Testify

A military hearing for Army Pfc. Bradley Manning, the former intelligence analyst accused of giving classified materials about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to WikiLeaks, has been scheduled for next month at Fort Meade. The primary purpose of the Article 32 hearing is "to evaluate the relative strengths and weaknesses of the government's case as well as to provide the defense with an opportunity to obtain pretrial discovery," Manning's attorney wrote Monday on his website. The hearing is scheduled to begin Dec. 16 and is expected to last five days, according to attorney David E. Coombs.

Top executives of Constellation Energy Group and Exelon Corp. faced questions about reliability, local management of Baltimore Gas and Electric, and corporate governance Monday at the start of what is expected to be an exhaustive regulatory review of the proposed $7.9 billion merger of the two energy giants. Constellation Chief Executive Officer and Chairman Mayo A. Shattuck III and Exelon Chief Operating Officer Christopher M. Crane took the stand together during daylong questioning by an attorney representing the state and the Maryland Energy Administration.

Howard County school board members have agreed that they need to voice stronger opposition to a bill that would retool the seven-member, at-large, elected body to one with five members elected by district and two appointees. The bill, which requires legislative approval, will be discussed Tuesday at a public hearing. If passed during a special session this month, the legislation would take effect before the Jan. 11 school board primary filing deadline. Board Chairman Janet Siddiqui plans to testify at the hearing, and she asked board members this week for suggestions on rewording her previous testimony.

A city judge on Thursday lengthened the sentence of a man convicted of killing a 72-year-old security guard for the Afro-American newspaper after the suspect refused to testify against the accused gunman. Circuit Court Judge Lawrence P. Fletcher-Hill found Troy Taylor, 20, in contempt of court after he refused to answer questions from attorneys while on the witness stand. Fletcher-Hill added five months and 29 days onto Taylor's 35-year sentence for first-degree murder. Prosecutors called Taylor to testify against his friend, Michael Hunter, 20, who is accused of gunning down Vietnam veteran Charles Bowman during the April 8, 2010, robbery of a Chinese food carryout in Waverly that netted $13. The crime shook the North Baltimore community and led police to flood the area with extra officers.

It's been more than nine months since the tragic death of city Police Officer William H. Torbit Jr., who was killed by friendly fire from fellow officers in January as he tried to disperse an unruly crowd outside a downtown night club, and the public is still waiting for answers. Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake promised a prompt, independent investigation of the shooting, which claimed the life of an unarmed civilian and wounded several other people in addition to ending Officer Torbit's life.

The police officers involved in a fatal shooting outside a downtown club appeared Monday before a panel charged with reviewing the incident, but refused to answer questions. James K. "Chips" Stewart, the chair of the commission, said the city police officers declined to answer questions on the advice of their attorneys, who said they feared that the officers could face internal sanctions based on their testimony. "While they agreed with our overall goals, there were specific areas where they think their clients could be in definite jeopardy," Stewart said.

Former Baltimore pastor Kevin Pushia took the witness stand Thursday and outlined how he and two other men — one his occasional lover — conspired to kill a disabled man to collect the insurance money. Attorneys said he also discussed plans to attack a former boyfriend and claimed that a hired hit man, whom he paid $50,000 in church funds, came looking for other jobs shortly after killing a legally blind group-home resident named Lemuel Wallace in February 2009. The testimony, which is expected to continue Friday, came during the trial of Pushia's alleged conspirators: brothers Kareem Clea, who's accused of being the shooter, and James Omar Clea, who is accused of serving as a middle man in the arrangement.

The girlfriend of the man accused of fatally stabbing a Johns Hopkins researcher told a Baltimore jury Thursday that she initially lied to police and blamed her cousin for the killing to protect her boyfriend. "I didn't want Ya to go to jail for the rest of his life," Levelva Merritt testified, using the nickname of defendant John A. Wagner. Often fidgeting as she testified for more than an hour, Merritt described a robbery that had gone bad. Merritt, 25, admitted that she and Wagner, 38, had planned to rob someone, and that she willingly took part.

A roommate of a man charged with killing a Johns Hopkins researcher in Charles Village last summer testified Wednesday that moments after the attack the suspect said he "had robbed someone and that he had hurt him real bad. " Tyrine Williams told jurors that she and her boyfriend, Kevin Cosby, then tried to use the victim's stolen credit card at a nearby gas station on Howard Street, and that they planned to use the proceeds to buy drugs to...

Stephen Pitcairn got off the Bolt bus in Baltimore around 11 p.m. on July 25 last year, two days shy of his 24th birthday, and called his mother in Florida as he walked home from Penn Station, traveling north on St. Paul Street. "I always feel so safe when you're on the phone with me," she remembers him saying that Sunday night. They talked about the weekend, which he spent in New York City with his two sisters, and his plans to add a Saturday shift to his busy schedule as a Johns Hopkins cancer researcher.