New Circuit Court judge sworn in
Pamela Knoop Alban, a former prosecutor under Anne Arundel County State’s Attorney Wes Adams, was sworn in Thursday to become the county’s newest Circuit Court judge.
Alban was appointed by Gov. Larry Hogan to replace retired Circuit Court Judge Paul Harris Jr., who stepped down in February before reaching 70 years old. Judges are required to retire in Maryland by their 70th birthday.
Along with Alban, Hogan appointed Robert Jeffrey Thompson, a Towson-based attorney specializing in family and domestic law, and Elizabeth Sheree Morris, a former National Security Agency attorney who is the first black woman appointed to the Circuit Court. They replaced retiring judges Michele Jaklitsch and Paul Goetzke, respectively.
Alban spent her entire career at the county State’s Attorney’s Office. She served as division chief for the Special Victims Unit and for the Sex Offense and Child Abuse Unit.
She earned her law degree from the Georgetown University Law Center and her bachelor’s degree from the University of Miami, according to the governor’s office.
During her swearing in ceremony Thursday, Alban said retired Clerk of the Court Robert Duckworth had sworn her in as an assistant state’s attorney in 1996 and handled her marriage proceedings.
“I will bring with me onto the bench all of the things that I have learned and that I have become,” she said.
She said that she’ll bring a perspective she learned while working with crime victims, stressing that to people who come through the court systems “this is a very scary and very intimidating place.”
“Their reasons that they are here are the biggest things going on their lives,” she added. “And I promise I will keep that perspective with me when I am on the bench.”