There were 10 witnesses who testified in the daylong trial Tuesday where Dawson was acquitted of charges of disturbing the peace at an Outback Steakhouse in Largo in February.

"Merely being loud at a bar is not disorderly conduct," said defense attorney William Brennan in his closing testimony at the nine-hour trial. "It may be rude or boorish, but it is not disorderly."

Dawson was convicted in Prince George's County District Court in June and appealed that decision to the Circuit Court.

According to witness testimony, Dawson, 48, became "irate and unruly" when he was repeatedly turned down after making advances on a 34-year-old woman who happened to be a Metropolitan police recruit and accidentally dropped her "shrimp on the barbie" entrée on his shoe. She called for backup when she felt Dawson was disturbing her when he asked her to wipe lettuce from his shoe and she refused.

"This was one of those cases when we had to determine if a disagreement got to the point where it was a violation of criminal law," said F. Todd Taylor Jr., Deputy State's Attorney for Howard County, who was appointed a special prosecutor in the case. Dawson has served on Prince George's County's Seventh Judicial Circuit Court since 1998 and chairs the Maryland Judicial Conference's Civil Law and Procedure Committee.

He was tried by retired Montgomery County Circuit Court Judge William Cave and prosecuted by Todd to avoid a conflict of interest.

"It was done this way to avoid criticism and show that nobody is above the law," Todd said.

At the time of the incident, Dawson refused to leave the restaurant but did leave the woman alone after she began yelling profanities and he was persuaded by his friends, James Jones, who owns a coffee brewery in Forestville and Sheila Murry-McConnel, principal at Arrowhead Elementary School, according Brennan. Dawson said he felt the woman also should have been asked to leave since she caused the commotion.

He was arrested outside of the restaurant after a manager called police when Dawson refused to leave.

"[Dawson] flashed his judge's badge and kept saying, 'Do you know who I am? I'm a judge. I'm not going nowhere,'" Cpl. Aaron Ajani testified at the trial. Ajani is a county police officer who was working off-duty as a security guard that night for the restaurant park.

Cave said refusing to leave the restaurant may have been trespassing, but there was no evidence or testimony to prove that Dawson was disturbing the peace.

Cave added that there was no testimony that Dawson was unruly until he was outside of the establishment.

"The individual conduct was not a disturbance of the public in general," Cave said before he found Dawson not guilty.

Dawson's open tab at Outback was never paid.

E-mail Sherkiya Wedgeworth at swedgeworth@gazette.net.