death of his father. During World War II, he served in the Navy as a mechanic. For many years, he was the owner of Putty Hill Garage and Towing, which he sold to a cousin in the late 1970s.

The old Cap'n Buddy sported flashy rings as he crowed about his good fortune. A Rolex on his wrist, he covered his feet in snakeskin boots and boasted on a homemade Internet video that he's "old and bold and full of gold." Today the captain is a little less full. After a two-year sting operation in which federal agents posed as law-breaking hunters, 73-year-old Levin Faulkner Harrison III pleaded guilty yesterday to overseeing the illegal killing of Canada geese in excess of the daily limit.

Edward Charles Wilson Jr., a Harford County trial magistrate for more than 25 years and a conservationist, died of congestive heart failure Tuesday at Lorien Nursing and Rehabilitation Home in Riverside. He was 90.Born in Darlington, Mr. Wilson graduated from Bel Air High School in 1924 and worked full time while taking evening classes at University of Maryland Law School. After graduation in 1928, he opened a law office in Bel Air."I asked him if he was nervous doing that" straight out of school, said his daughter Carolyn W. Keenan of Baltimore.

For more than 26 years, Clarence E. Goetz held the same job in Baltimore, making him the longest sitting U.S. magistrate judge in the nation. Yesterday, he stepped down from the bench, saying so long to his colleagues and friends during a crowded courthouse ceremony.But Goetz, the chief magistrate in the Maryland district, says he's not ending his run but beginning another -- with a new family and a new future as a mediator in Baltimore."It's like I'm starting a whole new life," said Goetz as he leaned back in a leather chair in his eighth-floor chambers yesterday, a sweeping view of the city behind him. "I'm starting all over."

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- A British man was arrested yesterday at a London subway stop and charged with murder in the deaths in Massachusetts last month of his wife and 9-month-old daughter. At a news conference here, Middlesex County District Attorney Martha Coakley said Neil Entwistle, 27, "may have found himself in financial trouble" when he apparently took a .22-caliber handgun belonging to his father-in-law and committed what may have been intended to be a murder-suicide. "Obviously the murder was [carried out]

Milton H.F. Saul, an attorney who served as an assistant city solicitor, a police magistrate and a state licensing official, died of heart failure July 18 at his Charles Street home. He was 87. Born in Virginia, he grew up in Baltimore, graduating from Forest Park High School in Baltimore. He earned a degree from the Johns Hopkins University and went into the Army during World War II. Mr. Saul achieved the rank of sergeant and served in India and Southeast Asia. He earned his law degree from the University of Maryland School of Law after he returned from the military and went into practice with his father, A. Walter Saul.