Centre County Wants Judge’s Order in Right to Know Suits Overturned

Centre County is back in court this week, seeking to overturn two court orders that prevent the county from responding to certain Right to Know requests.

The county is defending itself in two separate but similar lawsuits being brought by Centre County District Attorney Stacy Parks Miller and Judges Jonathan Grine and Kelley Gillette-Walker. Although a specially-presiding Huntingdon County judge has preliminary ruled against the county in the court of common pleas, Centre County is firing away at that decision in an appeal filed with the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court.

Grine, Gillette-Walker and Parks Miller all allege that the county violated state law and their right to privacy by releasing records in response to Right to Know requests that detail the times text messages and phone calls were sent and received on their county-provided phones.

Huntingdon County Judge Stewart Kurtz has agreed that the records are judicial records the county has no authority to release, but Centre County wants the appeals court to shoot down that decision.

“The telephone billing records are not records ‘of’ a ‘judicial agency’ because the records do not document the subject-matter of the underlying communication, but merely the identity of the user and the duration of the communication,” the county’s attorneys write in a brief filed in the commonwealth court. “…The Plaintiffs do not have a constitutional right to nondisclosure of a financial document.”

The county’s argument is based on several points. Its attorneys argue that because the phones in question were paid for by the county, because the actual phone records were created by Verizon, and because the records do not contain any information about the content of any text messages or phone calls the records should be considered “county records” that the county is legally obligated to release under the Right to Know law.

Centre County also continues to argue that the records are of interest to the public because they are connected to allegations inappropriately frequent contact between prosecutors and judges. A handful of defense attorneys used the records detailing texts and calls between judges and prosecutors to allege “a grave appearance of bias” within the courts, but attempts to remove the district attorney from criminal cases were repeatedly unsuccessful.

“Such communications are a matter of public concern because such contact is limited by various rules of court,” the county writes in its brief. “The public has a right to know how public monies are expended, and whether the District Attorney and members of the judiciary are engaged in improper ex parte communications.”

The judges and prosectors in question have repeatedly denied allegations of bias and improper communication, arguing that contact between legal professionals is both common and expected for everything from search warrants to protection from abuse orders.

The appeals in the Commonwealth Court are appeals of a preliminary injunction in the Right to Know lawsuits, meaning the core issues at the center of the case still have to play out in the lower court. Bruce Castor, an attorney for Stacy Parks Miller, says he expects the county’s appeals to fail because the Commonwealth Court has previously ruled on a similar case out of another Pennsylvanian county.

Castor says appealing a preliminary injunction is “unorthodox” and accuses the county of filing its appeal as a way to delay judgement in the case until after the November elections.

“All of these procedural delays have been to keep the balls in the air, so there’s no definitive ruling that the county was wrong,” Castor says. “All of this is politics, and very little of it is law and justice.”

The county’s attorney declined to comment outside of information available in the county’s court filings.