No cases ready for trial, jurors dismissed for the week
Midway through October’s term of criminal trials in Fayette County Court, jurors were dismissed from service, owing to a lack of cases ready for trial.
President Judge John F. Wagner Jr. assembled the group of 125 men and women comprising the second panel of jurors for the week shortly after lunch on Wednesday and apologized for not making better use of the time they took from their daily lives to serve on jury duty.
“There are 253 cases on the trial list for this term of court,” Wagner said, adding that out of those, four cases had been tried between Monday and midday Wednesday.
Criminal trials are typically held the first full week of every month. One jury panel comes in for duty on Monday and Tuesday, and a second panel comes in for the remainder of the week. The second panel heard no cases.
“I can’t tell you, I have no explanation for you why, out of 253 cases, not one single case could begin,” said Wagner.
“To come in and sit for half a day for nothing is inexcusable,” he said. “For that, I’m sorry.”
The president judge said he anticipated he would hear as an excuse that several members of the state police were not available to testify this week, because of an exam being held in Harrisburg for officers seeking promotion to corporal.
Wagner pointed out, however, that among the cases waiting to be tried are several initiated by local police departments. Also, he said, it’s unlikely all state police were unavailable this week because of the testing.
Wagner’s criticism of the handling of the trial list comes two weeks after Brian Hess, 41, of Brownsville had his case dismissed by the state Superior Court, based on the prosecution’s failure to bring him to trial in a speedy manner. Hess was found guilty in October 2014 of possessing child pornography.
In his opinion regarding the post-sentence appeal in Hess’ case, the president judge noted that in May, June and July of 2014, the district attorney reported on Wednesday or Thursday of each criminal court week that there were no cases available for trial, and that the juries were dismissed early each of those months.
The list of cases ready for trial are at District Attorney Jack R. Heneks Jr.’s sole discretion, Wagner’s opinion stated, and are not put on the list for criminal court week until they are due to exceed the time allowed by law within 60 days.
The week before criminal court week, a call of the trial list is conducted each month, and on July 30 and July 28 of 2014, the district attorney reported Hess’ case was ready for trial the following week, according to court records.
Heneks was not available for comment Wednesday.