Journalist @baltimoresun writer artist runner #amwriting Chaplain PIO #partylikeajournalist

Journalist @baltimoresun writer artist runner #amwriting Chaplain PIO #partylikeajournalist
Journalist @baltimoresun writer artist runner #amwriting Md Troopers Assoc #20 & Westminster Md Fire Dept Chaplain PIO #partylikeajournalist
Showing posts with label Judiciary. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Judiciary. Show all posts

Tuesday, June 28, 2016

Maryland Reporter: Getty in red earns bipartisan praise




Gov. Larry Hogan swore in his chief legislative officer, Joe Getty, to the Court of Appeals at the State House Monday, with a big heaping of bipartisan praise. Getty brings an unusual range of experience to Maryland's highest court, having served as a Republican delegate and senator from Carroll County and chief legislative officer to both Hogan and Gov. Bob Ehrlich, in addition to his private law practice. He offers "an invaluable and unique perspective," said Hogan.

GETTY SWORN IN AS JUDGE: Joseph M. Getty, who has served in two branches of Maryland government, joined the third branch of state government Monday when he was sworn in as a judge on Maryland's highest court, writes Ovetta Wiggins in the Post.

Gov. Larry Hogan said Getty, 64, is smart, fair, reasoned, logical and has a great sense of history, writes Heather Cobun for the Daily Record. "I have the utmost confidence that he will continue to serve the state of Maryland with great honor and distinction," Hogan said.

Getty, donning his new red robes, gained bipartisan praise, Len Lazarick writes in MarylandReporter.com.




+++++++++++++++++++++

Getty sworn-in to Md. Court of Appeals

June 27, 2016 by Kevin Dayhoff


Joseph Getty was sworn in Monday morning in the House of Delegates chamber in the Maryland State House in Annapolis to represent the 3rd Appellate Judicial Circuit on the state's highest court.

Getty, a Manchester resident and former Republican state senator representing Carroll County, had most recently served as Republican Gov. Larry Hogan's chief legislative officer. He was appointed to the Maryland Court of Appeals on June 1 to fill a vacancy created by the retirement of Judge Lynne Battaglia.

Friends, family, former and current judges, and members of the General Assembly filled the legislative chamber to witness Hogan administer the oath of office for Getty to become the fifth judge from Carroll County to sit on the Court of Appeals since 1867.

Many speakers at the ceremony mentioned that Getty also made history by having served in all three branches of Maryland government — the legislative, executive branches and now the judiciary. It was a point not missed by local historian, Jay Graybeal, the former executive director of the Historical Society of Carroll County; a position also held by Getty from 1987 to 1994.





http://kbetrue.livejournal.com/501338.html*****

Monday, June 27, 2016

Joe Getty sworn-in to Md. Court of Appeals


Getty sworn-in to Md. Court of Appeals

June 27, 2016 by Kevin Dayhoff



Joseph Getty was sworn in Monday morning in the House of Delegates chamber in the Maryland State House in Annapolis to represent the 3rd Appellate Judicial Circuit on the state's highest court.

Getty, a Manchester resident and former Republican state senator representing Carroll County, had most recently served as Republican Gov. Larry Hogan's chief legislative officer. He was appointed to the Maryland Court of Appeals on June 1 to fill a vacancy created by the retirement of Judge Lynne Battaglia.

Friends, family, former and current judges, and members of the General Assembly filled the legislative chamber to witness Hogan administer the oath of office for Getty to become the fifth judge from Carroll County to sit on the Court of Appeals since 1867.

Many speakers at the ceremony mentioned that Getty also made history by having served in all three branches of Maryland government — the legislative, executive branches and now the judiciary. It was a point not missed by local historian, Jay Graybeal, the former executive director of the Historical Society of Carroll County; a position also held by Getty from 1987 to 1994.

Thursday, May 01, 2014

MIKULSKI, CARDIN APPLAUD SENATE CONFIRMATION OF HAZEL AND CHUANG FOR MARYLAND DISTRICT COURT SEATS

MIKULSKI, CARDIN APPLAUD SENATE CONFIRMATION OF HAZEL AND CHUANG FOR MARYLAND DISTRICT COURT SEATS

Senators Recommended Hazel and Chuang for Federal Bench to President Obama

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senators Barbara A. Mikulski and Ben Cardin (both D-Md.) today applauded the Senate’s confirmation of George Jarrod Hazel and Theodore David Chuang to fill vacancies on the United States District Court for the District of Maryland, Southern Division, located in Greenbelt. Senators Mikulski and Cardin recommended Hazel and Chuang to President Obama for these positions on the federal bench.  The Senate confirmed the nominations of Hazel, who currently serves as the Chief Deputy State’s Attorney for Baltimore City, and Chuang, who currently serves as Deputy General Counsel of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

“I applaud today’s confirmation of George Hazel and Theodore Chuang to serve on the U.S. District Court of Maryland, and was proud to recommend them for the job,” Senator Mikulski said. “When I consider nominees for the federal bench, I have four criteria: absolute integrity, judicial competence and temperament; a commitment to core constitutional principles, and a history of civic engagement in Maryland. George Hazel and Theodore Chuang not only meet these standards, they exceed them.  Maryland deserves to have highly qualified judges who will uphold the law to provide equal justice for all, and we have that in these two men.”

“Committed and principled judges are critical to a healthy judicial system and I am confident that George Hazel and Theo Chuang are two Marylanders who will serve with distinction on the United States District Court for the District of Maryland, Southern Division that sees an incredibly diverse case load,” said Senator Cardin. “Mr. Chuang has a broad range of legal experience in all three branches of the federal government, and is the son of immigrants from Taiwan who came to America seeking freedom and a better life for their family. Mr. Hazel has fought to keep our communities safe as a prosecutor, and is an active member of local organizations. Both have a strong record helping to provide access to justice to low-income residents in our state.”

Mr. Chuang will occupy the seat currently held by Judge Roger Titus who has advised the President of his intention to take senior status in January 2014.  Mr. Hazel will fill the seat formerly held by Judge Alexander Williams, who retired in May 2013.

MR. THEODORE DAVID CHUANG

Theodore David Chuang, of Bethesda MD, currently serves as Deputy General Counsel of the United States Department of Homeland Security, where he has worked since 2009.  Chuang received his J.D. magna cum laude in 1994 from Harvard Law School and his B.A. summa cum laude in 1991 from Harvard University.

Prior to his current position, Mr. Chuang served as Chief Investigative Counsel for the U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce in 2009 and Deputy Chief Investigative Counsel for the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform from 2007 to 2009.  He also spent six years as an Assistant United States Attorney and two years in the Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice. 

MR. GEORGE JARROD HAZEL
George Jarrod Hazel, of North Potomac, MD, has served as the Chief Deputy State’s Attorney for Baltimore City since 2011.  Hazel received his J.D. in 1999 from Georgetown University Law Center and his B.A. cum laude in 1996 from Morehouse College.

Before his position with the Baltimore State’s Attorney’s Office, Mr. Hazel served as an Assistant United States Attorney in the District of Maryland from 2008 to 2010 and as an Assistant United States Attorney in the District of Columbia from 2005 to 2008.  He began his legal career in private practice at Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP in Washington, D.C. from 1999 to 2004. 
*****

Saturday, March 22, 2014

Female lawyers: Still must dress conservatively to impress judges.



Female Lawyers Who Dress Too “Sexy” Are Apparently a “Huge Problem” in the Courtroom

By Amanda Hess
[...]

 "Judges who school female attorneys on how to dress are annoying, and the limitless choices of the female wardrobe are confusing. But having the opportunity to dress differently can also have its benefits. Lynn told Farmer that while a bold fashion choice was a risky move, it “could draw attention to you and away from your opponent” in a positive way. 

A recent Harvard Business School study found that while dressing distinctly might compromise a person’s access to “shared group identity and automatic group trust,” it can also make her appear confident and influential. In 2009, a federal judge complained that he’d seen an attorney argue her case looking like she’d stopped in “on her way home from the gym.” Then again, that woman won her case. "

Read more:  http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2014/03/21/female_lawyers_still_must_dress_conservatively_to_impress_judges.html?wpisrc=newsletter_jcr:content&mc_cid=8a4a616e2d&mc_eid=b27361148d

'via Blog this'
*****

Tuesday, March 18, 2014

Baltimore’s Rosewood scandal: Wealthy families sprang asylum inmates to be servants.

Baltimore’s Rosewood scandal: Wealthy families sprang asylum inmates to be servants.: "Crooked lawyers sprang inmates from an asylum to make them slaves.

By Jesse Bering"


http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_examiner/2014/03/baltimore_s_rosewood_scandal_wealthy_families_sprang_asylum_inmates_to_be.html?wpisrc=newsletter_jcr:content&mc_cid=f6af3629f2&mc_eid=b27361148d 

The Rosewood Center (née the Maryland Asylum and Training School for the Feeble Minded, est. 1888) is an abandoned mental hospital on the outskirts of Baltimore. The state closed its doors only in 2009 after a mountain of angry complaints involving understaffing, patient abuse, and neglect. Much of the rotting old bedlam now lies in ruins or is caked in thick soot, the aftermath of a recent suspected arson. But even in this dilapidated state, its imposing presence stirs up a sense of the foreboding.
Like many overwhelmed psychiatric facilities built around the turn of the last century, Rosewood had been dogged by shameful accusations for a long time. The most scandalous—the one that sets Rosewood apart from other asylums—was made by Leo Kanner on May 13, 1937. Before a hushed gathering at the annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association in Pittsburgh, Kanner shared the shocking tale of “the Rosewood girls.” It’s not a story most people know about today, but it’s an important reminder of just how destructive an upper class with an unchecked sense of entitlement can be, and how vital it remains to safeguard the interests of those who can’t do so for themselves. It also forces us to revisit an uncomfortable moment in our nation’s history when the practice of eugenics—human breeding for socially desirable attributes, such as intelligence—was viewed by even the most progressive human rights advocates as humane and ethical.
Read more; http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_examiner/2014/03/baltimore_s_rosewood_scandal_wealthy_families_sprang_asylum_inmates_to_be.html?wpisrc=newsletter_jcr:content&mc_cid=f6af3629f2&mc_eid=b27361148d  

'via Blog this'

*****

Thursday, March 06, 2014

Md high court finds ground-rent law unconstitutional By Timothy B. Wheeler and Jamie Smith Hopkins Baltimore Sun Feb 26, 2014

Md high court finds ground-rent law unconstitutional By Timothy B. Wheeler and Jamie Smith Hopkins Baltimore Sun Feb 26, 2014

Md. high court finds ground-rent law unconstitutional

State can't take away ability to seize and sell homes over unpaid ground rents, court rules



Maryland's highest court tossed out Wednesday the heart of an ambitious legislative effort to stop homeowners from losing their property over unpaid rent on the ground beneath their houses.

The Court of Appeals ruled that the law violated the rights of "ground-rent" owners by taking away their ability to seize and sell the homes of tenants who don't pay, then keep the proceeds. Allowing owners to bring foreclosure proceedings instead was not a reasonable substitute, the court said.

The decision throws into doubt sweeping 2007 changes to a Colonial-era system under which many homes in Baltimore and around the state sit on ground that is owned by a leaseholder. Homeowners on those properties are legally required to pay rent, usually twice a year, to the holder of the ground rent.





Md high court finds ground-rent law unconstitutional By Timothy B. Wheeler and Jamie Smith Hopkins Baltimore Sun Feb 26, 2014
*****

Wednesday, February 26, 2014

Gov. Martin O'Malley appoints twenty-three judges - By Ian Duncan

Gov. Martin O'Malley appoints twenty-three judges

Baltimore police lobbyist, veteran public defender and senior prosecutor get jobs - By Ian Duncan, The Baltimore February 24, 2014


 Gov. Martin O'Malley appointed 23 people to fill judicial posts Monday, promoting a number of sitting judges and placing some prominent lawyers on the bench.

Among the governor's five appointees to District Court in Baltimore are James Green, the head of government relations for Baltimore police, and David Brian Aldouby, a veteran public defender. He promoted three District Court judges to the city's Circuit Court, and also appointed two other lawyers to fill empty spots.


*****

Sunday, January 17, 2010

'After visiting the courthouse, Baltimore writer wonders "Can we get free?"'


Baltimore Brew has posted a new item, 'After visiting the courthouse, Baltimore
writer wonders "Can we get free?"'

by R. DARRYL FOXWORTH

Doestoevsky astutely noted that the “degree of civilization in a society can
be judged by entering its prisons.”

I thought about that recently as I entered into the Clarence M. Mitchell, Jr.
Courthouse, Circuit Court for Baltimore City.

My mother, an employee of the courts, imparted upon me a legitimate fear and
skepticism of the judicial system; I remember, as a youth, visiting her at work,
and witnessing the seemingly interminable line of young black men, handcuffed
and demoralized, being led into and, out of, various courtrooms. It rubbed me
wrong, it frightened me; I couldn’t allow that to be my fate.

You may view the latest post at
http://baltimorebrew.com/blog/2010/01/17/after-visiting-the-courthouse-baltimore-writer-wonders-can-we-get-free/

*****
Kevin Dayhoff Soundtrack: http://www.kevindayhoff.net/ Kevin Dayhoff Art: http://www.kevindayhoffart.com/ Kevin Dayhoff Westminster: http://www.westgov.net/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/kevindayhoff Twitpic: http://twitpic.com/photos/kevindayhoff Kevin Dayhoff's The New Bedford Herald: http://kbetrue.livejournal.com/

Saturday, October 04, 2008

How much for the Heller case lawyers?

How much should the Heller lawyers be paid for winning the case against the DC gun law?

A controversy is growing over the proper payment of the three lawyers who handled the Heller case that result in the DC gun law being struck down as unconstitutional.
The trio make their case today in the Examiner.

How much for the Heller case lawyers?

Alan Gura, Robert A. Levy, and Clark Neily, Guest columnists 10/3/08

Prevailing parties in civil rights cases are entitled to a "reasonable" attorney's fee. We are the attorneys who represented Dick Heller in the landmark Supreme Court case striking down Washington, D.C.'s handgun ban on Second Amendment grounds, and we have asked the court to award us $3.5 million for six years of litigation.

The Washington Post has characterized that request as "adding insult to injury" and a "windfall" to which we are not entitled. The Post's editorial is long on rhetoric but short on analysis. In fact, the $3.5 million request is perfectly reasonable under existing court precedent.

The purpose of the fee-shifting provision is to ensure "vigorous enforcement" of civil rights laws, especially when monetary damages are not available and the claimants may not be able to afford competent legal counsel. To attain that goal, prevailing lawyers should receive a market rate for their efforts.

[…]

With respect to our recorded hours, the total was under 3,100 for three lawyers over six years. No reasonable person could consider those hours excessive, particularly considering that we were up against more than a dozen lawyers – some of them eminent Supreme Court practitioners – from the D.C. Attorney General's office and three of the nation's largest and most elite law firms.

[...]

More:
How much for the Heller case lawyers?

20081003 How much for the Heller case lawyers

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

20080528 Washington Examiner Editorial: Revenge, not statesmanship, blocking Bush’s nominees to undermine courts

Revenge, not statesmanship, blocking Bush’s nominees to undermine courts

It is difficult not to think of two words — lies and hypocrisy — when reviewing the promises and foot dragging on President Bush’s judicial nominees by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy of Vermont. These two senators have arbitrarily blocked scores of qualified nominees without even giving them the courtesy of a committee vote.

[…]

As for Leahy, he is becoming infamous for ignoring his own stated standards for judicial nominations. Leahy has said American Bar Association ratings are “the Gold Standard by which judicial candidates are judged,” but now he is denying committee votes to nominees unanimously given the ABA’s highest rating…

[…]

Read the entire editorial here: Revenge, not statesmanship, blocking Bush’s nominees to undermine courts

####

4 hrs ago - Revenge, not statesmanship, blocking Bush’s nominees to undermine courts

1 day ago - Environmentalism is not about the environment

2 days ago - Right on entitlement reform

4 days ago - Hall of Shame for Capitol Hill GOP

5 days ago - Legalized property theft by Alexandria

6 days ago - Chill out on global warming

7 days ago - A shocking lack of accountability

8 days ago - Aspiring presidential wives aren’t exempt from discussion

9 days ago - Pigs in the trough on Capitol Hill

11 days ago - Telling the truth on polar bears, global warming

Sunday, May 18, 2008

20080516 Free speech at Columbia, 40 years later

Free speech at Columbia, 40 years later

Retrieved from “The Daily Judge” on Friday, May 16, 2008

http://www.thedailyjudge.com/

Forty years ago Gus Reichbach, a Columbia U. law student, was disciplined for his role in the student protests. Law profs later tried to block his admission to the bar. Eventually he became a judge. The other day he was back at Columbia Law to speak at a 40th anniversary event.

An NYT reporter was interviewing him when a campus cop came up and shut down the interview because the reporter hadn't gotten advance permission.

"I guess things haven't changed that much," the reporter quotes the judge as saying.

Corey Kilgannon, Columbia Protester, Now a Judge, Returns to Campus (NYT 04.26.2008).

[…]

Related: Free Speech

20070925 Text of President Ahmadinejad’s speech at Columbia

September 26, 2007 The Priceless Right to Free Speech Kevin E. Dayhoff

It has certainly been an interesting week for the exercise of our sacred right to freedom of speech in the United States. Various recent developments in this most cherished of rights provided a rich target environment for the news media, constitutional scholars, and pundits alike.

Certainly at the top of most anyone's kerfuffle was the arrival of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in New York on Sunday. In particular, there was his subsequent paradoxical pilgrimage to Columbia University on Monday.

As much as I am concerned, to say the least, about what it is that the Iranian president says, my problem is more with Columbia University's persistent inconsistencies about the sacred right to free speech.

The esteemed institution piously, self-righteously, if not - condescendingly - proclaims to be the standard-bearer for a "long-standing tradition of serving as a major forum for robust debate," according to Columbia's president, Lee C. Bollinger.

Oh, pul-leeze! Columbia University extended an invitation to President Ahmadinejad, who many believe represents a country involved in the killing of Americans in uniform fighting in Iraq. However, the very military and its ROTC program, which defends our freedom of speech, are banned from the Columbia campus.

And that is just one example of the hypocrisy of the institution. Wouldn't it be wonderful if Columbia were to extend the courtesy to all Americans of varying political ideologies that it so easily extended to President Ahmadinejad?

Many are singing praises for Columbia President Bollinger for his stinging rebuke in the introduction of his guest. Then again, there are those of us who understand the paradox of President Bollinger's heroic Shakespearian soliloquy as a convenient - if not hypocritical - response to a conundrum he synthetically manufactured.

Read the rest here: The Priceless Right to Free Speech or here: 20070926 The Tentacle: The Priceless Right to Free Speech by Kevin E. Dayhoff

Saturday, February 25, 2006

20060224 Kelly’s Dream Deferred by Kevin E. Dayhoff

Related:

Another Case of Cronyism in the Ehrlich Administration by Progressive Maryland: Gov. Ehrlich has been called on his cronyism once again, this time in Allegany County. His nominee for Allegany’s District Court bench, friend and former colleague Del. Kevin Kelly, has been judged unfit for the job and summarily rejected by a judicial nominating commission made up of the governor's own appointees. The Allegany lock, The Baltimore Sun

Or find it here: 20060218 Another Case of Cronyism Progressive MD

Baltimore Sun: 20050828 Politics fills space around judicial vacancy by David Nitkin and Jennifer Skalka

20060217 “Vacant judge position filled” By David Nitkin

Vacant judge position filled Ehrlich picks Cumberland solicitor for seat that had been empty since 2004 By David Nitkin Sun reporter February 17, 2006

Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. has filled the longest judicial vacancy on a district court in Maryland, but not with a friend from the General Assembly who wanted the position.

*****

Kelly’s Dream Deferred by Kevin E. Dayhoff February 24, 2006

On February 16, it became official that a longstanding friend of Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich, Jr., conservative Western Maryland Democratic Del. Kevin Kelly, would not have his name submitted to fill the judicial vacancy of the District Court of Maryland for Allegany County.

In the political arena where disappointment is frequently greeted by silence and friends who stare at the floor, folks often don’t heed what Martin Luther King once said: “In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”

Many Tentacle readers are aware of the hard work of Delegate Kelly and were disappointed to learn that he was not to be referred to in the future as Judge Kelly.

As a newly minted elected municipal official in the late 1990s, I have fond memories of those folks who were friendly and helpful as I tried to unravel the byzantine rituals of the Maryland General Assembly. Perhaps, first among equals in that helpful group was Delegate Kelly.

Most members of the Frederick and Carroll County delegations were very supportive.

Several of the other names that quickly come to mind when I think of friendly folks who went out of their way to lend a hand were: Del. Brian R. Moe (D., Anne Arundel/PG); Del. Bennett Bozman (D., Wicomico/Worcester); Del. Norman H. Conway (D., Wicomico/Worcester); Sen. Donald F. Munson (R., Washington); then-Del. Charles McClenahan (R., Somerset, Wicomico & Worchester); and Judge Paul G. Goetzke, then Annapolis city attorney.

Always quick with a smile and a joke, Delegate Kelly went out of his way on several occasions to help when I barely knew the difference between the House Environmental Matters and Economic Matters Committees.

Many had lost track of this current sideshow, since the judicial vacancy for the District Court of Maryland for Allegany County has been unfilled since the fall of 2004. It was announced last Friday that Delegate Kelly was passed over for H. Jack Price, Jr., the city solicitor for the mayor and city council of Cumberland since 1990.

[…]

Read my entire column here: Kelly’s Dream Deferred by Kevin E. Dayhoff February 24, 2006

20060224 Kelly’s Dream Deferred by Kevin E. Dayhoff

####

Monday, February 20, 2006

20060217 “Vacant judge position filled” By David Nitkin

Vacant judge position filled

Ehrlich picks Cumberland solicitor for seat that had been empty since 2004

By David Nitkin Sun reporter February 17, 2006

Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. has filled the longest judicial vacancy on a district court in Maryland, but not with a friend from the General Assembly who wanted the position.

The governor has named H. Jack Price, solicitor for the city of Cumberland since 1990 and a private practice lawyer, to a seat on the Allegany County District Court.

Price, 50, fills a vacancy created when Judge Paul J. Stakem announced his retirement in 2004.

[…]

Kelly submitted his name to a nominating panel but was found not qualified for the position. After meeting in December 2004, the panel submitted three names to the governor, but Ehrlich waited until yesterday before announcing the selection.

Meanwhile, criminal cases backed up in the district court - to the consternation of many courthouse veterans.

[…]

Read the entire article here: Vacant judge position filled

20060217 “Vacant judge position filled” By David Nitkin

####

20060218 Another Case of Cronyism Progressive MD

Another Case of Cronyism in the Ehrlich Administration by Progressive Maryland

Retrieved February 18, 2006

Gov. Ehrlich has been called on his cronyism once again, this time in Allegany County. His nominee for Allegany’s District Court bench, friend and former colleague Del. Kevin Kelly, has been judged unfit for the job and summarily rejected by a judicial nominating commission made up of the governor's own appointees. The Allegany lock, The Baltimore Sun

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/bal-ed.kelly04sep04,1,3587363.story?coll=bal-opinion-headlines

http://progressivemaryland.org/page.php?id=1136&subid=1122

Related: 20050828 Politics fills space around judicial vacancy by David Nitkin and Jennifer Skalka: Politics fills space around judicial vacancy Some say Ehrlich wants friend on list of nominees; Allegany seat empty since 2004 By David Nitkin, Sun Staff, August 28, 2005

20060218 Another Case of Cronyism Progressive MD

Thursday, September 01, 2005

20050828 Politics fills space around judicial vacancy by David Nitkin and Jennifer Skalka

Some say Ehrlich wants friend on list of nominees; Allegany seat empty since 2004

Politics fills space around judicial vacancy

Criminal cases are piling up in Allegany County, where a political standoff has left the District Court operating with one full-time judge since late last year.


Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr., who selects judges, was given the names of three candidates for the county's judicial vacancy by a nominating panel in December. But nine months later, he has yet to interview any of the finalists. As a result, Allegany County now has the longest-standing judicial vacancy in the state.


Some Republican leaders and court officials in Western Maryland say the holdup isn't because of who was nominated but who was not. The list does not include the name of Kevin Kelly, a Democratic state delegate from Allegany County and a longtime Ehrlich friend. Kelly applied for the position, but his candidacy was rejected by the panel.


[…]


John N. Bambacus, a former Republican state senator who teaches political science at Frostburg State University, called the District Court situation "a circus."


[…]


The episode provides a glimpse into the often-hidden world of judicial politics. On one side is a local power structure that has coalesced around a favored candidate. On the other is a first-term governor who does not back away from fights and rarely demonstrates a taste for compromising or deal-making.


Stuck in the middle are the users of the court system in Allegany County. The criminal docket is being scheduled into January, when normally cases would be heard in November, court officials say.


"The governor's first responsibility is to serve justice, not his friends," said Del. Kumar P. Barve, the House majority leader from Montgomery County. "He needs to appoint someone qualified very quickly. If he's delaying appointing somebody because he wants Kevin to be a judge, that's wrong. I can't think of any other reason why he hasn't appointed somebody by now."


[…]


"It would appear that Governor Ehrlich has lost control of the judicial nominating commission," said Bambacus, the Frostburg professor.


[…]


Sun staff writer Jennifer Skalka contributed to this article.


http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/politics/bal-md.judge28aug28,1,6997695.story?coll=bal-local-headlines

20050828 Politics fills space around judicial vacancy by David Nitkin and Jennifer Skalka

Thursday, July 30, 1998

19980729 Clarence Thomas Answers His Critics by Clarence Thomas


Clarence Thomas Answers His Critics

by Clarence Thomas

Speech before the National Bar Association

Memphis, Tenn. | July 29, 1998

I'D LIKE TO THANK the members of the Judicial Council of the National Bar Association who have been so courageous and forthright and kind to invite me to join you this afternoon. As has become the custom, a wearisome one I admit, this invitation has not been without controversy. Although this is unfortunate, this controversy has added little value in the calculus of my decision to be here. Thirty years ago, we all focused intently on this city as the trauma of Dr. King's death first exploded then sank into our lives. For so many of us who were trying hard to do what we thought was required of us in the process of integrating this society, the rush of hopelessness and isolation was immediate and overwhelming. It seemed that the whole world had gone mad. I am certain that each of us has his or her memories of that terrible day in 1968.

For me it was the final straw in the struggle to retain my vocation to become a Catholic priest. Suddenly, this cataclysmic event ripped me from the moorings of my grandparents, my youth, and my faith and catapulted me headlong into the abyss that Richard Wright seemed to describe years earlier. It was this event that shattered my faith in my religion and my country. I had spent the mid-'60s as a successful student in a virtually white environment. I had learned Latin, physics, and chemistry. I had accepted the loneliness that came with being "the integrator," the first and the only. But this event, this trauma, I could not take, especially when one of my fellow seminarians, not knowing that I was standing behind him, declared that he hoped the SOB died. This was a man of God, mortally stricken by an assassin's bullet, and one preparing for the priesthood had wished evil upon him. The life I had dreamed of so often during those hot summers on the farm in Georgia or during what seemed like endless hours on the oil truck with my grandfather expired as Dr. King expired. As so many of you do, I still know exactly where I was when I heard the news. It was a low moment in our nation's history and a demarcation between hope and hopelessness for many of us.

But three decades have evaporated in our lives, too quickly and without sufficient residual evidence of their importance. But much has changed since then. The hope that there would be expeditious resolutions to our myriad problems has long since evaporated with those years. Many who debated and hoped then now do neither. There now seems to be a broad acceptance of the racial divide as a permanent state. While we once celebrated those things that we had in common with our fellow citizens who did not share our race, so many now are triumphal about our differences, finding little if anything in common. Indeed, some go so far as to all but define each of us by our race and establish the range of our thinking and our opinions, if not our deeds, by our color. I, for one, see this in much the same way I saw our denial of rights as nothing short of a denial of our humanity. Not one of us has the gospel. Nor are our opinions based upon some revealed precepts to be taken as faith. As thinking, rational individuals, not one of us can claim infallibility, even from the overwhelming advantage of hindsight and Monday-morning quarterbacking. This makes it all the more important that our fallible ideas be examined as all ideas are in the realm of reason, not as some doctrinal or racial heresy. None of us has been appointed by God or appointed God. And if any of us has, then my question is why hasn't he or she solved all these problems?

I make no apologies for this view now, nor do I intend to do so in the future.

I have now been on the Court for seven terms. For the most part, it has been much like other endeavors in life. It has its challenges and requires much of the individual to master the workings of the institution. We all know that. It is, I must say, quite different from what I might have anticipated if I had the opportunity to do so. Unlike the unfortunate practice or custom in Washington and in much of the country, the court is a model of civility. It's a wonderful place. Though there have been many contentious issues to come before the Court during these initials years of my tenure, I have yet to hear the first unkind words exchanged among my colleagues. And quite frankly, I think that such civility is the sine qua non of conducting the affairs of the Court and the business of the country.

As such, I think that it would be in derogation of our respective oaths and our institutional obligations to our country to engage in uncivil behavior. It would also be demeaning to any of us who engages in such conduct. Having worn the robe, we have a lifetime obligation to conduct ourselves as having deserved to wear the robe in the first instance. One of the interesting surprises is the virtual isolation, even within the Court. It is quite rare that the members of the Court see each other during those periods when we're not sitting or when we're not in conference. And the most regular contact beyond those two formal events are the lunches we have on conference and court days. Also, it is extraordinarily rare to have any discussions with the other members of the Court before voting on petitions for certiorari or on the merits of the cases. And there is rarely extended debate during our conferences. For the most part, any debate about the cases is done in writing. It has struck me as odd that some think that there are cliques and cabals at the Court. No such arrangements exist. Nor, contrary to suggestions otherwise, is there any intellectual or ideological pied piper on the Court.

With respect to my following, or, more accurately, being led by other members of the Court, that is silly, but expected since I couldn't possibly think for myself. And what else could possibly be the explanation when I fail to follow the jurisprudential, ideological, and intellectual, if not anti- intellectual, prescription assigned to blacks? Since thinking beyond this prescription is presumptively beyond my abilities, obviously someone must be putting these strange ideas into my mind and my opinions. Though being underestimated has its advantages, the stench of racial inferiority still confounds my olfactory nerves.

As Ralph Ellison wrote more than 35 years ago, "Why is it so often true that when critics confront the American as Negro, they suddenly drop their advance critical armament and revert with an air of confident superiority to quite primitive modes of analysis?" Those matters accomplished by whites are routinely subjected to sophisticated modes of analysis. But when the self-same matters are accomplished by blacks, the opaque racial prism of analysis precludes such sophistication and all is seen in black and white. And some who would not venture onto the more sophisticated analytical turf are quite content to play in the minor leagues of primitive harping. The more things change the more they remain the same.

Of course there is much criticism of the Court by this group or that, depending on the Court's decisions in various highly publicized cases. Some of the criticism is profoundly uninformed and unhelpful. And all too often, uncivil second-guessing is not encumbered by the constraints of facts, logic, or reasoned analysis. On the other hand, the constructive and often scholarly criticism is almost always helpful in thinking about or rethinking decisions. It is my view that constructive criticism goes with the turf, especially when the stakes are so high and the cases arouse passions and emotions and, in a free society, the precious freedom of speech and the strength of ideas. We at the Court could not possibly claim exemption from such criticism. Moreover, we are not infallible, just final.

As I have noted, I find a thoughtful, analytical criticism most helpful. I do not think any judge can address a vast array of cases and issues without testing and re-testing his or her reasoning and opinions in the crucible of debate. However, since we are quite limited in public debate about matters that may come before the Court, such debate must, for the most part, occur intramurally, thus placing a premium on outside scholarship.

Unfortunately, from time to time, the criticism of the Court goes beyond the bounds of civil debate and discourse. Today it seems quite acceptable to attack the Court and other institutions when one disagrees with an opinion or policy. I can still remember traveling along Highway 17 in south Georgia, the Coastal Highway, during the '50s and '60s and seeing the "Impeach Earl Warren" signs. Clearly, heated reactions to the Court or to its members are not unusual. Certainly, Justice Blackmun was attacked repeatedly because many disagreed, as I have, with the opinion he offered on behalf of the Court in Roe vs. Wade. Though I have joined opinions disagreeing with Justice Blackmun, I could not imagine ever being discourteous to him merely because we disagreed

I have found during my almost 20 years in Washington that the tendency to personalize differences has grown to be an accepted way of doing business. One need not do the hard work of dissecting an argument. One need only attack and thus discredit the person making the argument. Though the matter being debated is not effectively resolved, the debate is reduced to unilateral pronouncements and glib but quotable clichés. I, for one, have been singled out for particularly bilious and venomous assaults. These criticisms, as near as I can tell—and I admit that it is rare that I take notice of this calumny—have little to do with any particular opinion, though each opinion does provide one more occasion to criticize. Rather, the principal problem seems to be a deeper antecedent offense. I have no right to think the way I do because I'm black. Though the ideas and opinions themselves are not necessarily illegitimate if held by non-black individuals, they, and the person enunciating them, are illegitimate if that person happens to be black. Thus, there's a subset of criticism that must of necessity be reserved for me, even if every non-black member of the Court agrees with the idea or the opinion. You see, they are exempt from this kind of criticism, precisely because they are not black.

As noted earlier, they are more often than not subjected to the whites-only sophisticated analysis. I will not catalogue my opinions to which there have been objections since they are a matter of public record. But I must note in passing that I can't help but wonder if some of my critics can read. One opinion that is trotted out for the propaganda parade is my dissent in Hudson vs. McMillian.

The conclusion reached by the long arms of the critics is that I supported the beating of prisoners in that case. Well, one must either be illiterate or fraught with malice to reach that conclusion. Though one can disagree with my dissent, and certainly the majority of the Court disagreed, no honest reading can reach such a conclusion. Indeed, we took the case to decide the quite narrow issue whether a prisoner's rights were violated under the cruel-and-unusual-punishment clause of the Eighth Amendment as a result of a single incident of force by the prison guards which did not cause a significant injury. In the first section of my dissent, I stated the following. "In my view, a use of force that causes only insignificant harm to a prisoner may be immoral; it may be tortuous; it may be criminal, and it may even be remediable under other provisions of the federal Constitution. But it is not cruel and unusual punishment."

Obviously, beating prisoners is bad. But we did not take the case to answer this larger moral question or a larger legal question of remedies under other statutes or provisions of the Constitution. How one can extrapolate these larger conclusions from the narrow question before the Court is beyond me, unless, of course, there's a special segregated mode of analysis. It should be obvious that the criticisms of this opinion serves not to present counter-arguments, but to discredit and attack me because I've deviated from the prescribed path. In his intriguing and thoughtful essay on my race problem and ours, Harvard law professor Randall Kennedy, a self- described social democrat, correctly observes that "If racial loyalty is deemed essentially and morally virtuous, then a black person's adoption of positions that are deemed racially disloyal will be seen by racial loyalists as a supremely threatening sin, one warranting the harsh punishments that have historically been visited upon alleged traitors." Perhaps this is the defensive solidarity to which Richard Wright refers. If so, it is a reaction I understand, but resolutely decline to follow.

In the final weeks of my seminary days, shortly after Dr. King's death, I found myself becoming consumed by feelings of animosity and anger. I was disenchanted with my church and my country. I was tired of being in the minority, and I was tired of turning the other cheek. I, along with many blacks, found ways to protest and try to change the treatment we received in this country. Perhaps my passion for Richard Wright novels was affecting me. Perhaps it was listening too intently to Nina Simone. Perhaps, like Bigger Thomas, I was being consumed the circumstances in which I found myself, circumstances that I saw as responding only to race.

My feelings were reaffirmed during the summer of 1968 as a result of the lingering stench of racism in Savannah and the assassination of Bobby Kennedy. No matter what the reasons were, I closed out the '60s as one angry young man waiting on the revolution that I was certain would soon come. I saw no way out. I, like many others, felt the deep chronic agony of anomie and alienation. All seemed to be defined by race. We became a reaction to the "man," his ominous reflection. The intensity of my feelings was reinforced by other events of the late '60s, the riots, the marches, the sense that something had to be done, done quickly to resolve the issue of race. In college there was an air of excitement, apprehension, and anger. We started the Black Students Union. We protested. We worked in the Free Breakfast Program. We would walk out of school in the winter of 1969 in protest.

But the questioning for me started in the spring of 1970 after an unauthorized demonstration in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to "free the political prisoners." Why was I doing this rather than using my intellect? Perhaps I was empowered by the anger and relieved that I could now strike back at the faceless oppressor. But why was I conceding my intellect and rather fighting much like a brute? This I could not answer, except to say that I was tired of being restrained. Somehow I knew that unless I contained the anger within me I would suffer the fates of Bigger Thomas and Damon Cross. It was intoxicating to act upon one's rage, to wear it on one's shoulder, to be defined by it. Yet, ultimately, it was destructive, and I knew it.

So in the spring of 1970 in a nihilistic fog, I prayed that I'd be relieved of the anger and the animosity that ate at my soul. I did not want to hate any more, and I had to stop before it totally consumed me. I had to make a fundamental choice. Do I believe in the principles of this country or not?

After such angst, I concluded that I did. But the battle between passion and reason would continue, although abated, still intense. Ironically, many of the people who are critics today were among those we called half-steppers who had been co-opted by "the man" because they were part of the system that oppressed us. When the revolution came, all of the so-called Negroes needed to be dealt with it.

It is interesting to remember that someone gave me a copy of Professor Thomas Sowell's book, Education, Myths, and Tragedies, in which he predicted much of what has happened to blacks and education. I threw it in the trash, unread, declaring that he was not a black man since no black could take the positions that he had taken, whatever they were, since I had only heard his views were not those of a black man. I was also upset to hear of a black conservative in Virginia named Jay Parker. How could a black man call himself a conservative? In a twist of fate, they both are dear friends today, and the youthful wrath I visited upon them is now being visited upon me, though without the youth. What goes around does indeed come around.

The summer of 1971 was perhaps one of the most difficult of my life. It was clear to me that the road to destruction was paved with anger, resentment, and rage. But where were we to go? I would often spend hours in our small efficiency apartment in New Haven pondering this question and listening to Marvin Gaye's then new album, What's Going On? To say the least, it was a depressing summer.

What were we to do? What's going on?

As I think back on those years, I find it interesting that many people seemed to have trouble with their identities as black men. Having had to accept my blackness in the caldron of ridicule from some of my black schoolmates under segregation, then immediately thereafter remain secure in that identity during my years at all-white seminary, I had few racial-identity problems. I knew who I was and needed no gimmicks to affirm my identity. Nor, might I add, do I need anyone telling me who I am today. This is especially true of the psycho-silliness about forgetting my roots or self-hatred. If anything, this shows that some people have too much time on their hands.

There's a rush today to prescribe who is black, to prescribe what are our differences, or to ignore what our differences are. Of course, those of us who came from the rural South were different from the blacks who came from the large northern cities, such as Philadelphia and New York. We were all black. But that similarity did not mask the richness of our differences. Indeed, one of the advantages of growing up in a black neighborhood was that we were richly blessed with the ability to see the individuality of each black person with all its fullness and complexity. We saw those differences at school, at home, at church, and definitely at the barbershop on Saturday morning. Intraracially, we consistently recognized our differences. It is quite counter-factual to suggest that such differences have not existed throughout our history. Indeed, when I was on the other side of the ideological divide, arguing strenuously with my grandfather that the revolution was imminent and that we all had to stick together as black people, he was quick to remind me that he had lived much longer than I had and during far more difficult times, and that, in any case, it took all kinds to make a world.

I agree with Ralph Ellison when he asked, perhaps rhetorically, why is it that so many of those who would tell us the meaning of "Negro," of Negro life, never bothered to learn how varied it really is. That is particularly true of many whites who have elevated condescension to an art form by advancing a monolithic view of blacks in much the same way that the mythic, disgusting image of the lazy, dumb black was advanced by open, rather than disguised, bigots.

Today, of course, it is customary to collapse, if not overwrite, our individual characteristics into new but now acceptable stereotypes. It no longer matters whether one is from urban New York City or rural Georgia. It doesn't matter whether we came from a highly educated family or a barely literate one. It does not matter if you are a Roman Catholic or a Southern Baptist. All of these differences are canceled by race, and a revised set of acceptable stereotypes has been put in place. Long gone is the time when we opposed the notion that we all looked alike and talked alike. Somehow we have come to exalt the new black stereotype above all and to demand conformity to that norm.

It is this notion that our race defines us that Ralph Ellison so eloquently rebuts in his essay, "The World and the Jug." He sees the lives of black people as more than a burden, but also a discipline, just as any human life which has endured so long is a discipline, teaching its own insights into the human condition, its own strategies of survival. There's a fullness and even a richness here. And here, despite the realities of politics, perhaps, but nevertheless here and real because it is human life.

Despite some of the nonsense that has been said about me by those who should know better— and so much nonsense, or some of which subtracts from the sum total of human knowledge—despite this all, I am a man, a black man, an American. And my history is not unlike that of many blacks from the deep South. And in many ways it is not that much different from that of many other Americans. It goes without saying that I understand the comforts and security of racial solidarity, defensive or otherwise. Only those who have not been set upon by hatred and repelled by rejection fail to understand its attraction. As I have suggested, I have been there. The inverse relationship between the bold promises and the effectiveness of the proposed solutions, the frustrations with the so-called system, the subtle and not-so-subtle bigotry and animus towards members of my race made radicals and nationalists of many of us. Yes, I understand the reasons why this is attractive. But it is precisely this in its historic form, not its present-day diluted form, that I have rejected. My question was whether as an individual I truly believed that I was the equal of individuals who were white. This I had answered with a resounding "yes" in 1964 during my sophomore year in the seminary. And that answer continues to be yes. Accordingly, my words and my deeds are consistent with this answer.

Any effort, policy, or program that has as a prerequisite the acceptance of the notion that blacks are inferior is a non-starter with me. I do not believe that kneeling is a position of strength. Nor do I believe that begging is an effective tactic. I am confident that the individual approach, not the group approach, is the better, more acceptable, more supportable, and less dangerous one. This approach is also consistent with the underlying principles of this country and the guarantees of freedom through government by consent. I, like Frederick Douglass, believe that whites and blacks can live together and be blended into a common nationality. Do I believe that my views or opinions are perfect or infallible? No, I do not.

But in admitting that I have no claim to perfection or infallibility, I am also asserting that competing or differing views similarly have no such claim. And they should not be accorded a status of infallibility or any status that suggests otherwise. With differing, but equally fallible views, I think it is best that they be aired and sorted out in an environment of civility, consistent with the institutions in which we are involved. In this case, the judicial system.

It pains me deeply—more deeply than any of you can imagine—to be perceived by so many members of my race as doing them harm. All the sacrifice, all the long hours of preparation were to help, not to hurt. But what hurts more, much more is the amount of time and attention spent on manufactured controversies and media sideshows when so many problems cry out for constructive attention.

I have come here today not in anger or to anger, though my mere presence has been sufficient, obviously, to answer some. Nor have I come to defend my views, but rather to assert my right to think for myself, to refuse to have my ideas assigned to me as though I was an intellectual slave because I'm black. I come to state that I'm a man, free to think for myself and do as I please. I've come to assert that I am a judge and I will not be consigned the unquestioned opinions of others. But even more than that, I have come to say that isn't it time to move on. Isn't it time to realize that being angry with me solves no problems? Isn't it time to acknowledge that the problem of race has defied simple solutions and that not one of us, not a single one of us can lay claim to the solution? Isn't it time that we respect ourselves and each other as we have demanded respect from others? Isn't it time to ignore those whose sole occupation is sowing seeds of discord and animus? That is self-hatred. Isn't it time to continue diligently to search for lasting solutions? I believe that the time has come today. God bless each of you, and may God keep you.

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