On the Record

Alaska Elections Division Director Gail Fenumiai, right, and Assistant Attorney General Sarah Felix look over a ballot Wednesday, Nov. 10, 2010, in Juneau, Alaska.

Maybe it’s the journalist in me, but I have a low tolerance for spelling mistakes. Sure, we all make the occaisional mistake, but between dictionaries and spell check on computers, the errors should be few and far between.

I’m especially paranoid about when it comes to spelling people’s names. I had the fear of God put into me in college, where a misspelled proper name in a journalism class meant an “F” on the assignment, no questions asked. Plus, my story might be the only time a person’s name appears in the paper, so it’s the least I can do to make sure John Smith doesn’t spell his name “Jon Smythe.”

This brings me to Alaska’s contested U.S. Senate race. For those not familiar, incumbent Lisa Murkowski was defeated in the Republican primary by Tea Party favorite Joe Miller. Murkowski then decided to run as an independent, write-in candidate; as of Wednesday night, “Write-In Votes” leads Miller by more than 10,000 votes.

This is where the fun begins. Alaska election officials are now reviewing all of the write-in ballots, with Murkowski named in almost 90 percent of them as of Friday morning. “Murkowski” might become the “hanging chad” of the 2010 election season. So far, officials have seen “Murkowsky,” “Morkowski,” “Mirkowsky,” “Murkrowsky,” and “Marcouski” despite the candidate’s general election campaign devoted in large part to the spelling of her surname.

Personally, I think if you can’t spell correctly the name of a longtime Alaskan legislator who is also the daughter of a longtime Alaskan legislator, you need to pay more attention to current events. But my point is, expect lawsuits aplenty over the ballots and voter rolls in addition to the challenges already being made.

And, remember, should we get to this point, there is no hyphen in “recount.”

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Just when it appeared a full-scale review of Maryland’s constitution had been approved by voters, it hadn’t.

And just when it appeared a Baltimore interior designer had won a seat on Baltimore’s Orphans’ Court, it turned out she hadn’t.

And, finally, just when it seemed Alison Asti was running on a slate with another candidate for Anne Arundel County Circuit Court judge, it turned out she wasn’t.

It was that kind of week for Maryland legal news, as evidenced by The Daily Record’s top five most-read staff-written stories.

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I wrote last week about the defamation lawsuit Rick Reinhardt filed Julie Ensor, his rival for clerk of the Baltimore County Circuit Court. The article prompted some online discussion, and the big question was one my editor posed when I initially told her about the story: Can a person be sued for defamation based on something he or she tells a police officer?

The short answer – yes. A divided Court of Appeals ruled in 1993 that statements to police are not afforded absolute privilege, meaning they are not immune from defamation lawsuits. (The case is Caldor v. Bowden if you’re scoring at home.)

Robin Leone, a media law lawyer with Saul Ewing LLP in Baltimore, said Reinhardt’s bigger challenge will be proving he was defamed. (Full disclosure: Leone has represented The Daily Record in a First Amendment matter.) Reinhardt has to show Ensor’s statement was false and that she intended to harm him when talking to police.

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The state Board of Elections’ vote totals are still listed as “unofficial.” But a week out from election day, I think I can report the results of the contested judicial elections primaries without fear of a “Dewey Defeats Truman” situation.

There were three contested judicial races in the state, with sitting judges in other jurisdictions running unopposed. In Cecil County, Judge V. Michael Whelan defeated challengers Harry D. Barnes and John H. Buck, while all four sitting judges in Baltimore County – Jan Alexander, Sherrie Bailey, Ann Brobst and John Nagle III – cruised to victory over challenger T. Scott Beckman.

The race was much closer in Anne Arundel County, however. Challenger Alison Asti finished second in the Republican primary and missed out on second in the Democratic primary by just 500 votes (out of 56,000 cast) in her bid to unseat either Judge Laura Kiessling or Judge Ron Jarashow.

A state election board official said the top two finishers in each primary move forward to November’s general election. That means all three candidates’ names will appear on the ballot in alphabetical order. (Kiessling, who won both primaries, will only be on the ballot once.) The two top vote-getters will receive a 15-year term on the circuit court bench.

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… Because they sure didn’t vote at lunch time.

“As of the 1 o’clock numbers, we had 6 percent of the voters coming out, which is 22,660,” Abigail Jones, administrative officer at Baltimore City Board of Elections, told reporter Brendan Kearney.

Jones said the turnout was “scattered” and wasn’t heavy in any particular part of Baltimore.

“It’s quiet all over the city,” Jones said. She attributed the low turnout to both the lack of a presidential contest and the number of incumbents running unopposed this year.

Checking back at 3 o’clock, we found turnout had risen –  to 8 percent.

Meanwhile, Brendan continues to cover the Baltimore City State’s Attorney’s race. Look for his updates on The Daily Record’s website tonight.

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I blogged last month about The Las Vegas Review-Journal’s “copyright enforcement partner,” who sues websites and bloggers that post the newspaper’s stories in their entirety, rather than just the links.

The Review-Journal’s strategy raised a whole bunch of legal questions. Now, it might raise some ethical questions because of one of its newest defendants: Republican U.S. Senate candidate Sharron Angle, who is challenging Democrat and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in one of the most hotly-contested and closely-watched elections of the fall.

Vegas-based blogger Steve Friess raised the ethical questions last week:

- [M]ust Nevada’s largest paper now include a passage in every news story it does on Angle’s race against Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid acknowledging that its owners have sued her?

- Can the R-J, whose publisher and editor have been outspoken supporters of the Tea Party darling, actually endorse her for Senate after having publicly accused her of stealing from them?

The Review-Journal alleges Angle posted two stories on her website without the newspaper’s permission. As of Tuesday, her website only had a paragraph from a story followed by a link, but that wasn’t always the case, as Friess has documented.

“[T]he Review-Journal has placed itself in journalistically uncharted territory,” Friess wrote Saturday. “No political or media experts I contacted could recall a mainstream newspaper ever suing a major-party candidate in the heat of a hotly contested election campaign.”

Something to watch as the general election nears.

(Speaking of elections, did you, Maryland Voter, cast your ballot in today’s primary election? You’ve got until 8 p.m.)

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It’s back to work after an extended weekend, and you’ll want to check out the news on billing rates.

Here’s a special Tuesday edition of the law blog roundup for your shortened work week.

• Got a trucking-accident case? Don’t forget to ask for the black box.
• The legal sector added 1,000 jobs in August.
• He still doesn’t like it, but Ehrlich will vote early.
• It’s shaping up to be a very litigious election season.
• A Maryland woman banned from Facebook for “friending” people she doesn’t know is suing.
• The ABA Journal recognized her as one of its 10 Rebels (this year’s are all solos), so why isn’t she feeling very rebellious?  Baltimore attorney Stuart Kaplow also made the list.

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Mike Ertel decided last month not to take legal action against Bill Paulshock, one of his Democratic primary opponents in the Baltimore County Council’s Fifth District, over the allegedly incorrect address Paulshock lists on his voter registration form. Ertel’s campaign manager told me in July that they would “bring the matter to the public’s attention” and allow voters to decide what to do with their allegations rather than file suit.

The Ertel campaign’s new YouTube video on the subject begins with Ertel in front of what he claims to be Paulshock’s true residence in the Third District community of Kingsville. The video then cuts to Ertel standing outside of Bill’s Seafood and Catering Co. on Belair Road in Perry Hall, which is attached to a home that Paulshock has said is his “domicile.”

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Among a flurry of endorsement e-mails I received yesterday from the campaign of Baltimore County executive candidate Joe Bartenfelder, one stood out.

“BARTENFELDER’S RUN FOR COUNTY EXECUTIVE ENDORSED BY SUZANNE MENSH, LONG-STANDING ELECTED OFFICIAL,” the headline read.

The press release from the Bartenfelder campaign goes on to describe Mensh as being the court clerk “from 1986 until the present.” Which must have come as a surprise to Rick Arnold, the incumbent.

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I’ve been working on a story about contested judicial elections and coincidentally came across a story about such a race in Oklahoma. (Shameless self-promotion: my story is slated for our Aug. 9 Maryland Lawyer.)

John Mantooth was running for a seat in on Oklahoma’s District Court in Tuesday’s primary election. (No word on whether he is related to Wes.) Mantooth’s adult daughter took out an ad in a local paper with the following headline: “Do Not Vote For My Dad!” There’s also a website of the same name.

The ad claims Mantooth is neither a good dad nor a good grandfather. The daughter, Jan Schill, said she’s never had a good relationship with her father, who divorced her mother in 1981. Mantooth said he was “saddened” and “hurt” by the ad but still loves his daughter.

Mantooth also suspected politics had something to do with the ad. Schill’s husband was once a law partner of Greg Dixon, one of Mantooth’s opponents.

“For a person to believe that Greg Dixon had nothing to do with this is like trying to believe that cows give chocolate milk,” Mantooth said.

Dixon and Mantooth, incidentally, were the top two vote-getters in Tuesday’s primary and will face off in the general election in November.

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