Maryland Law

For Eddie Germino, being unemployed for a time last year worked to his advantage in a dispute with his Maryland landlord. Germino, 27, had moved out of the house where he had lived with other students. Now he was trying to get his security deposit back. "Since I had so much free time," he says, "I was able to do all the legal research and make all the calls and write all the letters. " And his efforts paid off. A court ordered the landlord earlier this year to pay Germino $2,700 — three times his original deposit.

The Howard County Council adopted a $923.5 million general fund spending plan Thursday that increases allocations for schools and police while not raising income or property taxes. The council voted 4-1 to approve the budget, roughly $2.7 million higher than the proposal made a month ago by County Executive Ken Ulman. The dissenting vote was cast by Councilman Greg Fox, the council's lone Republican, who criticized spending practices several times during the two-hour session. Fox wrapped up his remarks after the vote with a display of black, pointy wizard hats, each representing a new fund that he said appears suddenly, as if by magic, every year in the budget while some basic needs go unfunded.

A Hunt Valley attorney who admitted to having his employees sign his name to foreclosure documents was found by a Baltimore County judge to have violated three of Maryland's rules of professional conduct for lawyers, according to court records. Thomas P. Dore engaged in behavior that was "prejudicial to the administration of justice" by "routinely and repeatedly" filing "with the courts affidavits purportedly signed by him and attested to by notaries" he employed, according to court documents.

A task force appointed last year by Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake to study the city's speed and red-light camera program violated Maryland law when it met behind closed doors in March, the state Open Meetings Compliance Board ruled this week. The task force also violated the open-meetings law by not giving reasonable advance notice of meetings and by failing to take proper minutes, the board said in the ruling published Monday. While the decision carries no penalty, a judge could assess a $100 fine on members who "willfully" participated in the meeting.

When Whitney Watts of Columbia agreed to bear twins on behalf of an infertile Boston couple two years ago, she entered a murky area of Maryland law. Nothing forbade her from signing a contract to carry babies conceived through in vitro fertilization and implanted in her uterus. But neither were there guarantees that Maryland courts would enforce the contract if something went wrong. To this day, such questions are left up to individual judges. Watts' experience had a happy ending, despite serious complications that arose midway through her pregnancy.

In two articles last month about a Maryland law limiting mail solicitation by lawyers, quotes about a marketing letter and the new law were incorrectly attributed to attorney David Lutz. The comments were made by Lutz' law partner, David Fischer.The Sun regrets the errors.Craig Garfield's postage bill plummeted about $500 this month. And he's plenty angry about it.Garfield, a Baltimore lawyer who specializes in serious traffic cases, is one of about two dozen local attorneys who owe their thriving practices, in part, to an aggressive marketing strategy: direct mail.

Suspects arrested for violent crimes or burglaries will again have to submit to DNA collections, officials with several Maryland law enforcement agencies said Thursday. A day after U.S. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. authorized the practice to resume, at least temporarily, a number of police departments said they had decided to collect samples as they await further word from the high court. Maryland Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler has asked the Supreme Court to decide whether collecting the genetic information before a person is convicted violates the Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure.

REESE -- Carol Everett said she became involved in the abortion industry "believing I was helping women exercise their right to choose a safe, legal abortion."But, she told about 35 people in a speech here last night, "The reality is that I was involved in the murder of 35,000 babies and the maiming or death of at least 20 of those mothers."Sponsored by the Vote kNOw Coalition of Maryland, Ms. Everett has several speaking engagements across the state, in addition to last night's appearance at Clearfield Bible Church.

A state appeals court declared unconstitutional yesterday a Maryland statute that prevents employers from using strikebreakers, ruling that such labor laws are the domain of federal regulators.The Court of Special Appeals ruled that the 66-year-old National Labor Relations Act pre-empts a state law that blocked use of temporary agencies to hire replacement workers during a strike.The court's decision affirmed a July 25 ruling by Prince George's County Circuit Judge Steven I. Platt to dismiss a suit by the Professional Staff Nurses Association.

Lesbian and gay activists are challenging a 1916 Maryland law they say criminalizes their sex lives. Their lawsuit is part of a national campaign to wipe off the books similar state laws across the country.The activists and civil libertarians have targeted Maryland and other states -- such as Arkansas -- which they say have laws that single out homosexuals.Maryland's law makes it illegal for people of the same gender to engage in oral sex. They can face up to 10 years in prison under the law. The law makes anal sex illegal for all. Though the plaintiffs concede the criminal laws are rarely enforced against people engaging in consensual sex behind closed doors, they say the anti-sodomy law has other ramifications.

There are flagrant, undefined loopholes in Maryland's abortion law. That's what letter writer Jeffrey D. Meister, director of administration and legislation for Maryland Right to Life, would have us think ("Maryland has de factor abortion on demand," May 17). What do "health" and a minor's "best interests" mean under Maryland's abortion law? Their plain meaning is derived from an ordinary understanding of the words, most often found in a dictionary. That's the analysis favored by Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.

A hunter, a mother and a minister are featured in new advertisements touting Maryland's new gun law, which was signed last week and represents one of the nation's most sweeping pieces of gun-control legislation passed this year. The ads, released in advance, will begin airing on Baltimore-area television stations this week. Produced by proponents of the new gun law, the ads are intended to educate residents about the new law and protect lawmakers who voted for it.  The version to be broadcast nixes lines from earlier scripts that criticized Washington for inaction on gun-control.

I read with interest Del. Samuel I. "Sandy" Rosenberg's critique of Marta Mossburg's interpretation of abortion law ("Mossburg wrong on Md. abortion law," May 9). Though the lawyer-politician has great knowledge and experience in many areas of Maryland law, his interpretation is not accurate here. In objecting to Ms. Mossburg's statement, "Abortion is virtually available on demand throughout a pregnancy," Mr. Rosenberg cites the specific abortion statute, noting that abortion is legally permissible when "necessary to protect the life or health of the woman or if the fetus is affected by genetic defect or severe deformity or abnormality.

Katherine L. Vaughns, a University of Maryland School of Law professor and secretary of the Center Stage board who immersed herself in the arts community, died of pancreatic cancer May 4 at a Sinai Hospital hospice unit. The Bolton Hill resident was 68. "She was a great, great citizen of Baltimore," said Jed Dietz, director of the Maryland Film Festival. "We dedicated the opening night of the Maryland Film Festival to her. She was the most perfect board member. She did more than you asked, often before you asked.

Why doesn't Baltimore's schools CEO need teaching experience, like other superintendents in the state? It was a question on the mind of many education observers last week, after hearing that the city's schools chief is not bound by the same requirements. It was also an issue of confusion for city school officials who, early in the day Tuesday, believed Tisha Edwards, 42 - who will soon become the city's interim schools CEO - would need to apply for a state waiver because while she has been a principal, she has never been a teacher.

I write as someone who supports making reproductive choices available to all women, not as one of "those who support 'choice' at all costs," one of many misleading characterizations in Marta Mossburg's recent commentary ("After Gosnell, Md. should rethink late-term abortion," May 8). "Abortion is virtually available on demand throughout a pregnancy," she asserts. Under Maryland law, if the fetus is viable, an abortion may be performed only if "necessary to protect the life or health of the woman or if the fetus is affected by genetic defect or serious deformity or abnormality.

WITH the dropping of state charges against Linda Tripp, she passes from history and need never trouble her fellow Marylanders again. Some will wonder what this federal civil servant does at the Defense Department to earn a salary in a classification for which she does not appear qualified, and whether she will go on doing it. But that is a minor matter. Linda Tripp is world famous for violating Maryland's law against recording a telephone call when one of the parties does not know it is being recorded.

In the Dunloggin, Beaverbrook and Font Hill neighborhoods of Howard County, residents say they've spent thousands on home generators and on food to replace the stuff that spoils when the power goes out for days. There have also been other expenses, they say: motel stays, flashlights, lanterns, gas hot plates and long, heavy-duty extension cords - the kind used to hook up to a neighbor's generator. "You see people running across the street with extension cords," said Cathy Eshmont, who lives in Dunloggin, one of several Ellicott City neighborhoods where residents say they've contended for years with frequent power failures.

State health officials don't know how often Marylanders use medications mixed in facilities lacking safety oversight, like a Massachusetts facility linked to three deaths here, but a newly passed law could tell them — and help demonstrate a gap in federal regulation. Batches of sterile drugs from so-called compounding pharmacies will be subject to state review under the measure Gov. Martin O'Malley signed this month. And pharmacists and doctors who perform compounding, in which drugs are somehow altered from their Food and Drug Administration-approved form, will face an extra layer of permits and inspections for drugs used in Maryland.