A tangled web of orders and appeals continues to be a source of contention in the slow-burning Right to Know disputes out of Centre County.
The county has several pending court actions to try and address the mess of litigation sprawling across the local and state-wide courts.
In a new court filing in the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court, the county is trying to keep its case on track, attempting to make sure the Commonwealth Court doesn’t press pause on an appeal involving the Pennsylvania Office of Open Records.
The county wants the Commonwealth Court to determine whether the county should follow a judge’s order preventing it from releasing a judge’s phone records, or whether it should follow a conflicting determination from the OOR telling the county to release the records. The OOR, seemingly tired of getting dragged into the complicated dispute, wants the court to issue a stay and let a lower court handle the matter — but the county disagrees.
The problem, the county writes, is that the case in the Centre County Court of Common Pleas case that the OOR wants to use has already been paused so that the Commonwealth Court can figure the issue out. If the appeal in the Commonwealth Court gets paused too, then there’s no legal authority hearing the case.
“It makes no sense to issue dueling stay orders that stay two proceedings upon the contingency of each proceeding,” the county’s attorneys argue.
The issue at hand stems from two things: a lawsuit filed against Centre County by District Attorney Stacy Parks Miller back in March, and a Right to Know request submitted to the county for a judge’s phone records back in May.
Parks Miller’s lawsuit led to a court order that prevents the county from releasing phone records for judges and prosecutors until the matter is resolved. Because of that court order, the county denied the May Right to Know request — which led to an appeal to the OOR, who determined that the county should release the very records the court order prevents it from releasing.
Centre County is also facing contempt of court allegations from Parks Miller for denying the Right to Know request in the first place, claiming the county purposefully set up a “dual track appeal” to create the complicated situation the county and Parks Miller now find themselves in.
Parks Miller is also trying to intervene in the same Commonwealth Court appeal that the OOR is trying to have stayed, but the county has argued she has no businesses jumping into the fray. The court has not yet responded to the request for a stay, or for Parks Miller’s request for intervention.
