Weathersbee

A career Anne Arundel prosecutor was chosen Thursday as the county's new state's attorney, making her the first woman to hold the position as the top prosecutor in the county. Anne Colt Leitess, 49, will complete the 18 months remaining in the term of longtime State's Attorney Frank R. Weathersbee, 69, who retires Tuesday to accept a gubernatorial appointment to the state Parole Commission. The position has an annual salary of $160,730. Leitess, of Crownsville, said she plans to seek election to the post in 2014.

He's come out on top in six contested elections as a Democrat in an increasingly conservative county, and has withstood criticism that he's both too soft and too tough, appeased minorities and disappointed minorities, said too little and said too much. He's been on the job a quarter-century, long enough to get his typewriter replaced by a computer with a flat-screen monitor, see defendants' locations pinpointed by cellphone towers and have DNA emerge as a key tool in criminal cases.

Occasionally, we are left to wonder whether a case that came sealed in leak-proof Tupperware would be airtight enough for Anne Arundel County State's Attorney Frank Weathersbee.Mr. Weathersbee faces a difficult fight for re-election this fall, which is largely his own fault. His history of non-aggressiveness makes him a perfect target for challengers who sense the public's thirst for get-tough justice. Inexplicably, he seems oblivious to this. One would think he would be trying to adopt a bolder persona, especially since Republican John Greiber, a tenacious bulldog of a candidate, started yapping at his heels.

A career Anne Arundel prosecutor was chosen Thursday as the county's new state's attorney, making her the first woman to hold the position as the top prosecutor in the county. Anne Colt Leitess, 49, will complete the 18 months remaining in the term of longtime State's Attorney Frank R. Weathersbee, 69, who retires Tuesday to accept a gubernatorial appointment to the state Parole Commission. The position has an annual salary of $160,730. Leitess, of Crownsville, said she plans to seek election to the post in 2014.

Nine people have applied to be the next state's attorney for Anne Arundel County, according to a news release from the county's Circuit Court. Frank R. Weathersbee is retiring effective June 11 to accept a gubernatorial appointment to the state Parole Commission. The county's Circuit Court judges will select a replacement to serve the remainder of Weathersbee's term, which expires in 2014. Weathersbee has said he would like to see his deputy Thomas J. Fleckenstein replace him, drawing fire from county Republicans, who have alleged he is "interfering" in the judges' decision.

Incumbent Anne Arundel County State's Attorney Frank Weathersbee appears to have won a sixth term in a tight contest, after an absentee ballot count increased his lead Friday over his Republican opponent. "I think we won, yes," Weathersbee said Friday night. The additional ballots widened the Democrat's lead over attorney Eric Grannon, who practices mostly antitrust and business law, to 3 percent of the vote from 2 percent. Late-arriving absentee ballots as well as provisional ballots have yet to be counted.

After months of name-calling and enough dueling statistics to confuse a mathematician, the state's attorney's race in Anne Arundel County boils down to two qualities: experience and credibility. Incumbent Democrat Frank R. Weathersbee possesses both; Republican John R. Greiber Jr. does not.Think about this: If you are charged with a crime, you want an experienced criminal lawyer to defend you. By the same token, citizens want the person prosecuting criminals to possess some expertise in the field.

The cookie never crumbles the right way for Anne Arundel County State's Attorney Frank Weathersbee, does it?He's an experienced and credible prosecutor, yet his whole career has been dogged by the perception that he's soft, that he lets the big fish get away more often than a prosecutor ought.He enjoyed a brief respite from his travails after last November's election, when he held onto his job despite being a Democrat in a year when Democrats were as popular as cyanide, and despite a no-holds-barred challenge by an opponent who made him sound as if he were giving criminals keys to the detention center.

The decision by the Anne Arundel County prosecutor to drop murder charges against the suspects in the JoAnne S. Valentine murder set off a flurry of finger-pointing last week. State's Attorney Frank R. Weathersbee lambasted the public defender's office for trying to embarrass him by not revealing sooner that one of the defendants was in jail when the nightclub owner from Arnold was murdered. Public Defender Alan R. Friedman blamed the police and state's attorney for shoddy detective work.

Nine people have applied to be the next state's attorney for Anne Arundel County, according to a news release from the county's Circuit Court. Frank R. Weathersbee is retiring effective June 11 to accept a gubernatorial appointment to the state Parole Commission. The county's Circuit Court judges will select a replacement to serve the remainder of Weathersbee's term, which expires in 2014. Weathersbee has said he would like to see his deputy Thomas J. Fleckenstein replace him, drawing fire from county Republicans, who have alleged he is "interfering" in the judges' decision.

Anne Arundel County's Circuit Court judges this week began the process of selecting a new state's attorney to replace Frank R. Weathersbee, who is retiring to accept a gubernatorial appointment to the state Parole Commission. But as the application process opened, Anne Arundel Republicans leveled criticism at Weathersbee, alleging that he's "interfering" in the judges' choice by supporting one of his deputies to take over. "The State's Attorney's efforts to skirt not only the democratic process, but also a fair appointment process, are nothing but 'inside baseball' politics at their worst," said Alan Rzepkowski, chairman of the Republican State Central Committee of Anne Arundel County, in email remarks.

Longtime Anne Arundel County State's Attorney Frank R. Weathersbee is retiring from the position he's held for 25 years to become a member of the state's Parole Commission. His appointment was announced Wednesday by Gov. Martin O'Malley. Weathersbee, 69, a prosecutor for four decades, said he will “retire” June 11, and start on the commission the next day amid “mixed emotions.” “I've got an opportunity to do something else and stay kind of in the field, so I am going to take it,” said Weathersbee, a Democrat.

The words "victims" and "celebration" don't often go hand in hand, but this week the Historic Courtroom of the Circuit Court Building in Annapolis hosted a Victims' Rights Week Celebration honoring residents and criminal justice professionals who work with victims of crime. The Victim-Witness Unit, a department of the county state's attorney's office that works to help victims of all types of crime, organized Wednesday's ceremony and luncheon. The unit has victim-witness specialists based in county courthouses.

Incumbent Anne Arundel County State's Attorney Frank Weathersbee appears to have won a sixth term in a tight contest, after an absentee ballot count increased his lead Friday over his Republican opponent. "I think we won, yes," Weathersbee said Friday night. The additional ballots widened the Democrat's lead over attorney Eric Grannon, who practices mostly antitrust and business law, to 3 percent of the vote from 2 percent. Late-arriving absentee ballots as well as provisional ballots have yet to be counted.

Frank R. Weathersbee, Anne Arundel County's longtime chief prosecutor, said he plans to seek a sixth term in office, one that would make him among the longest-tenured state's attorneys in Maryland. The Democrat has not set a timetable for announcing his 2010 candidacy, when he expects to bring out the "Weathersbee for State's Attorney" signs from previous campaigns. Weathersbee, 65, has been a key player in the county's criminal justice system through more than a generation. In addition to specialized investigation and prosecution units, the office has programs to divert criminal cases from court.

The selection of Dario Broccolino as Howard County's permanent state's attorney ends months of uncertainty over who will get the post. Broccolino, a 63-year-old career prosecutor, has served as a deputy in the office since 1999 and became interim state's attorney in December. He said he was "obviously pleased with the selection" by the three Circuit Court judges who last week announced their unanimous choice, but added it's too soon to decide if he will run for a full four-year term in 2010.