In his last weeks in office, former Gov. William Donald Schaefer appointed six members to the Judicial Disabilities Commission, filling vacancies and replacing those whose terms expired in December.
Baltimore County Circuit Judge Barbara Kerr Howe is the lone holdover and will head the commission.
Maryland's Constitution requires that the commission have four judges, two lawyers and one lay member.
The only nonlawyer on the commission is Sandra Trice Gray, vice president of the Independent Sector in Washington, D.C., a coalition of 800 corporations, foundations and volunteer organizations that encourages giving and volunteering.
The two lawyer members are William M. Ferris of Annapolis and Wilbur D. Preston Jr. of Baltimore.
Mr. Preston was special counsel appointed by former Gov. Harry R. Hughes to investigate the Maryland savings and loan scandal, and later was general counsel for the federal panel that investigated the national S&L; collapse.
Mr. Ferris, a 1970 Naval Academy graduate, has represented clients in the Naval Academy cheating scandal, and members of the state Board of Dental Examiners who claimed defamatory remarks prompted the legislature to dismiss the entire board.
Mr. Ferris is a hearing examiner for the Anne Arundel County School Board, currently hearing the appeal by teacher Laurie S. Cook of a recommendation that she be fired.
The additional judges named to the commission are: Glenn T. Harrell Jr. of the Court of Special Appeals; DeLawrence Beard of Montgomery County Circuit Court; and E. Teaette Shelton Price of Baltimore District Court.