Posts Tagged ‘Pittsburgh’

Are there too many Senators and State Representatives in Harrisburg?  Two State Representatives from the Pittsburgh area apparently believe there are.  Representative Mark Mustio and Representative Matthew Smith have drafted a bill which seeks to reduce the number of Senators from 50 to 40 and reduce the number of State Representatives from 203 to 161.  A similar bill was also recently introduced in the Senate by Senator John Pippy.

Currently, Pennsylvania’s Senators and State Representative represent fewer constituents per legislator than legislators New York, Michigan and California.  Each House member now represents about 60,000 Pennsylvania residents and each Senator about 248,000.  If the bills pass, the numbers would increase to 310,000 per each Senator and 77,000 for each House member.

Assuming the bills pass in the current legislative session (2007-2008), they would need to pass again in the following legislative session (2009-10).  If the bills pass twice in the legislature, the issue would then need to be put on the ballot for approval directly by Pennsylvania voters.  Thus, no reduction in the number of Senators or State Representatives can occur for at least two more years.

John P. Finnerty, Esquire

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled yesterday that the First Amendment requires access to juror identities in most cases.  However, juror addresses need not be disclosed. “Disclosing jurors’ names furthers the objective of a fair trial to the defendant and gives assurances of fairness to society as a whole,” Chief Justice Ralph J. Cappy wrote in a 20-page opinion.The Supreme Court’s decision involved a case that focused on the 2003 western Pennsylvania murder trial of a podiatrist accused of suffocating his wife. The Westmoreland County trial judge withheld the names of jurors. The state Superior Court upheld that ruling, and two Pittsburgh news organizations appealed to the state’s highest court.

What to do about juror identities is an issue of growing importance to judges nationwide as more high-profile trials play out on cable and network television – often with jurors interviewed as soon as the verdict is in. The news organizations – Tribune-Review Publishing Co. and WPXI Inc. – contended that revealing the jurors’ names and addresses would bolster confidence in the judicial system.

Cappy wrote that juror names were generally available to the public as far back as colonial days, noting that the jurors in the Aaron Burr trial were listed in court records. The practice continues today, he went on, as prospective jurors often are identified during jury selection in open court.

Disclosing the names, Cappy went on, “allows the public to participate in the judicial process and furthers the fairness and the appearance of fairness of the criminal trial, since the public can confirm the impartiality of the proceedings and the prospective jurors are more likely to tell the truth.”

Cappy said that in some circumstances disclosing names could raise concerns for jury safety, tampering or harassment. Names could be withheld in some instances, he said, or perhaps until a case was decided.  But Cappy said such action “must be supported by specific findings demonstrating that there is a substantial probability that an important right will be prejudiced by publicity and that reasonable alternatives to closure cannot adequately protect that right.” Cappy said the refusal to disclose jurors’ identities in the Westmoreland County case was unwarranted.

John P. Finnerty, Esquire