Heard and By the Numbers

BY: Daily Record Staff
POSTED: November 20, 2009

“It’s almost as if she’s phoning in her order.”
Senior Assistant State Prosecutor Shelly Glenn, during closing arguments in Mayor Sheila Dixon’s criminal trial, on allegations that Dixon asked developer Patrick Turner to donate gift cards for needy children, and then kept them for herself. Dixon claimed in her defense that she thought cards were gifts [...]

Breaking: Dixon jury sent home until Monday

BY: Brendan Kearney
POSTED: November 20, 2009

Judge Dennis Sweeney dismissed jurors until Monday after a note from the one of the jurors said that ‘things’ were getting ‘a little overheated.’

Go to twitter.com/mddailyrecord to read our tweets from inside the courthouse.

Jury notes continue in Dixon trial

BY: Brendan Kearney
POSTED: November 20, 2009
Comments: 1

A note from the jury foreperson in the theft case against Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon indicates that the first day of deliberations was marked by some tension.

Fraser Smith: A case built on a house of cards 

BY: C. Fraser Smith
POSTED: November 19, 2009

No one ever wants to acknowledge the elephant in the room.
Closing arguments Thursday in the trial of Mayor Sheila Dixon left out almost entirely the underlying issue: Cozy relationships between developers and public officials are corrosive and costly to the taxpayer — and to the system.
If millions of dollars in taxes are forgiven in exchange [...]

4 groups threaten to sue over Mirant’s P.G. landfill

BY: Liz Farmer
POSTED: November 19, 2009

Four environmental groups are threatening to sue the owners of a Prince George’s County landfill they say is dumping toxic chemicals into a creek feeding the Patuxent River watershed.
The groups claim mid-Atlantic subsidiaries of Mirant Corp. are violating the federal Clean Water Act by illegally discharging toxic pollutants at the company’s Brandywine Coal Combustion Waste [...]

Dixon case in jury’s hands

BY: Brendan Kearney
POSTED: November 19, 2009
Comments: 1

Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon’s fate now rests with the jury. The nine women and three men got the case around 12:30 p.m. Thursday, but after they asked several questions over the next four hours — two about the definition of misappropriation — the judge sent them home and told them to return Friday to continue deliberating.

Closing arguments start this morning; last chance to sway the Dixon jury

BY: Brendan Kearney
POSTED: November 18, 2009

What a difference a week makes.
Seven days ago, State Prosecutor Robert A. Rohrbaugh laid out his gift card theft case against Baltimore Mayor Sheila A. Dixon, and veteran litigator Arnold M. Weiner responded by telling the jury it was all a big misunderstanding and that the state’s key witness was not to be trusted.
But the [...]

Fighting for Doc: Part 4: After the Fall

BY: Caryn Tamber
POSTED: November 18, 2009
Comments: 1

For years after he lost his wife, Doc McQuaid maintained to his friends and family that nothing was wrong at home. The façade began to crack in 2009.

Obama, Holder defend plans for Sept. 11 trial

BY: Associated Press
POSTED: November 18, 2009

WASHINGTON — From opposite ends of the globe, President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder firmly rejected criticism Wednesday of the planned New York trial of the professed Sept. 11 mastermind and predicted Khalid Sheikh Mohammed would be exposed as a murderous coward, convicted and executed.
“Failure is not an option,” Holder declared.
The president, in [...]

Black firefighters object to white promotions

BY: Associated Press
POSTED: November 18, 2009

A group of black Connecticut firefighters hopes to block promotions for white firefighters who won a discrimination case before the U.S. Supreme Court.
The move threatens to re-ignite a long-running battle that became a central issue in the recent nomination of Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor.
The black New Haven firefighters argue in papers filed Monday that [...]