On the Record

Happy Monday. Here are some law links to get your week started.

• Tell the jury everything, except this.
• When I count to three, you will begin to feel very sleepy…
• A couple of law school professors think law schools could create their own law firms. Sure would help with those employment numbers.
• Law prof. scamblogger identity revealed.
• Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry doesn’t support lifetime tenure for federal judges.
• The end to DSK’s criminal case is near.
• Finding your legal strength.

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As the country marks the sesquicentennial of the Civil War, the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts notes that the four-year battle also took its toll on the federal judiciary, “tearing at the very fabric of American justice.”

In the first installment of a promised series highlighting the personal stories of judges on both sides, the AOC borrows from William Robinson Jr.’s 1941 book, Justice in Grey, to tell the tale of U.S. District Judge Andrew Magrath of South Carolina.

Magrath, who had been appointed in 1856, kept his seat for precisely one day after Abraham Lincoln was elected president in November 1860, Robinson wrote. At the end of the day, Magrath made a brief speech about his duty and the wishes of his state before tendering “the resignation of the office which I have held.”

“With that, Magrath tore off his robe and left the bench,” the AOC says. “Many who were present in his courtroom wept. Six weeks later, South Carolina seceded from the Union and declared its national independence.”

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As the old saying goes, “Once is a fluke, twice is a coincidence, three times means a blog post.”

The Maryland Judiciary announced administrative appointments of three circuit court judges yesterday. Two of them are connected to the upcoming retirement of Judge Diane O. Leasure from Howard County Circuit Court in November.

Judge Lenore R. Gelfman will become administrative judge for Howard County. Gelfman has served on the bench since 1996 following seven years as a district court judge.

Anne Arundel County Administrative Judge Nancy L. Davis-Loomis, meanwhile, will become administrative judge for the Fifth Judicial Circuit, which includes Anne Arundel, Carroll and Howard counties. Davis-Loomis has been the top judge in Anne Arundel County since 2007 and has been on the  circuit court bench since 2000.

Last but not least, Judge M. Kenneth Long Jr. became administrative judge for Washington County late last month. Long has been on the bench for five years and succeeds Judge John H. McDowell.

Please update your scorecards accordingly.

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I wish Judge Douglas Gummo the best as he seeks help for his apparent alcoholism and don’t mean to make light of his condition.

That said, the catalyst for his decision to get treatment remains funny.

Gummo, a Pennsylvania state district court judge,  pleaded guilty Wednesday to harassment after he was arrested in April at a hotel outside Harrisburg, where he was attending a judicial conference. Prosecutors subsequently dropped charges of public drunkenness and disorderly conduct against him.

Police said an intoxicated Gummo repeatedly tried to enter the room of a female district court judge while wearing only a bed sheet.

Pennsylvania’s judiciary says Gummo is still an active judge.

(HT: ABA Journal)

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Welcome back. Here’s a rundown of what’s happening in the legal world:

• In civil suit, the lawyer repping the man killed by Baltimore City Police Officer Ghaiji Tshamba will focus on the officer’s disciplinary record.
• Banks continue to be in the hot seat over the foreclosure crisis. Did some banks wait to alert regulators about loans going south?
• New York man allowed to sue his county for the cost to rent a Ferrari.
• Judge-directed negotiation could curb increasing malpractice costs in healthcare.
• Did it happen the way we think it did? Listening in on LBJ’s civil rights conversations.
• Maryland’s ACLU is questioning a petition to overturn the DREAM Act.

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Tyler Hamilton

Happy Monday. Get your week going with a dose of legal links below:

• Local lawyer and blogger named in a lawsuit (along with more than 70 others) for blogging about a lawyer’s missteps in trial.
• Maryland judges’ pensions remain intact, despite cuts elsewhere.
• Benjamin Polakoff, a former lawyer with Shapiro Sher Guinot & Sandler, sets off on his own.
• Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., is asking the American Bar Association to push harder for law school transparency on job prospects for students.
• Baltimore attorney Paul Mark Sandler writes in the National Law Journal that lawyers should be vigilant about keeping jurors offline.
• Supreme Court may hear case on tuition breaks for illegal immigrants.
• Why did cyclist Tyler Hamilton (above)  come clean?

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Good Monday morning. Even if you’re just waiting it out at work before skipping out for the Orioles opening day game, do yourself a favor by catching up on the latest happenings below:

• Baltimore litigator Stephen Snyder is facing litigation on two fronts — here in town as we wrote about in today’s paper, and in New Jersey.
• Anne Arundel County Exec. John Leopold has hired attorney Bruce Marcus in a probe into his campaign practices.
• A public radio piece has elicited calls for a judge’s impeachment and even some death threats.
• No joking matter for DLA Piper’s London outpost.
• Curious what your gallbladder’s worth? Look no further.
• American exceptionalism — are we really that different? Well, at least in one not so great way.
• A law school musical about Richard M. Nixon? Now that I want to see.

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Saying Baltimore had the right idea, Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. is seeking a constitutional amendment that would require the judges on the Prince George’s County Orphan’s Court to be Maryland attorneys.

“Life is so complicated and estates are so large,” Miller told a Senate panel Wednesday in explaining why judges who hear probate cases in one of Maryland’s most populous counties should be learned in the law.

“You need somebody sharp on the orphans’ court,” Miller, D-Prince George’s and Calvert, told the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee. “You need somebody trained in the law.”

But Sen. Jennie M. Forehand, a committee member, appeared unconvinced. “A wise and compassionate CPA” who understands the financial implications of wills, trusts and estates would make a fine orphans’ court judge, said Forehand, D-Montgomery.

Miller disagreed, saying certified public accountants are better suited at providing expert testimony in orphans’ court cases than at making the ultimate legal conclusion.

If the General Assembly approves the amendment — Senate Bill 281 — Maryland voters will be asked in November 2012 if orphans’ court judges in Prince George’s County must be Maryland lawyers.

Miller’s testimony followed the ratification by Maryland voters last November of a constitutional amendment requiring that judges on the Orphans’ Court of Baltimore City be Maryland attorneys. The amendment made Baltimore’s Orphans’ Court the only one in the state whose judges must be members of the bar.

Ratification also led Gov. Martin O’Malley to refuse to seat Ramona Moore Baker, a non-lawyer, on the Baltimore court — even though she had won election to the bench the same day as the statewide vote. O’Malley said he was following the advice of Maryland Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler, who concluded that seating Moore would violate the newly amended constitution.

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During this holiday season, Marylanders can perhaps rejoice in the fact their top court is a “point of light” and not a “judicial hellhole,” according to a national organization that seeks to rein in what it considers runaway jury awards.

In its annual report, the American Tort Reform Association praises the Maryland Court of Appeals for its Sept. 24 decision upholding the state’s statutory cap on noneconomic damages. By contrast, ATRA scorns the Illinois and Georgia supreme courts for striking down their state laws limiting awards for pain and suffering.

In contrast to the “reasonableness” of Maryland’s high court, justices in those two “judicial hellholes” replaced “the policy judgments of elected legislators and governors with their own,” ATRA’s report says.

The Maryland Court of Appeals, in DRD Pool Service Inc. v. Freed, said the state legislature had a”rational basis” for enacting the cap on noneconomic damages. The General Assembly limited awards for pain and suffering to achieve the “legitimate legislative objective” of keeping insurance costs down for companies and individuals, as the cap enables insurers to better predict their financial exposure in litigation, the court said.

“In our view, the cap continues to serve a legitimate government purpose,” Judge Clayton Greene Jr. wrote for the court’s 6-judge majority.

Judge Joseph F. Murphy Jr., the sole dissenter, argued for a stricter standard. He said the cap’s defenders should have to show that it is substantially related to an important legislative objective.

Maryland’s noneconomic damages cap, which increases by $15,000 every Oct. 1, is currently $740,000.

Do you regard the court’s decision as a point of light?

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It was all over the news in October –  Mississippi Chancery Judge Talmadge Littlejohn jailed an attorney who refused to recite the Pledge of Allegiance in his courtroom.

I was nothing short of baffled to hear that an officer of the court in his 70s — who spent his long career as a state lawmaker, prosecutor and judge — could get the Constitution so completely and appallingly wrong. Even someone with the most basic understanding of the First Amendment should realize that compulsory unification of opinion is unconstitutional.

To make matters worse, Littlejohn stubbornly stuck to his guns, requiring all in his courtroom to again recite the pledge just one day after the national uproar over his treatment of lawyer Danny Lampley.

The Mississippi Commission on Judicial Performance last week recommended to the state Supreme Court that Littlejohn be publicly reprimanded and pay $100 in court costs for jailing Lampley, according to the Clarion Ledger.

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