Trial

Roberto Pagan-Franco didn't have a bank account for decades. His employer paid him in cash or with a check that the Baltimore resident took to a check-cashing store. A few years ago he lost his job after a severe illness and for a time was homeless. Not exactly the type of customer you'd expect a big bank to court. But Pagan-Franco enrolled in a PNC Bank program that targets consumers who otherwise might be shut out of the banking system. And today, the 54-year-old has checking and savings accounts at PNC and is in the process of getting a credit card.

Maryland has hosted 1,775 clinical trials for new medicines targeting six major chronic diseases since 1999, including 369 that are still in the early stages of recruiting patients, according to a study by two pharmaceutical industry groups released Friday. The report assessed the economic impact of clinical trials in the state, noting that the industry helped support 81,000 jobs, total employee salaries of $1.9 billion and $71 million in Maryland taxes as of 2008. More than half of the continuing clinical trials in the state are occurring in Baltimore, at the University of Maryland Medical Center and Johns Hopkins University, the report found.

Maryland Live! Casino at Arundel Mills will have its grand opening at 10 p.m. June 6, casino officials announced Thursday morning. The grand opening still requires approval by the Maryland Lottery, which will oversee a trial run to take place before June 6. The announcement comes as the state slots commission on Thursday considers a bid to open a casino in Rocky Gap, in Western Maryland, by Evitts Resort LLC. The commission also has yet...

They crawled through muddy trenches. They did sit-ups in the Severn River. They performed a mock evacuation of an injured pilot. And they kept on going. Midshipmen completing their first year at the Naval Academy endured the rigorous 14-hour Sea Trials on Tuesday. The annual training exercise put the approximately 1,000 plebes through 30 challenging events from predawn darkness through late afternoon. "One, two, three, 10," hollered plebes of the 10th Company as they counted squats in the water before flopping backward with a roar.

George Huguely V sits in the corner of a narrow, white room, at the end of a long wooden table, looking every bit the college athlete who just rolled out of bed after a normal night out — but for the bloody scratches ringing his right ankle. Hours earlier, he had used that leg to drunkenly kick in his girlfriend's bedroom door, he tells Charlottesville detectives, during a 64-minute recorded interrogation into the fatal beating of Cockeysville native Yeardley Love. The public got its first look at the video Tuesday, two years after it was made, on the morning of May 3, 2010, and nearly three months after Huguely was convicted of second-degree murder in Love's death at her University of Virginia off-campus apartment.

A Baltimore City Circuit Court judge has ruled that a lawsuit over mold in one of the ritzy Harborview condos can proceed to trial. Paul C. Clark, who bought a penthouse at the Inner Harbor complex for more than $1.1 million in 2009, is suing Zalco Realty and the 100 Harborview Drive Council of Unit Owners for $5 million. He contends that the defendants knew of water and mold problems before his purchase but issued him a "resale certification" that stated they were aware of no building or health code violations.

President Barack Obama came into office pledging to close the Guantanamo Bay detention center in Cuba and to try terrorist suspects in U.S. courts rather than in military tribunals overseas. Yet, a year and a half into his presidency, Mr. Obama still has not succeeded in closing the facility, and the first trial of a terrorist suspect opened there this week before a military tribunal. That trial is rightly being closely watched now as a bellwether of how the Obama administration plans to deal with the thicket of political, legal and ethical issues raised by the Guantanamo facility's role in the war on terror.

The jury has returned guilty verdicts on all counts against Jerome Williams, 17, and Charles McGaney, 22, two of three men who were on trial for the murder of former Baltimore City Councilman Kenneth N. Harris. A third defendant, Gary Collins, 22, was found not guilty of murder, but was found guilty of assault and weapons charges. More to come...

The manslaughter and carjacking trial of Charles Johnson III, who's accused of killing three Baltimore teens in a car crash last year after blowing through a red light in a stolen vehicle, was postponed Friday until Oct. 3. Assistant Public Defender Jane E. McGough requested the delay so she could arrange for an independent evaluation of Johnson's mental health records. The 20-year-old has already been found competent to stand trial by state evaluators, but McGough said she wants an outside opinion.

The murder trial of three men accused of killing former City Councilman Kenneth N. Harris was postponed Monday because one defense attorney is in trial with another client and a second lawyer needs more time to investigate the case. The state also needs time to respond to a defense motion, filed by Jason Silverstein on Christmas Eve, seeking to throw out certain DNA evidence as illegally obtained. The new trial date for defendants Charles McGaney and Gary Collins, both 21, and Jerome Williams, 17, is April 30. The three young men are accused of fatally shooting Harris in the early morning of Sept.

George Huguely V sits in the corner of a narrow, white room, at the end of a long wooden table, looking every bit the college athlete who just rolled out of bed after a normal night out — but for the bloody scratches ringing his right ankle. Hours earlier, he had used that leg to drunkenly kick in his girlfriend's bedroom door, he tells Charlottesville detectives, during a 64-minute recorded interrogation into the fatal beating of Cockeysville native Yeardley Love. The public got its first look at the video Tuesday, two years after it was made, on the morning of May 3, 2010, and nearly three months after Huguely was convicted of second-degree murder in Love's death at her University of Virginia off-campus apartment.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Michael Phelps remembers this as the city where he "came back," prompting his coach Bob Bowman to ask with mock innocence, "from where?" Bowman well knows, of course, that Phelps was referring to swimming his first race, the Charlotte UltraSwim Grand Prix in 2009, after returning from a suspension after a photo of him with a marijuana bong surfaced. This weekend, he competed here for the last time, another stop in the valedictory lap he has been taking as he trains for his fourth and final Olympics this summer.

Political consultant Julius Henson's attorney used a stack of fake oversized money, invoked slavery and called prosecutors' election fraud case against his client a "bunch of bull-honky" during his closing argument Wednesday afternoon. Using props, charts and a blend of humor and outrage, Edward Smith Jr. talked to the jury for an hour, shifting his style between folksy and erudite. He quoted lyrics from the song "Backstabbers" by the O'Jays, showed jurors a photo of what he called a "twisted" man meant to represent the prosecution, and recommended that the deputy state prosecutor "just walk out the door right now" rather than present his arguments.

The judge presiding over the trial of two brothers accused of assaulting a teen in Northwest Baltimore plans to give her ruling in the case Thursday afternoon. Baltimore Circuit Judge Pamela J. White has heard a week of arguments in the bench trial of Eliyahu Werdesheim, 24, and his brother, Avi Werdesheim, 22. After the prosecutor and defense attorneys completed their closing statements Wednesday afternoon, White told them that she expects to issue her verdict at 3 p.m. Thursday.

Is The Sun's news department or its editorial staff aware that a former Democratic presidential candidate and vice presidential nominee, John Edwards, is being tried in criminal court in Greensboro, North Carolina for using campaign funds he raised to pay off the woman he was having an affair with and who bore his child? You must not, because The Sun has carried few (brief) stories and no editorials about it. Look it up. It's true. Did you just miss it? J. Shawn Alcarese, Towson

It is all too common in city courts to see witnesses reluctant to testify, even under threat of imprisonment, or developing amnesia over what had happened in front of them. But this week, it was not a bystander but the alleged victim himself who clearly wanted to be anywhere but the courtroom where prosecutors were trying to get justice for him. As The Baltimore Sun's Tricia Bishop reported, Corey Ausby basically shut down on the stand, a tearful 16-year-old wanting nothing to do with the case against two brothers he accused of beating him while they were on a neighborhood watch patrol in Park Heights.

A s she concluded the first week of an already contentious trial, Judge Gale E. Rasin remarked that she was still optimistic that civility could be taught. But then, one of her would-be students, who had left the courtroom after a brief and quite civil appearance, chose that moment to burst back in, her previous calm suddenly turned into righteous anger. "Excuse me," she declared to Rasin, "the detective man threw this in my face." She waved a pink slip of paper, which looked like the summons that had been handed to (not thrown at)

Though just two Baltimore officers accused of taking kickbacks from Majestic Auto Repair are on trial this week in federal court, witnesses, prosecutors and attorneys have broadly described police behaving badly . One of the defendants falsified police reports to curry favor with a woman, and he let a drunken driver who had just crashed his car stumble into a liquor store, according to witnesses. Another officer, who previously pleaded guilty, falsely reported his personal vehicle stolen because he couldn't make the payments, according to one witness, while another officer used the Rosedale body shop for on-duty rendezvous with women, a defense attorney alleged.

A storm of recriminations and denials followed the publication of "The Politician," but the testimony inJohn Edwards' criminal trial reads like the book's key chapters. The former senator from North Carolina is accused of accepting more than $900,000 in illegal campaign contributions while seeking the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination. Prosecutors say he used the money to bankroll his mistress, Rielle Hunter, rather than his campaign. The defense says the money was a personal gift, unrelated to the campaign.