Joel Jacobsen

Newspaper coverage of the courts tends to be dismal (see post 183), and it's not always easy to tell whether the reporter has missed the point or the judge has gone off his rocker.  Consider this very distressing case from the lovely little western Pennsylvania town of Kittanning.  (More photos here and here -  a lot of web-savvy local boosters, apparently.)  You probably heard about this story when it occurred, although so many similar incidents have occurred that they all tend to run together:

Doctors performed an emergency delivery after a woman allegedly tried to take an expecting mother's baby by cutting her stomach open, state police in Armstrong County said.

The suspect, Peggy Jo Conner, 38, of Ford City, is charged with attempted homicide and aggravated assault, police said. ...

Police said Conner hit Oskin in the head with a baseball bat on Wednesday, then drove her to a dirt road off Route 1037 in a wooded area of Wayne Township and cut Oskin's abdomen with a razor.

Someone riding an all-terrain vehicle found Oskin and Conner on the dirt road at about 5 p.m. Wednesday and called for help, police said.

As could have been anticipated, the suspect's husband was convinced his wife was pregnant.  She apparently needed a baby to maintain the illusion.  As for the person on the ATV:

Adam Silvis, a 17-year-old student at Lenape Technical School, was riding his ATV near his Wayne Township home on Oct. 12, 2005, when he came across Peggy Jo Conner kneeling beside an unconscious and bleeding Oskin by the roadside.

Silvis quickly returned home, told his parents about the scene he encountered and came back minutes later with his father while his mother Wanda called 911. Both men stayed with Oskin and Conner until emergency personnel and police arrived.

The police arrived quickly enough to find Conner still at the scene with blood on her clothing.  The location was "a remote wooded location" in Wayne Township, an inland pocket of rural poverty in Erie County, an area of 2,365 people with an average household income of $21,034 (compared to a Pennsylvania median of $45,941).

Conner was arrested, and confessed. But what happened in the interval between arrest and confession was in doubt, as anyone experienced in this business would expect:

Defense attorney David DeFazio argued that Conner had been awake about 24 hours without food by then.

Conner has testified that troopers pounded on a table and cursed at her and that she didn't feel she was free to leave until she gave the final statement. "I was told if I wasn't guilty then I didn't need a lawyer," she said.

I assume the police told a different story at the suppression hearing, which was devoted to defense counsel's argument that "Conner did not knowingly waive her Miranda warnings before making statements to police and [that] her requests for counsel were allegedly ignored by police" - and, I would gather from the above, that the confession was involuntary, to boot. 

Armstrong County Judge Kenneth Velasek didn't rule and didn't rule, and finally defense counsel filed a mandamus petition in the Superior Court to force him off the dime.  (Mandamus just means an order mandating something - usually a superior court ordering an inferior court to take some required action.)  The Superior Court refused to intervene, but at a subsequent bail hearing Judge Velasek explained the delay:

Valasek said the delay in making the decision on Conner's motion has been due to issues in the case that required intensive research.

"The court is on the verge of releasing a 40- to 50-page opinion," the judge said. "It is taking a bit longer than it normally would."

Valasek said neither attorney addressed an issue he felt was important in the case, requiring extra research. The judge did not say what that issue was, and neither attorney said they knew what that issue is.

How the prosecutor's heart must have sunk on hearing that news!  Judges never take 40-50 pages to deny a motion to suppress.  But I bet the defense attorney's elation was tinged with apprehension, too.  It's rarely a good thing when a judge takes over the conduct of the litigation, playing the role of advocate before himself.  Defense counsel had figured out which was his strongest arguments, and now the judge was telling him, in so many words, that he had decided to rule in the defense's favor, but on a weak argument, one much less likely to stand up on appeal.  

If I were the defense attorney I would have been thinking: "You moron, just grant my motion!", while standing at attention and saying out loud, "Thank you, your honor."

Anyway, Judge Velasek finally released his ruling: "The court cannot hold that the troopers had probable cause to arrest the defendant at the scene," the judge wrote. "Simply because she was present with some blood on her clothes does not, by itself, constitute probable cause to effect a lawful arrest."

A remote wooded area.  Two women are alone.  One is unconscious, having been struck multiple times by a baseball bat, her abdomen sliced open, rapidly bleeding out.  The second woman is observed kneeling beside her.  The 17-year-old who found this odd couple left them briefly, then returned with his father and stayed with them until the troopers arrived.  The troopers hear the teen's story, see the first woman's injury, and observe blood on the second woman's clothing. 

Would a reasonable police officer think there was reason to believe the woman in the blood-stained clothing seen kneeling over the bleeding woman had something to do with the latter's bloody injury?  This was probable cause squared.  Cubed.  No wonder defense counsel didn't make any argument about illegal arrest in his motion to suppress.

Valasek said it was reasonable to assume that Conner was taken into custody when she was not permitted to the leave the scene in Wayne Township. Conner was handcuffed and placed in the back of a police cruiser at the scene, and told she could not leave until being interviewed.

So, in other words, the troopers were required to let Conner drive away in her car, the one that also contained "a bloodstained crowbar, a razor knife, rubber gloves and other medical supplies", which Conner only needed a few minutes in that water-logged area of the country to dispose of effectively. 

Unless some crucial facts were omitted from the newspaper stories - always a possibility - you have to worry a bit.  About Judge Velasek, I mean.  Would you like to lie down, Ken?  Can I bring you a glass of water?

Incidentally, I couldn't locate a photo of Kenneth, the son of the late Ludwig "Moon" and Mary (Goyda) Valasek, on the web, but I did find out some pretty detailed biographical information about him.  And I must add that anyone who can organize a "Latin singing Guardian Angel choir" while coaching Little League has his good points, too.