WHO WILL GOVERNOR WES TAX-MOORE PICK TO BE THE NEW JUDGE IN ST. MARY’S COUNTY? Sausage Committee narrows field, sends names of Armitage, Giddens, Hill, Williams to the D.E.I Chief for his decision….

WHO WILL GOVERNOR WES-TAX MOORE PICK TO BE THE
NEW JUDGE IN ST MARY’S COUNTY?

BY KEN ROSSIGNOL
THE CHESAPEAKE TODAY

The vacancy caused by the unexpected expiration of the late Judge Michael Stamm has triggered a unique system for selecting a new judge. First, the sitting Governor appoints a committee to choose from among those attorneys wishing to fill the 15-year post, which currently pays $204,432 annually. Then, the three names of those deemed qualified by the Sausage Committee are sent to the Governor. Should the expected choice of the Governor not be on the list, he can send it back until the panel figures out who he wants to anoint as judge.

Why is it called the “Sausage Committee”?

One of the committee members, Nicholas J. Ferrante, is a lawyer from Prince Frederick whose family owns Nicks of Clinton, a local sausage-making business. Another family member was a previous member of the Judicial Selection Committee, and he worked in the store making sausages. It’s an old political axiom: watching politics and government constructed is akin to making sausage. It’s not a pretty process, and lots of stuff ends up on the floor.

 

THE SAUSAGE COMMITTEE
12th COMMISSION DISTRICT (Calvert & St. Mary’s Counties)
Appointed by Governor to 5-year terms:
John L. Erly, Esq., Chair (chosen by Governor), 2028
Daniel R. Armitage, Esq.; Kelsey R. M. Bush, J.D.; Rebecca N. Cordero, Esq.; Rose C. Crunkleton, Esq.; Nicholas J. Ferrante, Esq.; Rose V. Frederick; Margaret A. Maupin, Esq.; Kevin J. McDevitt, Esq.; Tracey A. McKirgan, Esq.; Melissa A. Miller, Esq.; Allison Hyde Smart, Esq.; David M. Stamm, Esq. Terms expire in 2028.
First of all, the chief qualification is if the applicant is of the same political party as the Governor.
That rule is not written, but any student of judicial selections might develop a twisted backbone from doing double-law book flip-flops trying to find any instance where that rule wasn’t carried out.

The Dark Horse is the Sure Bet

Next, in this particular case of replacing a Judge who was soon to retire anyway due to his nearly reaching the mandatory retirement age of seventy, St. Mary’s County was left one judge short of one old white man on the three-judge bench.
And now, with this decidedly moronic Governor pasting a color kaleidoscope on everything gubernatorial, he will be hard-pressed not to appoint the only black applicant, Marsha Lynette Williams. Williams is a family law attorney and lacks real courtroom experience in criminal matters.
The Bio on her firm website states the following: Raised in New Jersey, Marsha graduated from Rutgers University in 1997 and Howard University School of Law in 2000. She moved to St. Mary’s County in 2002. She is married and has one son.

Marsha began her legal career with House of Ruth – Maryland. In 2002, she became a Staff Attorney with Maryland Legal Aid, where she represented children. She entered private practice in 2018.
How can Wes Moore stand up to the clamoring media and justify missing the opportunity to appoint the first black female to the Circuit Court, a position in the long history of St. Mary’s County dating back to 1634?
There’s never been a District Court Judge of Color unless we could count under the old Magistrate system when Magistrate Harry Lancaster might have had a sunburn from being out on Sheriff Ben Burroughs’s boat for a long day in the summer heat.
The Sausage Committee won’t dare leave Williams’s name off the list of those deemed qualified, mainly due to the fact that the lawyers among them are clever, astute, and, as lawyers, are accomplished at stretching the truth. To be fair, the number of incompetents and rascals recommended in the past includes some real doozies, not as many as in Charles County, but making for great stories nonetheless.

Many do not view Williams as qualified, but hell bells, this is St. Mary’s County, and for many years, there was a Judge that everyone called “Sleepy Joe,” who often fell asleep on the bench during trials. Joe Mattingly Sr. defeated Circuit Court Judge Joe Weiner in 1972, following Gov. Marvin Mandel’s appointment of State’s Attorney Weiner to the bench to replace the retired Circuit Court Judge Philip H. Dorsey.

In the election, sentiment to replace ‘rich Joe’ with ‘poor Joe’ combined to block the appointment made by Mandel.

Another Circuit Court Judge, C. Clarke Raley, approved cash payments by drug dealers to stay out of jail. Raley was a strict judge and didn’t tolerate much hoopla in the courtroom.
Another lofty Judge blew it in his ruling on the killers in the Mouse Trap murder by accidentally dismissing the murder charges and leaving an armed robbery charge the only crime left to put the killer behind bars but for three years. That Judge was a real estate lawyer and wasn’t cut out for criminal trials. Still, that Judge, former Speaker of the House John Hanson Briscoe, often put aside his political persona and worked hard to be a fair jurist.

The first female judge in St. Mary’s, Karen Abrams, was appointed by Governor Parris Glendening in 2002 and subsequently won election for a full term in the 2004 election. She was criticized for being a meetings attorney, advising various entities such as the school board, rather than being a hotshot criminal lawyer like Richard Fritz, who lost both the Republican and Democratic primaries to her and Shaun Dugan. Yep, the incumbent GOP state’s attorney, Fritz, lost the GOP primary to two Democrats. Kind of a shin-buster to lose to Abrams, who was married to Court of Special Appeals Judge Jim Kenney. Fritz had already begun measuring the drapes in the months leading up to the election.
Abrams was also a former law partner of Briscoe, Kenney, and Kaminetz and later practiced with Julian Isadore, who was disbarred after being convicted of embezzling vast sums of money from the estates of several of his clients.

Circuit Court Judge Marvin Kaminetz presided over significant criminal cases moved to St. Mary’s, including the notorious killer John Thanos and local killer Dana Collins. Kaminetz sentenced Thanos to a well-deserved death and Collins to life in prison. Kaminetz, a former law partner of both Briscoe and Kenney, was appointed to the Circuit Court in 1989 by Governor William Donald Schaefer. Kaminetz served long enough to move into the newly expanded and renovated 1901 Courthouse when it was finished.

Judge Kaminetz was possibly the best judge St. Mary’s County has had since Judge Dorsey. Kaminetz retired in 2005, which opened the way for the appointment by Governor Robert Ehrlich of Mike Stamm.

Judge Briscoe threw every roadblock at his command to have a new courthouse built at Leonard Hall for $23 million bucks. When he lost the battle to Republican Commissioners Larry Jarboe, Frances Eagan, and Chris Brugman and the existing courthouse was designated for restoration and expansion, Briscoe’s name was then attached to the building, showing the irony thrives in the Walled City of Leonardtown.

An effort by Dana Collins to achieve an early release was recently successfully opposed by St. Mary’s State’s Attorney Jaymi Sterling, leaving him to rot in prison for the rest of his life.
Criminal Defense Attorney Dave Densford was appointed to the Circuit Court by Governor Martin O’Malley after being whipped by former Senator Roy Dyson in 1995 for the State Senate. Assistant State’s Attorney Joseph Stanalonis opposed Densford, and after a raucous election, Densford won a full term.
Shane Mattingly and former State’s Attorney George Sparling split the native Countian vote in 2006 to the recently late Mike Stamm, for whom the current vacancy is now being eyeballed by those going before the Sausage Committee.

A Fourth Judge

This judicial contest won’t be the only one this year as the Chief Judge of the Supreme Court of Maryland recently testified before the General Assembly for a fourth judge in St. Mary’s County. Defense attorneys are squealing like pigs since they no longer get endless plea deals for their clients and have to work for a living, as Sterling has ended the practice of letting criminals donate to Project Graduation to avoid jail time. Sterling is currently funding the Project Graduation from her office budget.

Maryland Supreme Court Chief Justice Matthew J. Fader and St. Mary’s Circuit Court Judge Joseph Stanalonis testified in support of legislation in the current session of the Maryland General Assembly that a 261% increase in cases from 2019 to 2024 has resulted in three to four jury trials each month as opposed to the sleepy schedule of the attorneys working for the former State’s Attorney who made lots of plea deals to avoid having to put on a trial and all the work associated with them.

State’s Attorney Sterling, at a budget work session in March with the St. Mary’s County Commissioners, said that the increase in crime in St. Mary’s County has provided a stream of murders, rapes, and robberies that eventually clog up the court schedules.

“We are currently scheduling criminal jury trials 3 to 4 weeks in advance each month, and we are holding criminal jury trials almost every week, if not multiple times per week. The trials are lasting longer than those before because we’ve seen an increase in serious crimes. So, one of the questions asked by the legislator is to remember that this is what the pitch is for another judge. Not for another prosecutor but for another judge. Because we’re still handling the work. And if you increase that ability for them to be able to stretch out their court time to 4, what do you think that does to us, the prosecutors who are presenting these cases? Therefore, the request for the judge to appoint more judges is to be able to handle a greater number of those cases. We are sitting here and saying we would love to but we need help too. We want to be able to churn out those cases and make sure that justice is achieved but we need more resources too.”
Sterling said that both the State Police and the Sheriff’s Department were doing a good job of locking up criminals, leading to her higher caseload and the need for another judge.
Marsha Williams will have to stand for election in 2026 should Gov. Wes Tax Moore appoint her. Williams couldn’t even win a seat on the St. Mary’s School Board in 2022. How can one expect she could win an election to hold onto her seat on the Circuit Court?

• Sue Ann Lewis Armitage
• Buffy Nicole Giddens
• Magistrate Kevin Ray Hill
• John Andrew Mattingly, Jr.
• Daniel Aaron Martin Slade
• Marsha Lynette Williams

Armitage is well known to the public at this point; Buffy Giddens is a former top assistant to Fritz and is currently St. Mary’s County Attorney for the Commissioners; Kevin Hill works as the family court referee between warring parties in domestic cases and should invest in a helmet to cover his bald pate.

John Mattingly, the assistant county attorney in Calvert, lives in Leonardtown and has won impressive cases against some of the nation’s most prominent corporate interests when he took on clients’ cases fighting companies in federal court.

Dan Slade lost his income guarantee from plea deals when Fritz lost the election for prosecutor and seeks to relocate across the street from his current office. Slade ran for House of Delegates in 2014 and lost to Del. Matt Morgan (R. District 29B).
It’s a sure bet that Williams will be one of the three names sent to the Governor. The deal is to learn which of the others will be tapped to accompany her on the list.

Melissa Miller is an experienced Prince George’s County criminal attorney who has an office in Calvert County, Erly is in practice in Calvert as well as Ferrante. David Stamm is a real estate attorney with no other experience and maintains an office staffed with sharp assistants who handle all the work in his title company. However, he could tell stories about how hard his late father worked as a judge. Stamm poses on his title company website, relaxing on a couch, knowing that his staff will take care of the work.

Criminal defense attorney Kevin McDevitt, who bemoans the lack of available plea deals, is also making his first appearance on the Sausage Committee. McDevitt has extensive legal experience, having worked as a prosecutor in Baltimore City and St. Mary’s County before founding his own practice in 2008, which likely provides him with the best criminal experience of anyone on the committee. His prowess as a hunter is second to none, as he is sure to let everyone know.
Democrat activists Rose Frederick and Kelsey Bush are citizen members of the committee, which Wes Tax Moore broadcast to anyone paying attention that he wants to see more judges appointed who look like him. Perhaps he had in mind race instead of simply mind-numbingly stupid.

Daniel Armitage, an attorney in practice with his wife, Sue Ann Armitage, has withdrawn from the Sausage Committee since his spouse entered her name for the vacancy. Sue Ann Armitage built a barn full of signs as well as name recognition in her race for the open Circuit Court seat to which Gov. Larry Hogan appointed Amy Lorenzini. Following a hotly contested primary election. Lorenzini won both party primaries.
Should independents bother to wonder why they have no say in the selection of judges? It is because Democrats like it that way, and they defeated a bill in 2006 to allow for full participation of those who are not members of the two major parties.

The late Senator J. Frank Raley Jr was the kingmaker of judges in St. Mary’s County following the election of Governor Harry Hughes. The Democrat Governor was a college roommate of Sen. Raley, and the close political relationship resulted in about a half dozen local lawyers ending up on the court bench under Hughes and Schaefer, Glendening, and Martin O’Malley. When asked if he was going to see to it that Delegate John Slade was appointed to the vacancy on the District Court in St. Mary’s, Sen. Raley sent me a copy of the letter he sent to the Governor, which assured the selection of John Slade to the bench.