Maryland Judiciary System

Maryland Law

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. The NAACP has filed a follow-up complaint claiming racial bias in student discipline at Anne Arundel County schools

Letter says African-American students still disciplined disproportionately, seven years after original complaint.

The complaint, filed with the civil rights office of the U.S. Department of Education on Friday, alleges that the numbers of African-American students referred for discipline and suspended have hardly changed since a similar complaint in 2004. That complaint led to an improvement plan agreed to in 2005 by the NAACP and the school system.

"Six years later, however, there has been no marked improvement in the disparate treatment of African-American students in disciplinary actions, which continues a pattern of denial and limitation of their educational opportunities and thus their future sustainability," the new complaint reads.

"We want to know why it hasn't gotten better and what's being done," said Jacqueline Boone Allsup, president of the county branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. At Montgomery County Circuit Judge Eric Johnson's fingertips: whether Maryland will join with most of the country by imposing some liability on bars for the drunken actions of its customers. Johnson is currently drafting a decision on whether or not to allow a civil suit against Dogfish Head Alehouse in Gaithersburg to move forward to trial, calling into question the status -- or lack -- of dram shop laws in the state of Maryland. In the case, the guardians for a 10-year-old, who was killed in a car crash with a drunk driver, is suing the alehouse for $3.25 million for allowing the driver to leave the establishment in an obvious inebriated state. Evidence shows that the driver, Michael Eaton, rang up two tabs at the alehouse tallying up 17 beers and three shots. In April, Judge Johnson said that the restaurant "should have predicted that the man might drive recklessly and kill or seriously injure someone." Eaton's lawyers still assert that Maryland has no laws that put Dogfish Head at fault.

Montgomery County Circuit Court Administrator Pamela Harris Named

(Rockville, Md. – Aug. 5, 2011) Pamela Q. Harris, court administrator for the Circuit Court for Montgomery County, has been appointed to the Board of Directors of the National Center for State Courts (NCSC). Harris, whose appointment was announced on Aug. 1, will serve a four-year term. The NCSC is a nonprofit organization that aims to improve the administration of justice through leadership and service to the nation’s state courts.

“We are fortunate to welcome someone with her knowledge, expertise and proven leadership abilities to the National Center’s governing body.” said Mary C. McQueen, NCSC president.

Harris has been court administrator of the Montgomery County Circuit Court since 1989, and oversees the daily operations of the court, which serves the most populous jurisdiction in Maryland.

In addition to her work with the court, Harris is very active in a number of regional, national, and international organizations and committees. She is president-elect of the National Association for Court Management (NACM), the largest organization of court management professionals in the world. She also is a founding member of the Mid-Atlantic Association for Court Management.

Harris is a member, representing court administrators, of the Maryland Judiciary’s Conference of Circuit Court Judges, and also serves on the Judiciary’s Technology Oversight Board and the Integrated Statewide Case Management Committee, which is working to create a single Judiciary-wide electronic case management system to be used by all levels of courts within the state. Harris is also a member of the Urban Court Manager’s Network, and serves on the board of Montgomery Miracles Inc., a nonprofit organization dedicated to individuals involved in drug courts.

Harris is active internationally with rule-of-law initiatives and serves on the board of the Russian American Rule of Law Consortium, the board of the Maryland International Coordinating Council, Inc., and as co-chair of the Maryland-Leningrad Steering Committee. She is a fellow of the NCSC’s Institute for Court Management.

Annual report of the Maryland judiciary

Catalogue of the library of the Peabody Institute of the city of Baltimore ...

The debates of the Constitutional Convention of the state of Maryland, assembled at the city of Annapolis, Wednesday, April 27, 1864 ...

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