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10/10/2008
Another Look at the McMahon Tape
Free Article
In Monday’s Law Weekly, Digests Editor J.R. Prince writes about Chief Justice Ronald D. Castille’s take on the latest of more than a dozen capital appeals to come before the state Supreme Court as a result of a 21-year-old training video produced by the D.A.’s office.
6/11/2008
McClain's Message to PBA: Folksy and Focused on Members
As laid back as his attire, incoming Pennsylvania Bar Association President C. Dale McClain’s address to the group’s House of Delegates last Friday merely touched upon his agenda for the year, focusing instead on the importance of individual members’ participation and his grandchildren.
5/16/2008
CourtWatch
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In the wake of his impassioned soliloquy on victims’ rights during an April 15 argument in a pair of death penalty cases, Justice Seamus P. McCaffery seemed subdued during this week’s arguments in Harrisburg.
3/6/2008
The New New Hampshire
That's what they're calling our state now, in the wake of New York Sen. Hillary Clinton's comeback victories in Ohio and Texas , which prevented Illinois Sen. Barack Obama's drive to ensure the Democratic presidential nomination.
3/6/2008
Oyez, Oyez: Supreme Court’s New Crier Begins Job
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From ohms to oyez, oyez, oyez, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s new court crier followed an unexpected path from college to his position riding the circuit with the justices of the commonwealth’s highest court.
3/5/2008
Baumhammers Raises Evidentiary Issues In Capital Appeal
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An attorney for death row inmate Richard Scott Baumhammers said Wednesday his client should have been allowed to play for jurors the entire recording of a telephone conversation in which his parents acknowledged his racism played a role in his April 2000 killing spree.
3/4/2008
Legislators Attack Line Item Veto Before High Court
A century old decision establishing the governor’s authority to issue line item vetoes, was the focus of arguments Tuesday before the state Supreme Court over Gov. Edward G. Rendell’s veto of language rather than appropriations in the legislature’s 2005 budget bill.
3/3/2008
New Chief, Associates Off and Running
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The state Supreme Court began the first of its 2008 argument sessions Monday in Pittsburgh with a nod to its two newest justices and an acknowledgment that the court’s longest serving member, Ronald D. Castille, will now serve as chief justice.
2/29/2008
More Arguments This Week
In addition to the arguments previewed in the March 3 Pennsylvania Law Weekly, the high court is scheduled also to take up the following cases.
1/25/2008
Joyce Waives Defense Lawyer's Possible Conflict
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Former Superior Court Judge Michael T. Joyce has waived a potential conflict of interest on the part of his defense lawyer in his federal prosecution for alleged insurance fraud.
1/4/2008
An Early Spring for Politics
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It’s early, but it is high political season not only in places like Iowa and New Hampshire, but all over Pennsylvania.
1/3/2008
Pennsylvanians May Have a Voice Yet
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Conventional wisdom holds that the struggles for both major-party presidential nominations will have been decided long before Pennsylvania votes, on April 22.
And indeed, the Pennsylvania Primary has not been a decisive test since 1976, when Jimmy Carter made the Keystone State his first big-state win in the northeast, and President Gerald R. Ford held off the challenge of Ronald Reagan.
11/7/2007
Normal Service Is Returned
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The pay-raise fiasco is officially played out. With Justice Thomas G. Saylor and six appellate court colleagues safely retained for fresh 10-year terms, it seems that the influence of populist critics of the judiciary has waned in the two years since former Justice Russell M. Nigro was defeated.
8/17/2007
Joyce Suspended From Duties
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As Pennsylvania Law Weekly went to press Thursday afternoon, we were waiting for confirmation the Supreme Court would suspend Superior Court Judge Michael T. Joyce, who was hit Wednesday with a nine-count federal indictment alleging insurance fraud.
7/10/2007
You (Probably) Can't Go Home
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I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby would have his work cut out for him if he ever tried to return to his roots as a Philadelphia corporate lawyer, ethics experts say.
5/21/2007
The Ethics of Judicial Elections
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If you needed Reason No. 96,227 why judicial elections make so little sense, read the below entry from Sam Stretton’s Ethics Forum, which will appear in the May 28 Law Weekly.
5/15/2007
GO VOTE!
Free Article
That is your command today. It doesn’t matter if you have a trial, Supreme Court oral argument or anything else. Even if you owe a paramount duty to your client, you can find 15 minutes early this morning or after work to walk into a voting booth and pick the men and women who will sit in judgment of your clients, present and future.
5/3/2007
E-Filing for All Campaign Reports, Now
Tomorrow, May 4, is the deadline for appellate court candidates to submit campaign finance statements to the Department of State.
5/1/2007
How to End the Crisis of Public Confidence
May 1 is Law Day, traditionally a time for the judiciary to engage the general citizenry.
2/1/2007
The Cruelest Month
For state Sen. Jeffrey E. Piccola, R-Dauphin, January is the cruelest month.
1/23/2007
In the Dark
Just back from a week-long vacation with three kids, and boy, do I need a vacation. I need one like the one the state Supreme Court is currently taking. In my absence, only one per curiam opinion came down from the justices. It was only one sentence, plus a footnote, but, as they say, brevity is the soul of wit. Sometimes brevity can be the soul of wisdom, too.
1/9/2007
When Judges Decline
Free Article
When I was in Washington as a law student 20 years ago, I went to see the U.S. Supreme Court in action. They were hearing a fairly unexciting case about the constitutionality of an attorney discipline provision. But what is still most memorable to me was a little bit frightening.
1/4/2007
An Earthquake at the State Capitol
No one really knows the full impact of the bizarre sequence of events that culminated in the elevation of Philadelphia Republican Denny O’Brien to Speaker of the House.
12/18/2006
Leadbetter New PJ of Commw. Ct.
Judge Bonnie Brigance Leadbetter will begin a five-year term as president judge of the Commonwealth Court next month stepping into a role outgoing President Judge James Gardner Colins has filled for 10 years.
9/22/2006
In the Wake of the Wake of Stilp
In this week’s Pennsylvania Law Weekly, I wrote a 2,000-word “Editor’s Desk” piece examining the state Supreme Court’s decision in Stilp v. Commonwealth – the “pay raise” decision. In the piece, I explain my problem with the high court’s approach to the two statutes at issue. But there is still much more to say.
7/25/2006
A Chance to Get a Peek at the Profession’s Future
One of the pleasures of being the editor-in-chief for a couple of newspapers is getting out and meeting the people we cover and who read us. Because after all, newspapers are a part of the their communities and are meant to serve the people in them.
5/1/2006
Grade: 'Incomplete'
Free Article
The state Supreme Court today has released a "State of the Judiciary" report, the first to be authored by a chief justice of Pennsylvania in two decades.
4/5/2006
High Court Handed a Royal Mess in Pay-Raise Issue
Free Article
You know you're dealing with something really unpleasant when you have oral arguments for more than two hours and one of the most repeated words is "quagmire."
1/11/2006
Now ID Advocates Face Uphill Fight
Like many evolutionary mistakes, intelligent design may be on the road to extinction, put there Dec. 20 by U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III.
When Jones ruled that the Dover Area School District's intelligent design policy violates the First Amendment and barred the district from mentioning intelligent design in biology classes or "from requiring teachers to denigrate or disparage the scientific theory of evolution," he wasn't just applying a pinprick to the trial balloon intelligent design supporters had chosen to float in this case.
11/30/2005
The Governor's Dilemma
The proposal to impose a sales tax on professional services creates a conundrum for Gov. Rendell, pitting short-term political gain against bad economic sense.
11/14/2005
A Lead Balloon
Free Article
Nominating Justice Nigro to fill the vacancy created by his own rejection at the polls would be unwise.
11/9/2005
The Fire This Time
Back in the 1960s, the poet Gil Scott Heron said "the revolution will not be televised." In Pennsylvania, however, the revolution will be on talk radio. Talk radio, with an incessant and single-minded focus on the July pay raise vote, was the engine for Tuesday's unprecedented ouster of a state Supreme Court justice.
9/1/2005
An Ivory Tower Decision
A call has recently come down from the Commonwealth Court’s ivory tower that lawyers in Pennsylvania rely on Purdon’s at their own peril.
8/26/2005
A Necessary Raise
The judicial pay raise has drawn fire from some surprising quarters, but Chief Justice Cappy was right to seek this measure to reward difficult work and perhaps increase the interest of good candidates to serve.
7/1/2005
Sandra Day O'Connor and Pennsylvania law
Justice O'Connor's departure left a legacy in Pennsylvania legal history -- and an example of judicial consensus-building
6/14/2005
A Deal Undone
In his first column for Pennsylvania Law Weekly, Sean Connolly last month said that the state Supreme Court's non-decision on Act 71, the law opening the door to slot machine gaming in Pennsylvania, was a threat to Act 72, the companion measure allowing school districts to grant property tax relief.
5/11/2005
At Last, Some Guidance
When I read the state Supreme Court's new internal operating procedures governing the organization of opinions, I wanted to stand up and applaud. When there are complex subissues that may generate disagreement among the justices, they are to be separated into sections, a la the U.S. Supreme Court.
4/11/2005
Sense and Sentimentality
When I first heard that Leslie Ann Miller was leaving her post as general counsel to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, I must confess that I found it incomprehensible.
4/8/2005
One Special Election, Seven Referees
Two weeks after a general election delivered a state House seat from the Republicans to the Democrats, the Supreme Court issued an opinion giving the legislative leadership greater latitude to call special elections.
4/1/2005
The Storm After the Calm
Well, well, well. It was a quiet first quarter at the state Supreme Court. At least it was until Tuesday, when the justices began to release opinions with the fury of a college student facing deadlines for a dozen term papers.
1/24/2005
Editor's Desk
Little Things Matter
A recent trio of cases from Centre County amply illustrates that trial judges are left with plenty of discretion when the General Assembly leaves key words undefined in criminal statutes.
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