Rasin

Maryland Chief District Judge Martha F. Rasin announced yesterday that she would quit the position and return to Anne Arundel County as a trial judge next month, ending a five-year tenure marked by progress in domestic violence cases and high-profile political clashes over staffing and court reform. Rasin, 53, said her job overseeing 35 courthouses, 108 judges and 1,500 employees has isolated her from the work she loves. "I entered the judiciary to be a trial judge on the District Court, and that is a wonderful, wonderful job," Rasin said yesterday.

The chief judge of Maryland's District Court defended her role in efforts to reform Baltimore's court system, labeling recent criticism by Mayor Martin O'Malley as "offensive." "The implication is that judges don't care about Baltimore City," a clearly piqued Judge Martha F. Rasin told a Senate subcommittee yesterday in Annapolis. "I take offense at that. We care about the city as much, if not more than other people." Rasin was responding to comments O'Malley has made in Annapolis and Baltimore in recent weeks questioning the judges' commitment to major reform.

Martha F. Rasin, an Anne Arundel County judge with a reputation for a strong legal mind and a patient manner, was named yesterday to head Maryland's District Court.In announcing his selection to one of the top three judicial jobs in the state, Chief Judge Robert C. Murphy of the Court of Appeals praised Rasin's energy and the skill she has shown administering Anne Arundel's District Court the past 11 months."I tell her I don't know when she can sleep with all the things she does," Murphy said.

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.

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.

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.

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."...

At 4:15 p.m. yesterday, 39 years to the day after he was arrested for a robbery and murder he says he did not commit, Walter Lomax walked out of Baltimore Circuit Court a free man. Beaming and surrounded by jubilant relatives and friends, he said, "Even though it's my freedom, it's their moment because they've supported me all these years." Hours earlier, a judge had granted the 59-year-old's motion to reopen his long-closed case, in which he was convicted of a convenience store robbery and killing that his lawyers say he could not have committed because his right arm was in a thick cast at the time.

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.

The woman sat handcuffed in front of Baltimore Circuit Judge Gale Rasin, freshly convicted of second-degree child abuse for beating her 8-year-old grandchild with a belt. She was 44, depressed, diagnosed with bipolar disorder and likely dealing with post-traumatic stress from being raped twice, according to a court medical report, yet she had received little treatment. Her father physically abused her growing up, and she, in turn, abused her own family, Rasin concluded during the hearing.