Posted: Monday, 02 November 2009 10:36AM
Tomorrow Judge The Judges
Steve Corbett Reporting
Monday, Nov. 2, 2009
Every political race matters. Every candidate on the ballot matters. Every vote cast tomorrow matters.
But some races and candidates seem to matter more than others.
It should come as no surprise in the wake of one of America’s most notorious judicial scandals that is still unfolding in Luzerne County that Northeastern Pennsylvania judicial races are of the utmost importance.
Much of the future of our region for the next decade and beyond hangs on the choices for judge in Luzerne and Lackawanna counties.
In Luzerne County, the seat of hard coal country corruption, three judicial candidates vie for two positions on the Court of Common Pleas. Two incumbent judges also are asking to be retained for another decade.
Voters there who truly want to strike a blow for fairness and justice will have a chance to put two new judges on the bench and retain or reject two others.
If I lived in Luzerne County, as I did for 17 years, I would bullet vote for one candidate and not vote for either of the other two judicial candidates.
I would vote for Tina Polachek Gartley. I would retain Judge Thomas Burke. And I would resoundingly reject Judge Peter Paul Olszewski Jr.
A vote for Gartley will place a very qualified woman on the bench that has operated like a gentlemen’s club for many years and tried to keep women like Gartley in her place.
Welcome to the 21st century boys.
Gartley’s place is on the bench.
Burke has distinguished himself as a seasoned voice of reason and a mature presence in court. He has remained above the frantic fray that has often turned judicial temperament into a chaotic scene of egomania even when crimes among his colleagues were not being committed.
But Olszewski stands out among all judicial candidates.
During his tenure as district attorney he should have known about a cocaine trafficking ring that operated in Hazleton. Yet he tells voters with a straight face that he did not know the man with whom he was photographed at a Florida his gangster colleagues used to launder money was the leader of that dangerous cocaine trafficking ring.
Olszewski also filed a lawsuit back when he was DA. Then he fought the public and the press to keep testimony sealed. Even though he was DA at the time, he had his eye on a judgeship and did not want the public to learn of the secrets included in depositions taken in his lawsuit.
A decade later, the lawsuit remains sealed.
What is Olszewski hiding?
Although he asks voters to judge him on his record, Olszewski refused absolutely to respond to my calls to answer questions about the lawsuit or unseal the under oath testimony that comprised the evidence against him in the lawsuit.
Olszewski clearly has some issues and should not be re-elected.
In Lackawanna County, two stale incumbent judges want to be retained.
Vote no.
Two other candidates face off for one seat on the bench. Margie Bisignani Moyle is clearly the best, most qualified candidate. All voters have to do is review her extensive experience and compare her many years of legal work as a prosecutor and advocate to opponent Frank Castellano’s and it is obvious that she can teach her opponent much about the letter and the spirit of the law.
In this race, that spirit of the law is in peril.
Castellano recently decided not to return my calls or answer my questions about his campaign commercials that misrepresent his opponent’s qualifications. Castellano also has misrepresented the duties of the next county judge, telling voters that the position will be in family court, insinuating that it is made to order for him as an assistant district attorney who specializes in juvenile justice.
The position is far more than that and requires experience that Castellano lacks.
When Lackawanna County President Judge Chester Harhut recently indicated that the new judge would work in family court, he disrespected voters and played into the political maneuvering that makes people lose faith in the impartiality of the bench. Because Harhut actually helped Castellano’s campaign with this tacit endorsement, he might have violated the ethical code that governs judicial behavior. For that reason, a complaint against Harhut to the state Judicial Conduct Bard is warranted.
Voters in Luzerne and Lackawanna counties have the chance for the first time in many years to put new leaders on the bench. We have a chance to move forward rather than remain the same or devolve deeper into the culture of corruption that has ruled our lives forever.
We have the power to make changes.
Let’s do it.
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