Apr16 |
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Pa. Judges Just As Trashy As Other Pennsylvanians
If you’re ever going up against the Pittsburgh Steelers in a lawsuit1, please note you don’t really have a shot if the judge is current Philadelphia Common Pleas Judge Paul P. Panepinto. Panepinto got a free Super Bowl ticket from the Steelers last year. Okay, so Panepinto got his ticket from friends who were invited to the game by the Steelers and so his free ticket would hopefully not influence his decision. (But it certainly gives you grounds for appeal, if that’s how “grounds for appeal” works.) And, hey, this judge got offered a free Super Bowl ticket. I don’t think it’s hard to see a successful smear campaign against a judge who turned down a free ticket to the Super Bowl on the grounds he doesn’t have his priorities in order. In Pennsylvania, unlike most states, judges can receive gifts up to $250 as long as they report them. This is a great practice because it allows journalists to write stories about wacky gifts lawmakers got, such as Judge Panepinto’s Super Bowl tickets. And, uh, sometimes the gifts were just a little odd:
Hey, just think: In just a short time DeLeon can renew his vows at a “mock marriage” right here in Philadelphia. Gifts to judges — like free Steelers Super Bowl tickets — raise questions about Pa. rules [AP/PittsburghLive.com] 1 I’m not quite sure how you would have been in a position to sue — or, I suppose, be sued by — the Pittsburgh Steelers, but I bet it involves Terry Bradshaw and Paxil. [Photo via ePodunk] |
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What you’re saying makes no sense. You acknowledge that the Steelers never gave Panepinto a ticket, but rather they gave his friends tickets and his friends offered him one. A better argument would be to say that you’d better not sue one of his friends in his court, since it was his friends who gave him a gift, not the Steelers directly.
But, of course, that doesn’t make any sense either because it suggests that judges can be bought wholesale with a single gift of more than $250 value (but presumably, then, not less than $250 because if you didn’t report it then I guess that means it doesn’t have the ability to impact your judgment). That is simply absurd, and you ought to be ashamed that you even suggested such a thing in public where other people can see it.
There’s plenty of corruption out there that you could be talking about. If you really want to talk about the Supreme Court race, which I can’t begin to figure out why you would want to do that, maybe you could talk about how Maureen Lally-Green took a gift IN THAT SAME ARTICLE, or maybe you could talk about how Mike Krancer got hit with a ballot challenge because he claimed he pays for an estate that has a $42,000 property tax bill alone (not to mention his five luxury cars and all the rest) on a $127,000 salary. Or maybe you could talk about how he was forced to resign his job because the Rendell administration forbids its employees from running political campaigns.
No, you’ll make a fool out of yourself in public by criticizing the one candidate in the race who holds himself to a higher standard for ethics and reporting. Ask yourself this: how many judges do you think are out there who would receive a Super Bowl ticket from a friend and not even think to report it? Those are the people you should be writing about, not the guy who followed the law and disclosed everything.