Judge Raisin headshot

Gale E. Raisin Visiting Fellow

Judge Gale E. Rasin served on Baltimore City’s trial courts for more than twenty years (April 1992 to September 2003, District Court for Baltimore City; September 2004 to August 2012, Circuit Court for Baltimore City). She also has served on panels by special designation on the Maryland Court of Special Appeals.

As a judge, she presided over civil, family, domestic violence, and criminal cases, and created the first felony mental health court in Maryland. Since her retirement, Judge Rasin has been recalled to sit as a Senior Judge. She also serves as a private mediator and arbitrator.

Judge Rasin has been active with organizations devoted to combating animal abuse and neglect.

She served on the Baltimore City Mayor’s Anti-Animal Abuse Advisory Commission, created judicial training programs on animal cruelty, and regularly lectures at the annual animal cruelty conference of the Association of Prosecuting Attorneys.

She continues to preside over the Mental Health Court in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City, where she decides issues of competency and criminal responsibility and monitors mentally ill defendants on probation.

She is a member of the Judicial Conference Specialty Court’s Subcommittee on Mental Health, Addiction, and Alcoholism as well as the Judicial Education Committee.

Before going on the bench, Judge Rasin was the Director of the Maryland Attorney General’s Office Medicaid Fraud Control Unit where she investigated and prosecuted cases of medical provider fraud and patient abuse. Before taking that position she was an associate at the (then named) firm of Piper & Marbury. She also served as an Assistant United States Attorney for the District of Maryland where she handled both civil and criminal cases and also served as an Assistant State’s Attorney for Anne Arundel County, Maryland.

Judge Rasin’s monograph, which she wrote during her fellowship, The Man Who Married His Pigeon – Animal Hoarding: One Judge’s Perspective can be read at Animal Legal Defense Fund’s website.