Bizarre
The bizarre saga of former Uniontown attorney Brian Salisbury, 35, of Uniontown, took another interesting twist this week.
During a plea bargain hearing last month, Salisbury admitted to slipping three packets containing heroin, a mixture of heroin and clonazepam and suboxone strips under the cell door of his client, Aaron Yauger, on July 25, after Yauger was picked up on a bench warrant. Yauger was being held at the Uniontown Booking Station at the time.
Salisbury pleaded guilty to drug possession and delivery was sentenced by Fayette County Senior Judge Gerald R. Solomon on Wednesday to 11½ to 23 months in jail and was immediately paroled to a drug rehabilitation program for up to 24 months.
However, State Deputy Attorney General Tomm Mutschler raised an objection to the alternative sentence, noting Salisbury had already been given consideration in exchange for the guilty plea, in that the prosecution withdrew a contraband charge as well as its intent to seek a mandatory minimum sentence for the delivery of a controlled substance.
Mutschler, who was not involved in the plea negotiations nor present at the plea hearing, said he had not heard mention of alternative incarceration from Deputy Attorney General Katie Wymard, who handled the majority of the case.
During a brief recess, Solomon reviewed an audio recording of the plea hearing and determined that Salisbury’s counsel for that hearing, Samuel J. Davis, did ask the court to consider rehabilitation. Solomon noted there was no objection at that time from the prosecution.
Mutschler said he had spoken to Wymard during the recess and was told Davis was supposed to get back to her regarding an alternative sentence, but he never did so.
“All I know is what was on the record,” Solomon said. He added that the adult probation office, which conducted the pre-sentence investigation, deemed the alternative sentence appropriate.
Of course, this is all on top of another controversy surrounding the case. Solomon had originally scheduled a plea hearing for Salisbury on Tuesday, April 8, at 1:45 p.m. However, Salisbury was representing a woman on trial for kidnapping that day, so the hearing was moved to 3:30 p.m. Jurors in the criminal case were dismissed for the day, and, after they left, Davis, along with Wymard, approached the bench of President Judge John F. Wagner Jr.
At that point, the courtroom was emptied except for those parties and Salisbury, and the door was locked behind them. Neither Wagner nor his staff would comment on why the door was locked, and Wymard would not comment on whether a plea was negotiated during the closed-door session. Davis said plea proceedings were continued but was unable to provide a new date. The plea bargain was rescheduled and held in routine fashion with nothing said about the courtroom closing.
But with details of the plea bargain now in dispute, it’s even more questionable why the courtroom was closed that day and what was said behind the locked doors.
There’s a long tradition of open courts in Pennsylvania, mainly to allow the public to see how their judicial system is operating. The hope is that the openness will instill confidence that the system is operating in an impartial and fair manner.
However, that confidence is undermined by secrecy as it’s been in this case. Without knowing what happened behind those closed doors, it’s hard to determine what really happened in this case and whether justice was dispensed properly.
Unfairly or not, because of that secrecy, a cloud will always hang over Salisbury’s case as to his punishment. Let’s be clear, though, this is not his fault. This is the fault of the criminal justice system.