Special Appeals

Opponents of a 4,300-home planned community near a state forest in eastern Allegany County have asked the state's highest court to review whether local officials acted properly in approving the project. A lawyer for a group of residents opposed to Terrapin Run filed an appeal with the Maryland Court of Appeals challenging the development's approval in 2005 by the county Board of Zoning Appeals. The appeal is the latest move in a two-year political and legal dispute over the development, which would create Allegany's second-largest community if built as planned.

Ten months ago, the Maryland Court of Special Appeals overturned the child molestation conviction of James T. Brown Jr. because his trial had been delayed many times in Baltimore Circuit Court.The court's action brought to light problems in the city's court system that led to large-scale reforms, including a crackdown on trial delays and construction of courtrooms.Yesterday, the court reinstated Brown's conviction, ruling that his constitutional right to a speedy trial was not violated because any delay did not harm his defense.

Bruce C. Bereano, one of Annapolis' top lobbyists, will appeal to Maryland's highest court to overturn a suspension of his lobbying license, his attorney said yesterday. The Court of Special Appeals issued an amended ruling yesterday, reiterating its November decision that upheld Ethics Commission sanctions against the lobbyist for entering into a contract that paid him in part based on his success at securing government work for a client. Bereano is fighting a 10-month suspension of his lobbying license and a $5,000 fine.

A Pasadena woman should not have continued to collect weekly death benefits two years after her husband died because she had started to earn a living and was no longer dependent on the compensation, the Maryland Court of Special Appeals said yesterday.The court reversed a 1996 order by the Anne Arundel County Circuit Court that the three employers of the late Chester W. Martin continue paying his wife weekly death benefits.Patricia Martin had claimed in 1994 that she was still dependent on the money after receiving $45,000 because she was only earning a small fraction of her husband's income.

Ellicott City residents fighting proposed development near a picturesque house with history took their battle to Annapolis yesterday. Three judges with the Court of Special Appeals heard the case, which has worked its way through the Howard County Planning Board, Board of Appeals and Circuit Court. The residents say they want to protect the Keewaydin Farm House, built in 1913 by James Clark, who later became a Howard County Circuit Court judge and was the father of former state Sen. James Clark Jr. The 10.2-acre estate is off Old Columbia Pike.

Deborah Sweet Byrnes, a civil trial lawyer from Towson, was named yesterday to a seat on the Court of Special Appeals, the state's second-highest court.Gov. Parris N. Glendening also appointed James A. Kenney III, a St. Mary's County attorney, to a seat on the 13-judge court.Byrnes, 44, has been a litigator with the firm of Whiteford, Taylor & Preston since 1980. She has mainly worked on the defense side of civil cases, often on behalf of doctors and hospitals. She became a partner in the firm in 1989.

Judge Paul E. Alpert retired Oct. 1 from his seat on the Court of Special Appeals -- not that anyone would notice.After a surprise 60th birthday gathering in September at the Ocean City condominium where his family used to stay, he went right back to work hearing appeals. Now, he'll be on loan to the city, scheduled to hear criminal cases beginning this week through the end of the year, as a retired judge."We're very, very happy to have him come on board, said Judge Joseph H. H. Kaplan, administrative judge of the Baltimore City Circuit Court.

Theodore G. Bloom, a retired Maryland Court of Special Appeals judge known for opinions peppered with literary references, died of pancreatic cancer complications Saturday at Anne Arundel Medical Center. He was 81 and lived in Annapolis. "He was a beloved figure in the Maryland judiciary," said Joseph F. Murphy, chief judge of the Court of Special Appeals. "His mind was razor-sharp, and he quoted beautifully from poetry and song. He was a real scholar with an appreciation for literature."

A Maryland appeals court overturned the lion's share of one of the largest legal judgments in state history yesterday, finding that First Union National Bank violated its contract with a Catonsville businessman but did not defraud him. The panel of Court of Special Appeals judges struck down $239 million of the $276 million jury award against the bank, now Wachovia Corp. The judges let the remaining damages stand after affirming the breach-of-contract judgment. It's a significant setback for software company owner Scott Steele, whose attorneys successfully argued in Baltimore Circuit Court last year that First Union double-crossed him after he sped up its loan approval process with a computerized system.

State prosecutors are considering whether to appeal a Court of Special Appeals decision overturning the battery conviction of a Lutherville man for choking and beating his former girlfriend at his home in 1995.The state's second highest court on July 15 voided the conviction of Haralabos S. Stavrakas, 26, saying the jury should have been told it could consider his argument that the woman was trespassing.The court cited incomplete instructions to the jury in voiding the conviction. Stavrakas, a restaurant worker, was convicted in December of beating Meghan Fowble, an Alex.