THE GAZETTE
Wednesday, April 9, 2014 b
Poolesville lawyer challenges judges in Circuit Court race Connell, in his second try for the bench, critical of current selection process n
BY TIFFANY ARNOLD STAFF WRITER
Growing up in a family of lawyers didn’t seal Daniel Patrick Connell’s fate as a steward of the law. For him, the “aha” moment arrived after serving with a reconnaissance unit during Operation Desert Storm. “You know who you are and you know a little bit about life when you are in life or death situations,” Connell said. “And you watch your friends die.” Connell, a 45-year-old lawyer from Poolesville, is back after serving as a U.S. Department of State senior rule of law adviser in Iraq and Afghanistan. He has returned with a new personal mission: to become a Montgomery County Circuit Court judge. “I looked at who had challenged these judges while I had been serving in Iraq as the senior rule of law advisor for the U.S. government. Who has challenged [the judges] back home in my own county, this process that’s undemocratic?” Connell asked, rhetorically. “Election after election, no one.” Connell was a last-minute entry in the upcoming race. Three sitting circuit judges — Gary E. Bair, Nelson W. Rupp Jr. and Joan E. Ryon — and a fourth who is about to take the circuit bench —
Audrey A. Creighton — are vying for four seats, along with one challenger, Connell. Connell described himself as “the people’s candidate” — opposed to the election process for circuit judges. “There is no good reason why judges should not be elected the same way we elect our legislators,” he said. Under Maryland’s constitution, Circuit Court judges are appointed by the governor, based on nominees generated by a 13-person panel in each jurisdiction. The appointees run in the next election after the appointDaniel Connell ment and in elections thereafter. They can be formally opposed by any candidate who is at least 30 years old and a member of the state bar and who meets residency requirements. The 13-person panel, known as the Judicial Nominating Commission, was created by executive order during the 1970s. Nine members are appointed by the governor and the other four are chosen by presidents of local bar associations. Connell said the panel invites cronyism and isn’t transparent. “[It] is simply designed to obfuscate the fact that we’re all supposed to be considered on our merits and to keep the power — which that panel not only covets
but, for all intents and purposes, has already usurped — in our hands,” he said. This will be the first contested Circuit Court race since 2004, when Connell ran for Circuit Court judge and lost, receiving about 11 percent of the vote. Raised in Chevy Chase, Connell is a lifelong Montgomery County resident. His father, his brother and sister, an aunt and most of his cousins are lawyers. Connell served in the Marine Corps from 1987 to 1993, when he was honorably discharged. He is a decorated Marine Corps veteran. Connell obtained a degree in philosophy from the University of Maryland and a law degree from University of Denver in 1997. Connell was a senior rule of law adviser for the U.S. Department of State in Basra, Iraq, in 2009 and 2010, and in Kandahar, Afghanistan, in 2012 and 2013. His time overseas earned him two Expeditionary Service Awards from former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. If elected, Connell said, he would make impartiality and fairness priorities. He spoke of excessive bail and what he described as unfair sentencing. “I’ve seen a young AfricanAmerican, 18 years old, get a year in jail for having half a joint of marijuana,” Connell said. “That could have been President Obama, President Clinton. A year? That judge does not empathize with that young man.”
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Food drive underway Top: Mark Foraker (left), development director at Manna Food Center, receives donations Monday at the nonprofit’s Gaithersburg food warehouse from Montgomery County public information officers (from left) Anne Santora, Tom Pogue and Trish Jenkins. The delivery kicked off the county’s 27th annual Give and Ride program, in which donors of nonperishable food items can get a free Ride On bus ride this week. TOM FEDOR/THE GAZETTE
They’re fixing a hole ... (From left) Wayne Thomas, Robbie Holston and Emmanuel Baxter, all equipment operators for the Montgomery County Department of Transportation, fill potholes with hot patch asphalt Friday on Brahms Avenue in Silver Spring. The work is part of the county’s two-week pothole “blitz” that started last week. After an unseasonably cold and snowy winter, the agency is devoting about 60 percent of its resources to filling potholes and replacing damaged road sections. Potholes can be reported to the MC311 Call Center at 311 or 240-777-0311. DAN GROSS/THE GAZETTE
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