Judge North didn't set out to be controversial

As she sat in the gallery watching the Supreme Court hear a case she'd decided -- throwing out a confession in a notorious Annapolis murder -- Pam North had no doubt she was right.

She also had little doubt the high court would decide she was wrong: "If they agreed with me, why take the case?" she said recently.

Some local judges might find their stomachs in knots at the prospect of the Supreme Court tearing one of their rulings to bits, but she found the hearing last year "exciting."

Judge North had never been to the Supreme Court before. And to an attorney who'd always thrived on complex issues, the idea of one of her...