PITTSBURGH (AP) - A federal magistrate has recommended that a judge reject former Pennsylvania Supreme Court justice Joan Orie Melvin’s appeal of her conviction and sentence for allegedly having her staff run her campaigns on state time.
The 47-page report issued Thursday rejects Melvin’s claims that she was wrongly prosecuted for violating work rules - not state laws.
Melvin, a 60-year-old Republican from Pittsburgh’s North Hills suburbs, had also argued that a sentence forcing her to write apologies on a picture of herself in handcuffs violated her right against self-incrimination, among other issues.
Melvin’s attorney, Patrick Casey, declined immediate comment.
The recommendation by U.S. Magistrate Judge Robert Mitchell will be sent to U.S. District Court Judge Mark Hornak, who is presiding over Melvin’s case. Federal judges rarely reject magistrate recommendations, though Melvin could ask Hornak to do so in what would essentially amount to a new appeal.
Melvin resigned from office after her 2013 conviction and was fined $55,000 and sentenced to three years of house arrest for using her state-paid Superior Court staff to work on her Supreme Court campaigns. Melvin ran unsuccessfully in 2003 and was elected to the state’s highest court in 2009.
Melvin became only the second sitting Pennsylvania Supreme Court justice convicted of a crime, and the case garnered more headlines when Allegheny County Judge Lester Nauhaus ordered her photographed in handcuffs in chambers immediately after sentencing her.
Nauhaus wanted Melvin to send signed apologies to every other judge in the state, handwritten on copies of the picture. But the Pennsylvania Superior Court rejected the photograph requirement, saying it served only to “shame and humiliate her.” Nauhaus sought the apologies because he said Melvin’s crimes resulted from her “stunning arrogance.”
Melvin continued to appeal the apology provision, before dropping the matter in state court and mailing the apologies last April. Having exhausted her state court appeals freed Melvin to file the federal habeas corpus appeal, which resulted in Mitchell’s recommendation.
Melvin argued at trial, and repeatedly in her appeals, that her employees and those of her sister, then-state Sen. Jane Orie, may have worked on her campaigns, but only on their own time. She argued that wasn’t a crime because her staff, and the senator’s, still accomplished the state-assigned tasks they were paid to perform.
But Mitchell said that was beside the point.
“The issue is not how many hours Petitioner’s employees spent attending to their official tasks, but rather whether they were directed to perform work for Petitioner’s personal benefit,” Mitchell wrote.
Melvin was investigated and prosecuted by the Allegheny County district attorney’s office.
“We have always held the position that everything brought up by this defendant on appeal are items that were considered and litigated at the trial level and that they continue to have no merit at the appellate level,” said Mike Manko, the D.A.’s spokesman.
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