Gov. Martin O?Malley appointed eight new judges to the Circuit Court in five jurisdictions just in time for Monday?s election filing deadline. They included five District Court judges he promoted, including two from Prince George?s County, and one each from Anne Arundel County, Baltimore City and Harford County. He also named Howard County State?s Attorney Timothy McCrone to the bench.
All but one of the new Circuit judges are Democrats, but all must run to keep their seat in both party primaries Feb. 12 and then in the Nov. 4, 2008.
The judges oversee the basic trial courts in Maryland, handling the most serious criminal and civil cases and all jury trials, and they make $134,352 a year.
As Maryland governors have done for the last four decades, O?Malley appointed the judges from names submitted to him by judicial nominating commissions he had reconstituted earlier this year. O?Malley spokesman Rick Abbruzzese said the governor personally interviewed all the lawyers who were nominated.
“The process had started month ago,” Abbruzzese said Monday, but “had ramped up a bit” in recent weeks. Judicial nominees, along with delegates and senators, were part of a constant stream of visitors to the governor?s office during the most recent special session.
The new judges are as follows:
» In Anne Arundel County, Michael Wachs, a registered independent, has been a District Court judge since 2000. Wachs oversees the drug treatment program and had been a master in chancery for family law matters in the Circuit Court. He is a former public defender, private attorney and president of the bar association.
» In Baltimore City, Emanuel Brown has been a District Court judge since 1996, and is charge of the civil division. A city native, Brown spent 12 years as a prosecutor.
» In Harford County, Angela Eaves has been a District Court judge since 2000, and becomes the first African-American woman named to the Circuit Court there. She has been an assistant attorney general, a Legal Aid attorney and a prosecutor in Texas.
» In Howard County, Tim McCrone has been the elected state?s attorney since 2002, and his successor will be named by the Circuit Court judges, including himself.
» In Prince George?s County, O?Malley named District Court Judges Crystal Mittelstaedt and Beverly Woodard, and Public Defender Nicholas Rattal.
» In Talbot County, Broughton Miller Earnest, a litigator with DLA Piper, was tapped.
