At 7:15 a.m. on March 12, a couple of hours before a slew of residents and reporters descended on the Baltimore County Circuit Courthouse for the Exxon verdicts, Danny Jacobs was waiting outside the courtroom.

He’d been waiting for that moment for five months.

As some of our readers know, Danny had been diligently following the Exxon leak trial in Baltimore County.

To our knowledge, Danny was the only reporter to extensively cover the trial. He wrote more than 30 stories in total; as a result he became a familiar face in the courtroom, developing relationships with a number of the plaintiffs and lawyers from both sides.

Although there are still more Jacksonville residents who await trial with Exxon – and more work to be done on Danny’s end – here are Danny’s reflections of his coverage of the trial.

I was a student at the University of Maryland a few years ago when “Deep Throat” was shown at the Hoff Theater on campus. While I was surprised 530 students attended (The Apex on South Broadway probably would kill for that kind of turnout), I didn’t think much else of it.

So when I read Hoff was going to screen another porn earlier last week, I wasn’t too shocked. But then a funny thing happened: the movie became a political cause in more ways than one. Legislators threatened to withhold funding from the university if the film went on as planned, and an on-campus political party hosted a screening of part of the film days before the Student Government Association election. Today, the state Senate thankfully rejected a silly budget amendment that would have withheld construction funds at state schools unless they developed a porn policy. Not since Mary Carey ran for governor of California have porn and politics been so closely tied together. 

As an alum, however, what bothers me most about this whole episdoe was the university’s decision to cancel the screening in the first place. The independent campus newspaper The Diamondback, in a spot-on editorial, summarized my feelings about university administrators:

They have encouraged short-sighted state legislators to make empty threats to meddle with the very information the university distributes. We simply don’t believe state legislators would shut down the most productive source of education, a gem of the state, because Hoff showed some bouncing breasts. But potentially worse, administrators have declared in unequivocal terms they don’t need student input before regulating the content supported by this university.

The apparent endgame to this is the University System of Maryland, which oversees the public institutions in the state, will now develop a porn policy for all state campuses. A USM official called the porn controversy a “tragedy.” I call it a self-inflicted wound.

U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals nominee Judge Andre Davis has been rated “well-qualified” by a  ”substantial majority” of the members of the ABA’s Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary. A minority rated the U.S. District Court judge the somewhat less-stellar “qualified.”

The actual tally isn’t given, but a “substantial majority” is defined as 10 to 13 votes from the 15-member panel, according to the ABA’s Web site. No reasons are given, so we don’t know why the other two to five members found he was, well, OK.

The same committee gave 2nd Circuit nominee Judge Gerald Lynch a unanimous rating of “well-qualified.” And this is Davis’ second nomination to the 4th Circuit; back in 2000, he got a unanimous rating of well-qualified.

What do you think prompted some members to rate Judge Davis as just “qualified” this time around?

 Hat tip: The BLT