District Attorney Stacy Parks Miller wants to intervene in an appeal pending in the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania, but Centre County says she has no business doing so.
The county firing back at Parks Miller for her attempt to jump into the fray in the Commonwealth Court is the latest step in a twisted tango of litigation and accusations that sprawls across different jurisdictions. In this latest twist, the county says Parks Miller is making “scandalous and impertinent” allegations in her attempt to intervene in the Commonwealth Court.
A Troubled Past
The issue stems from a Right to Know request made by Centre County Public Defender for phone records of a county judge, and is also related to Parks Miller’s ongoing civil suit with the county for releasing similar records under the Right to Know Law. A judge’s order in the civil suit prevents the county from responding to requests like Crowley’s, but Crowley appealed his request to the Pennsylvania Office of Open Records after the county denied it.
Although the OOR concluded that Centre County should release the records, this decision was at odds with the judge’s order preventing the county from responding to Right to Know Requests (and also at odds, Parks Miller says, with another opinion from the OOR).
Centre County went to the Commonwealth Court to get the issue resolved, but Parks Miller says this is merely an attempt to circumvent the authority of the Common Pleas Judge who ruled against the county in the first place. In its latest filing, the county continues to argue it has only tried to meet its legal obligations and that its appeal in the Commonwealth Court is “appropriate to resolve the County’s irreconcilable obligations” stemming from conflicting orders from judges and the OOR.
An Uncertain Future
The county argues Parks Miller’s request to intervene was not properly filed, and should be denied. The county also says that the records at issue requested by Public Defender Crowley are actually phone records for Centre County Common Pleas Judge Bradley Lunsford, meaning Parks Miller doesn’t have legal standing to get involved.
“The fact that Parks Miller prefers to attempt to avoid having [records] disclosed to the the public for a device paid for with County taxpayer funds for questionable communications with a member of the Court of Common Pleas is not a sufficient basis for Parks Miller to intervene,” the county argues in its latest filing.
However, Parks Miller and her attorney Bruce Castor have repeatedly argued that the county’s portrayal of the issue is purposefully misleading. They say the issue is not hiding records from the public, as the county insists, bur rather that the county has released judicial records it has no legal authority or control over.
“Stay focused that the DA doesn’t actually care about these particular records being made public. It is the principle that matters: who has control of the records?” Castor writes in an email. “It is a ‘power play’ that could set a dangerous precedent for future requests. The commissioners want leverage over the DA.”
In a separate filing in a related action in the Centre County Court of Common Pleas, Castor says that litigation involving Parks Miller, the OOR and Centre County that’s been put on hold pending resolution in the Commonwealth Court should resume as soon as possible. He asks the court to schedule a hearing to discuss these interrelated matters and what he describes as contradictory rulings from the OOR.
Castor is also trying to have the county held in contempt for court in the Centre County Court of Common Pleas for denying Crowley’s request. He says this denial enabled the county to seek more favorable opinion from the OOR and the Commonwealth Court that they received in the lower county court.
“The county immediately violating the court order with the Crowley issue created the dual track appeals which have delayed a resolution and caused a procedural nightmare,” Castor says. “That is is precisely what the county wanted.”
