Anne Arundel Circuit judge to retire after 25 years
Wachs: ‘It’s time to give someone else the opportunity’
Anne Arundel Circuit Judge J. Michael Wachs, who has served the county in some of its most high-profile criminal cases over the past decade, will retire before the 2024 general election.
The circuit court judge, who was appointed to his current bench in 2007, was slated to face off against five challengers in November. However, he withdrew his candidacy Wednesday, according to the Anne Arundel County Board of Elections.
By retiring, Wachs will essentially eliminate the ballot position for a new circuit court judge, instead allowing Gov. Wes Moore to appoint someone of his choosing. Once appointed, that person will have to win the position in the 2026 election before serving a 15-year term.
In an interview with Baltimore Sun Media, Wachs said that while he is stepping down from his full-time position at the circuit court, he is considering other avenues in law, be it private practice, mediation or working as a senior judge — a part-time position that would see him return to the Anne Arundel docket on occasion.
“It’s time to give someone else the opportunity,” Wachs said, reflecting on his 25-year career. “I’ve loved every minute of serving the community.”
Wachs’ first designation as a judge was in 1998 when he served a two-year stint as a family law magistrate in the Anne Arundel Circuit Court before being appointed in 2000 to the district court. The bulk of his career at the bench has been spent presiding over criminal cases at the circuit court in Annapolis, including some of the county’s most notorious, controversial and horrific cases.
Wachs’ rulings, for instance, were at the forefront of national attention in 2020 when presiding over the case of the man who killed five Capital Gazette staff members — Gerald Fischman, Rob Hiaasen, John McNamara, Rebecca Smith and Wendi Winters
Though the killer, Jarrod Ramos attempted to argue in a 12-day trial he was not criminally responsible for the murders — the equivalent of an insanity defense in Maryland law — a jury rejected the theory and Wachs issued the maximum punishment allowed by state statute: six terms of life in prison, five without the possibility of parole, plus 345 years.
Each punishment was ordered to be served consecutively, ensuring the killer would spend the rest of his life behind bars.
“The impact of this case is simply immense,” Wachs said at the time of his 2021 sentence. “To say the defendant showed a callous and cruel disregard for the sanctity of human life is simply an understatement.”
Though Wachs’ 15-year term ended in 2023, Moore issued him an appointment that allowed him to serve until the November election. During that time, Wachs is slated to preside over the hate crime case against Charles Robert Smith, the gunman behind the deadliest day in Annapolis since the Capital Gazette shooting.
On June 11, Smith shot and killed three people outside his mother’s house in Annapolis and wounded three others, police say. The shooting, which took place nearly five years after the newsroom attack, stemmed from an argument between neighbors. Court records show Smith’s mother had filed complaints against one of the victims, Mario Mireles, who in turn filed a counter-complaint accusing her of years of racist behavior.
Smith was indicted on 42 counts, including three hate crimes, a month after Mireles, his father Nicholas Mireles and his friend Christian Segovia were killed.
As of Wednesday, Smith’s next court appearance is scheduled for an April 9 motion hearing. An 11-day trial, according to the Maryland Judiciary, is slated to begin at the end of May.
Wachs has presided over a series of complex and technical cases over the years, including the 2021 murder of Michelle Cummings, a 57-year-old mother from Houston who came to Annapolis to celebrate her son’s induction into the Naval Academy.
Angelo Harrod was accused of firing shots on Pleasant Street adjacent to the Graduate Hotel, where Cummings was struck by an errant bullet. After a two-week trial, in which prosecutors successfully argued Harrod was “stalking and hunting” a couple in a parking lot behind the hotel, Wachs ordered Harrod to serve three consecutive life sentences in prison — a decision Harrod has since appealed. Oral arguments are scheduled to begin March 1 in the Appellate Court of Maryland.
Apart from his work on the bench, Wachs has served several other functions within the circuit court and the Maryland Judiciary, including training and teaching new trial judges across the state.
He noted a “very important” part of his career was overseeing the drug court initiative, an “all-encompassing program” that works with people suffering from addiction to direct them toward treatment and positive steps forward.
“The goal is to take nonviolent offenders and work with them so they can make changes in their lives that would remove them from the criminal justice system,” Wachs said. “That’s the long-term goal.”
Wachs said that since his involvement, hundreds of people have graduated from the drug court program.
“The majority remain substance-free and are productive and law-abiding members of the community,” the judge said.