Rasin

After years of steadfast resistance, Maryland's two top judges agreed yesterday to assign a judge to Baltimore's jail, defusing a political battle with state lawmakers who threatened to cut the court's funding.The surprise turnabout comes as the judiciary comes under increasing scrutiny by lawmakers because Baltimore's courts are so backlogged that serious criminal charges, even murder, have been dismissed.The move follows a report last week by public safety officials which determined that $21 million could be saved, and hundreds of cases could be handled, if a full-time judge with jurisdiction over felony and misdemeanor cases staffed a jail-house courtroom that has sat mostly empty for two years.

STATE HOUSE lobbyist and convicted felon Bruce C. Bereano took over an Anne Arundel County courtroom last week to try to save his law license.A fixture in State House circles since the mid-1970s, Bereano called in friends from all reaches of his life to vouch for his character and his fitness to practice law.The parade of 39 witnesses provided a remarkable glimpse of the good will an energetic lobbyist can generate over a quarter-century.Rep. Steny H. Hoyer, for whom Bereano worked when Hoyer was president of the Maryland Senate, praised him for drafting environmental legislation that Hoyer sponsored and won political credit for.Former Del. Kay G. Bienen of Prince George's County described how Bereano, at her request, helped get her daughter out of jail after a brush with drugs and crime.

Maryland District Court Chief Judge Martha F. Rasin's warm testimony in support of lobbyist and convicted felon Bruce C. Bereano this week did not violate rules of judicial conduct or ethical standards, experts and state officials said yesterday.Rasin was among 39 witnesses who vouched for Bereano's character during a hearing Tuesday as the gregarious lawyer-lobbyist fought to avoid being disbarred for a 1994 mail fraud conviction.Montgomery County Circuit Judge Nelson W. Rupp Jr. and District of Columbia Superior Court Judge Richard Levie also testified for Bereano, with each saying that Bereano's felony conviction had not diminished their high opinions of him.Experts on judicial ethics said in interviews yesterday that they saw no problem with Rasin and the other judges testifying on Bereano's behalf.

Police in Federalsburg said yesterday that a retired steel worker fatally shot his daughter in their Caroline County home Saturday and then killed himself.Officer Robert Horseman of the Federalsburg City Police Department said evidence gathered at the Charlotte Avenue home of Charles L. Rasin Sr., 67, indicated he shot his daughter, Rosemarie E. Rasin, 44, in the head with a .22-caliber handgun and then shot himself in the chest with a .30-caliber rifle.Both weapons were found near the bodies, Horseman said.

MARYLAND'S TWO top jurists' reluctant about-face on assigning a judge to Baltimore's jail is a move in the right direction. But until the details are worked out, this seeming concession might fairly be viewed as little more than a way to save the judiciary from the legislature's threatened budget ax.Chief District Judge Martha F. Rasin has amply documented her opposition to assigning a judge to Baltimore Central Booking and Intake Center. Her views have not changed. "I stand by my assessment that it is not the best use of judicial resources," she told a legislative hearing in Annapolis on Tuesday.

Rejecting a proposal that could save taxpayers as much as $7 million a year, Maryland's District Court chief said in a report to the General Assembly that she will not provide a judge for the Baltimore Central Booking and Intake Center courtroom.Instead, Judge Martha F. Rasin is recommending that the state use more video technology, place more pretrial inmates in home detention and get cases in court faster to save court and pretrial detention costs. "There's no need for the judge to go to the jail in order to achieve the objectives," Rasin said yesterday.

THE CHIEF OF Maryland's district courts has reiterated her opposition to placing a district judge inside the Central Booking and Intake Center in Baltimore.The decision by Chief Judge Martha F. Rasin increases the need for a misdemeanors community court, one of the best ideas brought back from New York in 1996 by a City Council delegation pushing hard for "zero tolerance" police tactics.Misdemeanor cases clog the system at Central Booking. A circuit judge sets up shop at the facility once a week to handle felonies, but that is only 20 percent of the caseload.

Chief Judge Martha F. Rasin of the District Court of Maryland tossed boxes of raisins and urged graduates to be true to themselves during yesterday's commencement of the University of Baltimore's School of Law.The 317 graduates and 2,200 spectators at the Lyric Theater in Baltimore gave a standing ovation to the University of Baltimore alumna.Rasin advised the budding lawyers to follow their inner compasses in choosing their law careers, whether they decide to focus on community service or to work for prestigious firms.

Maryland District Court Chief Judge Martha Rasin said yesterday she has "no intention" of proposing a site for the city's 3rd District courthouse that is outside South Baltimore.The courthouse, an idea that has languished for 15 years, was to have been built on a state-owned parcel in Brooklyn, but recent tests showed methane in the ground, forcing Rasin and the Department of General Services to look for a new site.Rasin had said Monday that "we may need to put the courthouse in a different part of the city" -- a comment that angered some legislators.

Baltimore County legislators are girding for a renewed campaign to retain District Court facilities in Owings Mills and Dundalk, even as a long-debated plan to close those court operations is to move forward with the start of the new year.With state law requiring the facilities to be closed by 1999, officials will begin to reduce the number of cases heard at the Owings Mills location starting next month, said Martha F. Rasin, chief judge of Maryland District Court.Noting security problems at the Owings Mills facility, the judge said only small claims civil cases will be heard there.

No matter how official Maryland responds to the swine flu threat, there will be second-guessing. So Montgomery County schools Superintendent Jerry Weast wants to remind everyone that decision-makers are human beings. To quash any doubts about that, he pointed out at a news conference Friday that some of those human beings are even in charge of little human beings. Like Gov. Martin O'Malley, whom Weast praised for calling him three times in one day. "One time he called me, and in the background I could hear what I have heard when I was raising my own children," Weast said.

A 20-year-old with the intelligence of a middle-schooler was sentenced Wednesday to 61/2 years in prison for the voluntary manslaughter of another man during a brawl at a family barbecue that began over a PlayStation video game. The victim, Irvin Conley, 24, was one of the few people at the house in the 4300 block of Glenmore Ave. who wasn't related to the large family holding the party. He was also one of the few people involved in the fight who didn't have a substantial criminal record, prosecutor Robin Wherley said.

Even in Baltimore, the judge noted, the murder of a child still shocks. So when Frankie L. Taylor stood before Baltimore Circuit Judge Gale E. Rasin last month and told her he had missed his very first meeting with his probation agent on March 24, 2008 - the day after she gave him a break from prison on a drug charge - because his 1-year-old son had been hit in the head by a stray bullet and killed, it "sucked all the oxygen from this courtroom."...

A Baltimore judge has thrown out a city jury's murder conviction and ordered a new trial in the case of a man accused of stabbing a friend with whom he was peddling stolen tools. Circuit Judge Gale E. Rasin told a stunned prosecutor last week that she was setting aside the jury's Sept. 19 verdict at the defense's request because the witnesses had radically changed their stories from one hearing to the next - a fact that the jurors couldn't grasp without watching a recording of the previous hearing.

Mark Castillo, the man accused of drowning of his three children in the bathtub at an Inner Harbor Hotel, didn't feel like coming to court yesterday. He cried, shook, covered his ears with his hands and smart-mouthed the judge, turning what was expected to be a perfunctory hearing into a two-hour battle of wills. Castillo had been brought to court to confirm the written withdrawal of his insanity plea, which Baltimore Circuit Judge Gale E. Rasin granted in June. But his transport from Clifton T. Perkins Hospital Center, a state psychiatric facility, prevented the 42-year-old from receiving his Prozac.

A Montgomery County man accused of drowning his children in a bathtub at an Inner Harbor hotel is competent to stand trial, dismiss his attorneys and plead guilty to the killings, a Baltimore Circuit judge ruled yesterday. Mark Castillo, who is charged with three counts of first-degree murder, requested and was granted time to decide what he wants to do. Judge Gale E. Rasin, however, said that she was reserving judgment on whether she would allow Castillo to represent himself at a trial, should he choose to plead not guilty.

A Montgomery County man charged with drowning his children in the bathtub of an Inner Harbor hotel told a judge yesterday that he has been trying to plead guilty to the crimes for five months but that his public defenders have blocked him from doing so. Mark Castillo, 42, asked Baltimore Circuit Judge Gale E. Rasin to permit him to fire his public defenders and represent himself. Earlier this summer, Castillo instructed his attorney to withdraw his plea of "not criminally responsible" - Maryland's equivalent to an insanity plea - which a judge granted in June, according to court records.

The events that led to the early-morning slaying of a Marine reservist a year ago began around dinnertime with a fight outside a Fells Point grocery store. Yesterday , two participants pleaded guilty to assault-related charges in that initial confrontation, and one of them agreed to testify against the man accused of stabbing Michael LaMaris Simms, 18, about eight hours later on the border of Washington Hill and Butcher's Hill. Simms is believed to have come to the aid of two friends involved in a large fight that had carried over from the grocery store.

To the victim's family, Walter Lomax is - and will always be - the man who 39 years ago shot to death Robert L. Brewer, the night manager of a Brooklyn food market. To the defendant's friends and family, Walter Lomax is a poet and an activist - a man who was wrongly convicted and spent 39 years behind bars before a Baltimore judge freed him by suspending his life prison sentence. Those two groups, equally fervent in their beliefs, gathered again yesterday in Baltimore Circuit Court. This time, Lomax, 59, was asking the judge who ordered his release five months ago to end his unsupervised probation, his final tether to the criminal justice system.

On February 4, 2007, MILTON G. CLEM, JR.; beloved husband of Kimberly; devoted father of Haley; grandson of Betty Rasin; son of Virginia Clem; brother of Shaun Clem and Ashley Hamilton. Also survived by step-sister Rachel Rasin, two nieces and many aunts, uncles and cousins. A Memorial Service will be held Tuesday, February 13, 10 A.M. at Our Lady of Pompei Church, 200 Blk S. Conkling Street.