Posted: Friday, 08 January 2010 11:13AM
Muroski No Longer Inspires Confidence
Steve Corbett Reporting
Friday, January 08, 2010
He drank.
He drove.
He crashed.
He left the scene of the accident.
Now he should retire.
Let the other judges on the Luzerne County Court of Common Pleas work diligently to restore the public trust to a court that many people simply no longer trust. Sadly, Luzerne County Senior Judge Chester B. Muroski no longer inspires confidence in the judiciary.
Many people simply don’t believe him.
With three former county judges who once served as Muroski’s colleagues already caught in the ongoing federal public corruption probe, the court requires nothing short of the highest standards. Muroski’s behavior following his car accident Monday evening leaves much to be desired in the way of good judgment. A judge is no longer a judge without the benefit of good judgment.
Muroski has offered several versions of what happened that night. His story is loaded with discrepancies and double-talk that spins him as a victim. His defenders now accuse those who question his version as reckless marauders drunk with self-righteousness.
We don’t know if Muroski was legally drunk or not because he left the scene before police arrived.
He said in an on-air interview with WILK’s Sue Henry that hospital personnel took blood that night when he showed up after the accident for a back examination. In the same breath he said he didn’t know if they took blood or not.
If so, Muroski has not provided the results. If not, he cannot prove his claim of sobriety.
But he should remember that he was the one who admitted that he had been drinking.
“I had one drink,” he told me in a telephone interview Tuesday afternoon.
Newspaper accounts report that he told other reporters that he had one or two drinks. He told Henry that he had one drink and didn’t finish a second.
We don’t know if Muroski drank one beer, one glass of wine or one shot of hard liquor. We don’t know if he had a mixed drink that contained more than one ounce of alcohol. We don’t know if he was using prescription drugs. We don’t know if he had eaten before drinking. We don’t know more than we do know.
Muroski knew that witnesses saw him drinking at the Kingston bar where he stopped after a log day of swearing in new public officials. He also knew that people would immediately question if he was legally drunk when he careened out of control and crashed his 2007 Mercedes into a drainage ditch, causing damage to private property on his way home on slick and snowy roads.
We know that Muroski is smart enough to understand that the only way to clear his name would be to wait for police and ask to be taken to the hospital to be tested for the alcohol level of his blood.
The test would have cleared him or cursed him.
Either way, most callers to “Corbett” for the past three days do not believe Muroski and resent that a Luzerne County judge is once again playing them for fools. Two callers even threatened to show up for jury duty and refuse to take part in the system by announcing that they don’t trust the court, the judges or the lawyers in Luzerne County.
The county court system is already seriously under attack. Muroski’s wild ride only adds to the destruction.
People who have observed Muroski for the past year or so have expressed concern for his emotional stability. I sat with him in his chambers just weeks ago and left the courthouse concerned about his fragile state of mind.
Under pressure and scrutiny, Muroski is now a liability to the restructuring of the court. He should recognize that he has hurt his credibility as well as the credibility of the court, quietly resign and retire.
Because of the controversy, new President Judge Tom Burke is faced with his first serious dilemma. Will he call Muroski into his chambers and tell him that the court would be better served with somebody else on the bench? Will Burke ask Muroski to go quietly? Will Burke take a stand for the people he serves by telling Muroski that the highest standard is now the norm and than nothing less is acceptable?
We can help Burke decide what he should do.
We can let him know our honest feelings.
We can tell him that justice must never leave the scene of the accident.
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