Protective Order's Dismissal Called Mistake

"Judge Palumbo has the utmost sympathy for Ms. Cade and her family," the attorney said.

Cade's family said her entire face is burned, as well as most of her chest and arms. She breathes through a tube and communicates by blinking, they said.

Palumbo originally granted the order for her in July after she said she feared her husband would hurt her. In August, Hargrave wrote a letter to the court saying he wanted the order lifted so he could go to marriage counseling with his wife. The two were separated.

Based on Hargrave's request, Palumbo held a Sept. 19 hearing. Hargrave did not show up, but Cade did.

At the hearing, Cade told the judge that Hargrave was violating the protective order, intimidating her daughter and vandalizing property. She said she wanted "an immediate and absolute divorce," according to a recording of the proceeding.

"I'd like to be 6-foot-5," Palumbo responded. "But that's not what we do here. You have to go to divorce court for that."

"Uh, this case is dismissed," Palumbo said, according to a recording of the hearing. Court documents show the protective order was dissolved.

Palumbo intended only to dismiss Hargrave's motion requesting the order be lifted, not to reverse the stay-away order, Brennan said.

Some court documents reflecting that hearing are contradictory.

In one document, under the heading "Final Protective/Peace Order," both the boxes for "granted" and "dismissed because" are checked. Palumbo wrote a sentence next to the "dismissed because" box, but it is partly illegible. His attorney confirmed that the judge wrote the phrase.

Below that sentence, comments in different handwriting state, "Dism. Prot. Order." It is unclear who wrote those words and whether Palumbo saw them.

Neither Palumbo's attorney nor the court's public information office in Annapolis could decipher Palumbo's handwriting or say who his clerk was that day.