A multimedia presentation: “Alex. Brown” leaves downtown
December 20, 2007
The long-standing name of Alex. Brown will no longer grace the building at One South Street.
Alex. Brown became a piece of Baltimore history over 200 years ago until 2002 when Deutsche Bank dropped it from its name. However, the Alex. Brown sign remained aloft. Stifel Nicolaus officially moved into the site in 2007, sharing the space with Deutsche Bank. As a result, One South Street, will now bear the name Stifel Nicolaus on the front side (South Street) and Deutsche Bank on the rear (Commerce Street).
For a larger version of the slideshow, click here.
Would teen voters make a difference?
December 20, 2007
Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler now says 17-year-olds should be allowed to vote in the Feb. 12 primaries as long as they will be 18 by the general election.
| Maryland | 2002 | 2004 |
| Total voter turnout | 46.6% | 59.7% |
| 18 to 24 | 19.5% | 42.9% |
| 25 to 44 | 37.0% | 52.5% |
| 45 to 64 | 56.4% | 70.9% |
| 65 to 74 | 65.1% | 67.9% |
| 75+ | 63.1% | 60.1% |
That used to be Maryland’s policy — until Gansler advised the Maryland State Board of Elections that a December 2006 opinion by the Court of Appeals, which struck down an early voting statute, suggested the practice was illegal.
In the latest advisory opinion, Gansler stood by the first interpretation but said it’s outweighed by the First Amendment rights of the 17-going-on-18-year-olds.
But here’s the question: even if the policy is changed back, how big a difference will it make? A quick look at U.S. Census Bureau statistics indicates that young people don’t, in fact, rock the vote: Although the 18-to-24 age group dramatically increased in voter turnout from the 2002 to 2004 elections, it still remains the lowest in the state.
Will this proposed change make a difference? Or, in the long run, is it not about numbers but about a constitutional right?
Liz Farmer, Legal Affairs Writer
Sphere: Related ContentSparrows Point steel mill update
December 20, 2007
Craig T. Bouchard, who heads Esmark Inc., said by e-mail Thursday that he is weighing another run at the Sparrows Point. E2 Acquisition Corp., an international group of investors led by the Illinois-based Esmark, nearly bought the sprawling Baltimore County plant for $1.35 billion, but the deal fell through this week.
This time, Bouchard said domestic investors might work better.
“We will reconfigure our partners and look at submitting a new bid,” he wrote. “We hope to do so with American partners who pass muster with the [United Steelworkers] and who appreciate what it takes to succeed.”
He said he doesn’t think the plant would succeed unless it is part of a larger operation.
“In steel, scale is a critical component of success. In this era, the right partnerships are required to deal with rising raw material and energy costs.”
In my story today, United Steelworkers officials said two international investors that dropped out of the E2 partnership would not commit to rolling Sparrows Point into a larger company.
ANDY ROSEN, Business Writer
Sphere: Related ContentWestboro’s lawyer gets clemency for technical glitch
December 20, 2007
Lawyers for the Westboro Baptist Church and the father of Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder, whose funeral the anti-gay sect picketed in Westminster, have been busy filing post-trial motions in federal court since a Baltimore jury ordered the church to pay $10.9 million.
In such a high-profile case, one would think the attorney representing the Topeka, Kans.-based church, which regularly protests soldiers’ funerals nationwide, would not flirt with filing deadlines.
But Jonathan L. Katz, who has championed the group’s right to free speech, had to throw himself on the mercy of the court Tuesday after he was ever-so-slightly tardy in submitting his most recent round of arguments for, among other things, why the Oct. 31 verdict should be shelved pending appeal (subscriber-only link). One pleading came in 18 minutes past a midnight deadline, he wrote; the other came in at 12:31 a.m.
Katz “did not anticipate any delay in filing Defendants’ Replies, but that unexpectedly arose, and was further affected by a technical difficulty with the freezing of his Microsoft Word program, which necessitated taking time to figure out how to unfreeze Microsoft Word,” the Silver Spring lawyer wrote.
U.S. District Judge Richard D. Bennett, who had forgiven Katz for arriving late to court on the first day of trial due to morning traffic, granted his latest request for clemency — the same day it was filed.
What do you make of Katz’s request and Bennett’s response? Is it common for judges to cut lawyers slack in such scenarios? Any personal tales of “technical difficulty” that were met with either judicial understanding or an unbending “rules are rules” attitude?
BRENDAN KEARNEY, Legal Affairs Writer
Sphere: Related ContentWho is Maryland’s top legal newsmaker?
December 19, 2007
The American Bar Association picked Alberto Gonzales. The Wall Street Journal’s law bloggers picked a frequent commenter only as “Loyola 2L.”
Everyone else seems to be naming a Legal Newsmaker of the Year, so why not us? Which member of the Maryland bar has had the greatest impact — positive or negative — on Maryland law or the Maryland legal community this year?
Here are a few ideas to get you started:
* Gov. Martin O’Malley, who, by not acting to change the state’s lethal-injection protocols, has continued a de facto moratorium on executions.
* Court of Appeals Judge Glenn T. Harrell, who wrote the majority opinion in the gay marriage case (PDF).
* U.S. Attorney/4th Circuit judicial nominee Rod J. Rosenstein, whose office wrapped up the Thomas Bromwell case this year. (subscriber-only link)
* Baltimore County Circuit Judge Susan M. Souder, who ruled that fingerprint evidence is not scientifically reliable enough to be admitted in a death-penalty case; or Patrick Kent, chief of the forensics division in the Office of the Public Defender, who raised the argument.
* Paul W. Minnich (yes, he’s admitted in Maryland), whose York, Pa.-based law firm was lead counsel for the father of Matthew Snyder, the Marine whose funeral was picketed by the Westboro Baptist Church. A jury in federal court in Baltimore awarded $10.9 million in damages. Or, how about Jonathan L. Katz, who represented the church in that same action?
What do you think?
CARYN TAMBER, Legal Affairs Writer
Sphere: Related ContentThieves get copper-happy in HoCo
December 19, 2007
When I visited Chicago last month, my colleague and I noticed reports of theft of stainless-steel appliances from residential construction sites. My colleague shared that in his hometown of New Orleans, residents often complain of copper pipe thefts from home sites under construction.
Turns out the theft of this valuable metal doesn’t always happen so far from home.
Patuxent Square, a new commercial/residential development in North Laurel, Md., is hiring a night watchman after $10,000 of copper pipe fittings were ripped off at its construction site, the HoCo Times reported last week.
And the Patuxent Square development is just one of many. According to the story, the Howard County Police say copper thefts from county construction sites tripled in October (14 reports) and November (13 reports). At scrap dealers, copper yields about $3.20 per pound.
JACKIE SAUTER, Multimedia Editor
Sphere: Related ContentWSJ’s anonymous “Lawyer of the Year”
December 19, 2007
Akin to the American Bar Association’s “Lawyer of the Year” award, the Wall Street Journal last week asked its readers to nominate their most newsworthy lawyer of the year. Well, the results are in - but nobody seems to know who the person actually is!
According to the Journal, the “landslide” winner is “Loyola 2L,” (otherwise known as L2L) a law blogger whose claim to fame is beating “a loud and consistent drum of discontent around the Web by posting in online forums about the job prospects for graduates of nonelite law schools.”
L2L first appeared on the law blog scene about a year ago; from the moniker, the Journal speculates he or she was a second-year student at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. Many of L2L’s comments center on how law school rankings (Loyola is a tier-two school) play an unfair role in access to well-paying jobs upon graduation.
Although now presumably a third-year, L2L’s true identity (gender included) remains a mystery to the general public.
Sphere: Related ContentA multimedia presentation: The business of selling Christmas trees
December 18, 2007
We’ve all driven past them before: Christmas tree lots in shopping center parking lots. They have big, beckoning signs, barrels of roaring fires and hundreds of forest green Christmas trees. But who runs these lots, and in what conditions? Watch our audio slideshow to find out and click here to view a larger version.
Special session cost just over $360,000
December 18, 2007
The Maryland General Assembly’s special session last month cost taxpayers $360,873 (not including, of course, the tax hikes that resulted from it). That’s an average of slightly more than $17,000 per day for the three-week session.
JACKIE SAUTER, Multimedia Editor
Sphere: Related ContentDo you have an obligation to help others?
December 18, 2007
Did you read Marc Fisher’s column in Sunday’s Washington Post, “Helping Those You Can, Because You Can“?
I did, and I have to say, I found it moving. For those of you who didn’t, Fisher writes about two successful businessmen who each sponsored a class of poor schoolchildren in D.C., providing them with emotional and financial support through college.
Here’s a short excerpt:
Twenty years ago, [George] Kettle had stood before sixth-graders at a Southeast Washington school and announced that “I’m the whitey from Virginia” who promised to pay whatever it took to send every child in the room to college.
Many kids at Winston Educational Center that day had little idea what Kettle’s commitment really meant, but two decades later, the students to whom Kettle devoted hundreds of hours and $600,000 are more successful than not. A few ended up on the streets, but most are managers, teachers, police officers.
Is piece uplifting? Definitely. But that’s not what struck me.
Ed Wilczynski (who took up the practice after Kettle) told Fisher that “people who know how to get things done have an obligation to step in when the system isn’t working.”
Do you agree? Do successful businesspeople who can “get things done” need to take control of a floundering educational system?
JACKIE SAUTER, Multimedia Editor
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