Free Republic

ANNAPOLIS, Md. — A Maryland Eastern Shore judge who was about to be arrested at his home on federal charges of sexual exploitation of a child was found dead Friday, officials said.... ...“Upon entering the residence the agents found Newell suffering from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound,” a joint statement from Acting Maryland U.S. Attorney Jonathan Lenzner and other officials said.

A 2006 state law prohibiting the most serious sex offenders from living in nursing homes or other long-term care facilities is unconstitutional, the Supreme Judicial Court ruled unanimously Friday. In the case ruled on Friday, a level three sex offender identified only as John Doe would likely have become homeless and personally endangered if he were forced out of the rest home in which he resides, according to the SJC. According to a background of the case included in the ruling, John Doe – diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome and who also suffers from glaucoma, seizures and “poor personal hygiene” –...

It’s certainly a relief that Judge Barbara Lenk has had an opportunity to “clarify” her statements in 2010 about homosexual incest. Pay no attention to that pesky present tense that she uses in her written opinion — the lesbian appellate judge says she was merely referring to an old law. “By necessary implication,” she wrote last year, before Gov. Deval Patrick nominated her to serve on the Supreme Judicial Court, “homosexual conduct . . . does not constitute incest and is not prohibited by the statute.” Lenk wrote her opinion in a decision last year about two brothers who were...