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The former Anne Arundel County teacher whose sexual relationships with students embarrassed school officials and prompted statewide reforms has terminal cancer and wants to die in a hospice instead of a prison.Ronald W. Price is asking an Anne Arundel County circuit judge to release him from prison so that he can be moved "for humanitarian purposes."Price, 53, is dying of lung cancer.The former Northeast High School teacher was convicted of sexually abusing three female students in 1993.His case drew widespread attention after he said on the nationally syndicated "Geraldo!"

A federal court refused yesterday to hear arguments that Ronald Walter Price's efforts to keep secret the contents of his sex-with-students movie contract have anything to do with the First Amendment, saying the case should not have been filed there in the first place.In unusually strong language, U.S. District Judge Frederic N. Smalkin called the effort to get the case moved to federal court "a transparent ploy" to delay action and threatened to fine the former Northeast High teacher's lawyers $2,500.

Howard County is expected to get an $800,000 windfall later this month as part of bankruptcy proceedings for an Ellicott City businessman convicted of tax evasion.County Executive Charles I. Ecker said the money -- most of the delinquent taxes owed by Fred Waters Allnutt Sr. -- will go into the county's general fund."This is a rather large sum," Mr. Ecker said. "We're very fortunate to get it."Mr. Ecker said the money will not be earmarked for specific programs in the fiscal 1996 operating budget that he will unveil next week.

Republican Richard D. Bennett launched his campaign to be Maryland's top lawyer yesterday by promising to do a better job of enforcing state purchasing laws than the Democratic incumbent.Mr. Bennett, who hopes to secure his party's nomination for attorney general, said he would work harder to see that the state follows rules designed to keep government purchases "aboveboard."Maryland has legally sidestepped those laws during the term of Attorney General J. Joseph Curran Jr., most notably by awarding a contract last year to provide the keno lottery game without seeking other bidders, he said.

There's no sign advertising this oddity. But last week I discovered "9 out of 10," that snappy slogan for the number of people using BellAtlantic Yellow Pages, refers to a whole different group of consumers in Glen Burnie.It also supposedly stands for the number of men who indulge in X-rated entertainment.That's right -- 92 percent of men 18 and older are said to be poring over skin flicks and girlie magazines in Glen Burnie.This startling statistic was passed on by an attorney for Magura Enterprises,which opened an adult video and bookstore at the corner of Crain Highway and a peaceful, residential street.

One of the victims of Ronald Walter Price filed an $8 million suit in Anne Arundel Circuit Court yesterday, alleging that the former Northeast High School teacher sexually exploited her and that school officials were negligent in letting it happen.The suit, filed by a 17-year-old Pasadena girl and her parents, alleges that county school officials "knew or should have known" of Price's sexual relations with other female students before he became involved with the girl in 1991.The suit maintains that school officials should have taken corrective steps, either counseling Price or dismissing him, to prevent the relationship, which lasted from December 1991 to April 1993.

Ronald Walter Price, the Northeast High social studies teacher and softball coach at in Pasadena who has admitted having sex with several former students, resigned yesterday.Mr. Price, who had been collecting his $45,650 annual salary while appealing his suspension by school Superintendent C. Berry Carter II, resigned by way of a certified letter Friday. The letter was not opened until yesterday because of the Memorial Day holiday, said Jane Doyle, a spokeswoman for the Anne Arundel County Board of Education.

NEW YORK -- A student crying that she'd been betrayed. A parent warning a teacher at the neighborhood high school to stay away from her daughter. A lawyer taking pains to say that the girls his client had sex with were not virgins. A teacher insisting that his attraction to teen-age girls resulted from forces beyond his control.The saga of Ronald Walter Price, the social studies teacher and softball coach who has admitted to having sex with four of his students, hit the talk-show circuit yesterday, as Mr. Price and his attorneys joined parents and teachers for a taping of "Geraldo!"

An Anne Arundel Circuit Court judge ruled yesterday that Maryland's "Son of Sam" law is unconstitutional and that Ronald W. Price may keep profits from any book or movie deal he makes.In the first challenge to the law, Anne Arundel Judge Eugene M. Lerner ruled that it violates Mr. Price's First Amendment free speech rights. The provision is too similar to a New York statute ruled unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1991, Judge Lerner said."We certainly do not mean to suggest in our analysis that we somehow reject the notion that 'crime does not pay,' " the judge wrote in a 17-page decision.

After hearing three women break down and cry as they described how he seduced them, Ron Price was asked by a reporter if he had any remorse for what he had done.He had nothing to say -- for once.The man who for five months granted television and newspaper interviews, admitted his crimes on "Geraldo!" and confessed his lustful thoughts to the Washington Post, was finally doing what most people who face criminal charges do. Keeping quiet.While Price's crimes and his loquacious ways may inspire a television movie, they also are likely to land him a considerable prison term when he is sentenced next month by Anne Arundel County Circuit Court Judge Eugene M. Lerner.