Two year ago, Howard County voted to abolish its orphans’ court.
There were problems with the way it decided wills and estates, sometimes taking weeks to simply sign off on a personal representative or settlement. The three-judge panel’s decisions were regularly appealed.
People were leaving the court in tears, not because the judges were horrible to them — that happened, too — but because the judges were horrible to each other.
“People would come out of the courtroom angry, crying, upset, looking at the register and the register’s office and asking, what was that?” said Byron Macfarlane, register of wills in Howard County. “I know this is happening in Anne Arundel, as well.”
“If you can find me one human being in Howard County who says we should go back to the old court, who wasn’t a judge themselves or related to a judge, I would be surprised.”