Luzerne County Judges

By Mark Guydish mguydish@timesleader.com
Education Reporter
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WILKES-BARRE – In a courthouse still struggling with the fallout from the juvenile justice scandal that cast doubt on thousands of rulings by ex-judge Mark Ciavarella, the fact that Judge Michael Toole continued adjudicating for weeks after signing a plea agreement on corruption charges sits like a ticking time bomb with a potential no one can predict.

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“I just can’t really comment,” Luzerne County Chief Public Defender Basil Russin said Thursday, “We’ve got to figure out what happens next. It may be nothing, it may be something vital.”

“Certainly, any defense attorney can make any motion they like,” District Attorney Jacqueline Musto Carroll said of the possibility that rulings Toole made after signing a plea agreement Sept. 25 – or even those heard before then – could be legally challenged in light of allegations he fixed a case. “Whether it would be a viable motion has yet to be seen. “

The situation has legal echoes of events following charges that Ciavarella, during his years as juvenile court judge, accepted money in exchange for rulings that profited a private detention center. After months of debate, review and proposals, the state Supreme Court decided to vacate all but a relative handful of some 6,500 juvenile cases Ciavarella had handled, expunging the records for most of those people.

But Musto Carroll stressed it took a lot of time to reach that point.

“In the aftermath of Ciavarella, we didn’t know what to expect, what would be filed,” she said. “It was only after a series of meetings that they developed the idea of vacating all of those cases. This may be the same sort of process.”

A partial review of Toole’s docket showed he had about 200 people – and probably quite a few more – appear before him since he signed the plea agreement Sept. 25. At times he had as many as 25 in a single day of rapid-fire guilty pleas, pre-arranged by attorneys. Russin said such a heavy schedule was all too common. “People don’t realize how much we handle.”

Musto Carroll also found the numbers unsurprising. “He was one of our criminal judges; he did a large number of crime cases.”

There were civil cases mixed in the docket, and Musto Carroll speculated – though stressed it just a guess – that attorneys for civil cases heard by Toole may believe they have a stronger case for action precisely because the charges against Toole stem from a civil proceeding. He is accused of accepting free use of New Jersey shore beach house in exchange for helping rig an arbitration hearing for an attorney in an uninsured motorist case.

Civil cases, Musto Carroll noted, “would not involve our office at all.” Criminal cases, on the other hand, were prosecuted by the District Attorney’s office, and she cited one prominent homicide case already been impacted by Toole’s plight.

“There’s one case that comes to mind immediately,” Musto Carroll said. “He had a pre-trial (hearing) on Anthony Bidding, which is a homicide case. That trial date was set for Dec. 15.” President Judge Chester Muroski notified Musto Carroll Thursday that the case was being reassigned and that either Muroski himself would take it, or it would be given to Senior Judge C. Joseph Rehkamp, a former president judge in Juniata County.

While Musto Carroll said she is looking into potential issues, for now her office can do little more than be reactive, waiting to see if any defense attorneys do file motions making legal claims related to Toole’s situation. “We would have to determine how to react to them on an individual basis.”

“I have not personally been contacted by any of the defense attorneys,” Must Carroll said, “I think it’s a novel issue.”