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HARRISBURG — Attorney General Kathleen Kane on Tuesday lost a challenge in the state’s highest court over an investigation that recommended she be charged criminally in the leaks of secret material.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that a county judge had the authority to appoint a special prosecutor to look into grand jury leaks tied to the state attorney general’s office.
Kane had argued that special prosecutor Thomas Carluccio’s appointment was unlawful.
Caluccio oversaw a grand jury that recommended Kane be charged with perjury, obstruction, false swearing and official oppression. The decision on whether to charge her rests with Montgomery County District Attorney Risa Ferman. She has not commented on the matter.
“Although we recognize that there are legitimate concerns arising out of a judicial appointment of a special prosecutor, we follow the approach of the United States Supreme Court and the many other jurisdictions which have found such appointments proper as an essential means to vindicate the court’s own authority,” Chief Justice Thomas Saylor wrote in the main opinion.
A judge named Carluccio to investigate a complaint that material from a 2009 grand jury investigation was reported last year in the Philadelphia Daily News.
Kane’s lawyers have said she did authorize disclosure of a 2014 summary from her office of a 2009 investigation into the former president of the Philadelphia NAACP, a probe that did not produce charges. But they have vigorously denied that she disclosed grand jury evidence from 2009.
Kane lawyer Lanny Davis said they were disappointed in the Supreme Court decision.
“We have faith in the judicial system and that the district attorney of Montgomery County will look at the evidence and the law and find that Attorney General Kane is innocent of any violations of the law,” Davis said in an email.