On the Record

There’s just too much good law-related stuff out there this morning to tell you all about! Here’s a special, miniature (fun size, if you will) law round-up:

• John Bratt of the Baltimore Injury Lawyer Blog says he’s glad he doesn’t work for Doug Gansler. Bratt noted my colleague Steve Lash’s report that assistant attorney general Brian Kleinbord is the attorney of record for Maryland v. Shatzer, which Gansler argued in the Supreme Court yesterday. “You know what that means?” Bratt writes. “It means that Kleinbord and the other lawyers wrote the briefs and did all the work. Now that it is time for argument, the guy at the top of the letterhead is swooping in to take advantage of all of the attention, and the glory if he wins.”
• The guy who wants the military to combat proselytizing of soldiers and cadets is suing to get a former Navy chaplain to “stop asking Jesus to plunder my fields… seize my assets, kill me and my family then wipe away our descendants for 10 generations.” The former chaplain says he was just quoting Scripture and never incited violence against Mikey Weinstein, though he said he “pray[s] the Psalm that his days are few.”
• This line from The National Law Journal’s account of the opening day of the Supreme Court term yesterday is hilarious: “Justices Breyer and Clarence Thomas spent several minutes during arguments peering at the marble friezes of lawgivers on the walls of the Court high above them, apparently noticing new features they hadn’t seen before from their earlier vantage points.” I really can’t add anything to that.

On the Cover:  Welcome to the first Monday in October! This morning marks the Supreme Court debut of Maryland Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler and Assistant Public Defender Celia Anderson Davis, who will argue over a Hagerstown man’s child sex abuse conviction. The question is whether a request for counsel, years earlier, should have stopped police from questioning the suspect without a lawyer after they obtained additional information. Read the main story, some advice from Gansler’s predecessor, and a preview of the new term.

In the News: The Court of Appeals heard argument in a legal malpractice case that challenges the “case within a case” methodology … the ban on self-represented lawyers claiming attorneys’ fees applies even to bad faith or frivolous actions, the Court of Special Appeals holds … Maryland Legal Services Corp. renews its quest for a higher filing-fee surcharge … Sen. Ben Cardin finds a civil audience for his health-care talk at UB Law… and a former CBS Early Show personality appeals a ruling that knocked out his medical malpractice claim.

Also:

• Paul Tiburzi remembers the time he argued against the D.C. lawyer who went on to become Chief Justice of the United States;
• An Owings Mills man got a $588,000 verdict in his lawsuit against a home-improvement contracting firm, but will also seek to hold the contractor individually liable;
• Read the Week in Review and our Law Digest, this week with cases from the Court of Appeals, the 4th Circuit and the U.S. District Court for Maryland.

The Supreme Court will be packed for Maryland Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler and Assistant Public Defender Celia A. Davis when they argue the case of Maryland v. Shatzer before the justices.

The draw will not be the case itself, though it does present an intriguing right to counsel issue. Nor will most of the public be enticed primarily by the participants (with apologies to Mr. Gansler and Ms. Davis).

No, the attraction will be the date of the high-court showdown: Oct. 5, the first Monday in October. Not only will the day mark the opening of the Supreme Court’s 2009-2010 term but also, presumably, the first day on the bench for Sonia Sotomayor, President Barack Obama’s nominee to succeed former Justice David H. Souter, who retired this summer.

A Senate vote on Sotomayor’s anticipated confirmation is expected within the next few weeks.

Maryland v. Shatzer is scheduled to be the second case argued on that historic day.

In Shatzer, the state is appealing a Maryland Court of Appeals decision that threw out an accused child molester’s conviction because police questioned him nearly three years after he first requested an attorney. The Maryland court said the time span did not vitiate Michael Blaine Shatzer Sr.’s invocation of his right to counsel, and that police, years later, were barred from questioning him until an attorney was provided.

What effect will the Supreme Court’s ruling on drug-label warnings, Wyeth v. Levine, have in the state’s trial courts? While it will undoubtedly move cases forward, lawyers in Maryland don’t expect a flood of new litigation. As one noted, “There hasn’t been this huge holding back” by trial lawyers here.

MICPEL, already struggling with the economy, faces a new hurdle: replacing its longtime executive director, Brent Burry, who will return to his native South Carolina next month.

In other news:

• Med-mal defense litigators at Whiteford, Taylor & Preston will be leaving for Hodes, Pessin & Katz in the coming weeks;
• The top court dismissed Bar Counsel’s action against a Tydings partner who billed the firm for the fair market value of flights he purchased with frequent-flier miles;
• Bankruptcy lawyers continue to switch firms — and some have formed a new Annapolis boutique firm;
• Investors suing golf-course developer Neal Trabich haled both him and his former attorney into court in a discovery dispute. (The judge found no fault with the “experienced, highly talented and widely respected” Andrew Radding, but withheld judgment on Trabich); and
• The new U.S. Attorney General, Eric H. Holder Jr., was in Baltimore on Friday to address the National District Attorneys Association’s board of directors.

In Verdicts and Settlements, a former tenant was awarded $10,000 in attorneys’ fees for defending against retaliatory back-rent suits by her landlord. (Also, see this story about the settlement of a suit between rival car dealerships.)

Three years out of school, Alicia N. Ritchie may be a young lawyer, but she’s already an old hand at pro bono representation.

In Opinion/Commentary, Our Editorial Advisory Board looks at the shadow banking industry, while DLA Piper’s Jack Machen outlines what’s right and what’s wrong with Baltimore’s green-building ordinance.

PLUS: On the Move, Briefs/Week in Review and our weekly Law Digest of cases from the Maryland appellate courts and the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

At a press conference in Reisterstown earlier today, Attorney General Doug Gansler and the Humane Society of the United States announced a crackdown on illegal animal fighting.

Up to $5,000 will be given to anyone who provides information which leads to an arrest or conviction of someone involved in illegal animal fighting.

The announcement comes a year after former Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick was indicted on federal dogfighting charges and two years after a Texas pitbull breeder was killed for the $100,000 he had won at a fight. Vick accepted a plea agreement last August and was sentenced to 23 months in jail.

A pitbull terrier named Kane was brought outside the Humane Society during the press conference as an example of a dog that is used for dogfighting.

This dog was about as gentle and friendly as you could get. With an array of cameras pointed in his direction, Kane continued to munch on the grass – and later spit up a wad of it during Gansler’s speech.

In Maryland, dogfighting is most prevalent in Baltimore City.

View a video of the press conference below.

RICHARD SIMON, Multimedia Reporter

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/JM2o7BWzpog" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

Photographer Eric Stocklin joined Maryland Attorney General Doug Gansler on a boat tour of the Chester River yesterday, a body of water shared by Kent and Queen Anne’s County on the Eastern Shore.

The group was led by Tom Leigh of the Chester River Association, who presented findings on the health of the river.

A recent report by the state Dept. of Natural Resources on Maryland’s major tributaries identified five threats to water quality in the basin; the Chester River was rated “severely stressed” in four of them and “moderately stressed” in the fifth.

Gansler, you may know, has started a campaign (PDF) to look for ways to cut pollution in state waterways.

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/Copi3fDifqw" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

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.

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

Apparently, not everyone got that the ABA Journal’s “Lawyer of the Year” is kind of like Time’s “Person of the Year.” In other words: no, people, this is not an award honoring the erstwhile AG for being such a mensch.

CARYN TAMBER, Legal Affairs Writer

South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham has suggested to the White House that William W. Wilkins be appointed as attorney general to replace Alberto Gonzales, South Carolina’s State newspaper reports.

The conservative Wilkins, 65, is the former chief judge of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which includes Maryland. He took senior status (subscriber-only) in July.

The South Carolina Appellate Law blog, which closely follows all things 4th Circuit, blogged briefly about the prospect of an AG Wilkins here.

-CARYN TAMBER, Daily Record Legal Affairs Writer