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A 47-year-old Lutherville/Essex attorney/magician who – frighteningly – runs a children’s entertainment company in Baltimore County was arrested and charged with flying to Florida to have sex with a 14-year-old boy, It was a “Predators” type deal: the guy was really talking to undercover cops who posed as both the boy and – perhaps more creepily – the boy’s caregiver. So this guy was all pumped up that everyone was on board.

This magician/lawyer – a combination that was bound to end badly – claims to be a criminal lawyer yet he fell for the ole “bring a basketball and a movie so we can identify your pathetic self” play.

The story is in the Baltimore Sun and the Maryland Daily Record. I love the Daily Record’s title that the arrest could spur an Attorney Grievance Commission. Really? Ya think?

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We get a lot of traffic on this blog for law students looking to read about their bar results. When the Maryland bar exam results were coming out on Friday, we just got tons of traffic. The traffic has died off naturally but continues strong. Who is it? Surely, it is not people looking to see if they themselves passed the exam. I suspect it is curious ex-boyfriends and ex-girlfriends.

Listen, your ex-girlfriend passed the exam. You should have never dumped her. She is going places. Now, I’m not saying she has a job or anything; it is a tough economy. Still. You made a mistake.

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The South Carolina Supreme Court anonymously admonished a lawyer who had sex with the wife of his client with whom he had three open cases.

Our law firm’s general policy on these blogs is not to name names when lawyers screw up (or doctors or anyone else really for that matter). If you did something stupid, you did something stupid, but we don’t want to be the landing place to rub that in your face on Google. But, I can assure you, the Court of Appeals of Maryland does not share this view. So if a Maryland lawyer sleeps with a client’s spouse, you can expect the court to name names and to give a steeper punishment than a mere admonishment.

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When a Court of Appeals of Maryland opinion starts off with, “Reminiscent of a scene from a Cheech & Chong movie…”, you know the opinion will be interesting. Particularly when the dissent responds by quoting Mr. Mackey from South Park.

You can find the full Smith v. State opinion here.

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Maryland needs tougher DWI/DUI laws if we will reduce the number of drunk driving accidents. Two things come to mind.

First, tougher laws. The Drunk Driving Elimination Act rejected by the Maryland legislature this Spring would have been huge. The bill would have required all DUI offenders to use an ignition interlock. The bill lost after heavy pressure from the Alcohol Beverage Institute. Honestly, I cannot figure out why they would not line up against drivers who do not use alcohol responsibly – DWIs and the number of dead people that result are not exactly a PR boon for the sellers of alcohol. I’m sure there is self-serving wisdom to it. Or something. But I can’t figure it out.

Another law would have removed repeat DWI offenders’ right to refuse a breathalyzer. Personally, I think those repeat offenders should absolutely be able to refuse a breathalyzer test. But, ah, you lose your license for 5 years if you do.

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