Sitting Judges

Maryland Circuit Court judges periodically have to run for re-election. Five are up in Baltimore County this year, and four foes are challenging them. Five of the nine candidates will survive, but it can be any combination of sitting judges and challengers. So the judges are running against their challengers and, in effect, against each other.This requires judges to go on the stump like any other candidates for office. It demeans them and the very concept of justice that responds to the law, not to public opinion.

Cecil County voters Tuesday picked their first nominees for the office of county executive and for the first two seats on their new county council. They also voted to retain two of their sitting circuit court judges, rejecting the challenge to the judges posed by one of the county's state delegates. Voting was light, with more Republicans showing up to the polls than Democrats. The Democratic and Republican county executive nominees chosen Tuesday, who will square off in the November general election, are both women, which means the first person to hold the office of Cecil County Executive will be a female.

Three sitting judges are running unopposed in the March 3 primary election, but their election committee has already spent $8,290 for about a dozen billboards around the city -- and more billboards will appear as Election Day approaches.The three Baltimore Circuit judges -- Andre M. Davis, Paul A. Smith and Joseph P. McCurdy Jr. -- are pictured on the blue and white billboards that are being paid for by the Committee to Retain Sitting Judges.The judges were appointed by Gov. William Donald Schaefer and must run in the first statewide election after their ascension to the bench to retain their judgeships.

Two and a half decades after he graduated from law school and hung out a shingle, Clarke F. Ahlers is challenging two sitting judges in Howard County, creating what will be at least a three-way contest for the Circuit Court bench. Ahlers filed candidacy paperwork Tuesday. Administrative Judge Lenore R. Gelfman, who is completing a 15-year term, and Judge William V. Tucker, who was sworn in Dec. 29, filed Thursday, according to the State Board of Elections. Candidates must file by Jan. 11. The Columbia lawyer said he thought he'd make a good judge after handling different types of cases — most of his work is criminal defense and representation of law enforcement officers in various circumstances, though he does some civil cases.

Two statewide organizations endorsed sitting Circuit Judges Donna Hill Staton and Diane O. Leasure yesterday in their bids to retain their seats in the Nov. 5 judicial election.Members of the Maryland State Bar Association and the Maryland chapter of Women Veterans of America said they chose the sitting judges over their challengers -- District Judge Lenore R. Gelfman and Jonathan Scott Smith -- because of their judicial temperament and experience.The state bar group's announcement was actually a "reinforcement" of its earlier endorsement of Hill Staton and Leasure in last spring's primary and its opposition to contested judicial elections, said spokeswoman Janet Eveleth.

While no sitting judge has ever been defeated in Baltimore County, the five men who currently hold places on the Circuit Court bench are nevertheless campaigning hard against four aggressive challengers.All nine candidates have filed in both Democratic and Republican primaries. The winners will each be elected to a 15-year term as judge, a job that pays $89,000 a year.The sitting judges -- Edward A. DeWaters Jr., Thomas J. Bollinger Sr., J. Norris Byrnes, Robert E. Cahill Sr. and Christian M. Kahl -- are running as a team.

Almost two dozen Howard County attorneys called a news conference yesterday to reinforce their support for sitting Circuit Judges Donna Hill Staton and Diane O. Leasure, saying their judicial temperament and competence should earn them election to seats on the bench."

Because of the way the election is set up for Circuit Court judges in Maryland, Tuesday's primary in Anne Arundel County could decide which two of the three candidates win the general election and 15-year terms on the bench. That has kept all three candidates campaigning during the hot summer in a contest overshadowed by the statewide governor's contest and higher-profile county races. Ronald Jarashow, 60, of Annapolis and Laura Kiessling, 46, of Edgewater are seeking to retain the judgeships to which they were appointed in January by Gov. Martin O'Malley.

Book offers honest look at teen life As an educator and a high school librarian, I am appalled and disappointed that, in the 21st century, we are still dealing with the suppression of information ("Book-banning decision defended," April 11). In all my classes on young adult literature, I had to study, review and write about the books of Robert Cormier, the author of The Chocolate War. Mr. Cormier has mastered the art of young adult literature. And in his novels, Mr. Cormier presents the lives of young people in a realistic yet often disturbing light.

Not since grade-school seating charts have last names been so important. The three sitting Baltimore Circuit Court judges running in Tuesday's primary are worried that they'll lose their places on the bench because voters might simply check off the first three of the six names on the ballot. Their late-alphabet names -- Rasin, Themelis and Williams -- have caused them such concern that campaign literature urges people to "vote from the bottom up." This is the first contested city judicial election in eight years, and a sitting judge has not lost to a newcomer in 24 years.

The supposedly nonpartisan, three-way contest for two Howard County Circuit Court judgeships has produced no debates over courtroom issues -- but is highlighting a quirk in the state's electoral system that appears to give the nonincumbent challenger an edge in Tuesday's primary. Ellicott City lawyer David A. Titman has battered appointed sitting judges Louis A. Becker and Richard S. Bernhardt with charges that they are compromising their integrity by accepting campaign donations from lawyers.

The Maryland Constitution calls for state trial court judges to stand for election. It also requires that they be practicing lawyers who are "most distinguished for integrity, wisdom and sound legal knowledge." But one doesn't necessarily ensure the other - and that is the basic problem with the current system. Most trial judges in Maryland were first appointed to the bench, which is provided for in the constitution. Candidates and their credentials are reviewed and vetted by an impartial nominating commission, which recommends a list of potential appointees to the governor.

Before voters cast a single ballot this election year, Baltimore County Circuit Judge Mickey J. Norman already knew the name of at least one opponent planning to vie for his judicial seat in 2006. It was a political reality that the brand-new judge expected in this age of hotly contested judicial elections - just not so soon. "I think my expectation was that one or more people would announce they would run for my seat sometime next summer," said Norman, who was named to the 16-member bench in June by Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. "Historically, I don't think anyone has announced so far away from a general election."

Two challengers and one judge were leading the field in the race for three Anne Arundel County Circuit Court seats, leading to the possibility that the county could return to an all-white bench for the first time in nearly a decade and oust sitting judges for the first time in 28 years. With all precincts reporting but absentee ballots not counted, the three top finishers were, in order: Paul G. Goetzke, counsel to Annapolis' mayor; Judge Michele D. Jaklitsch; and Paul F. Harris, a lawyer in private practice in Glen Burnie.