Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Orie-Zappala War: Enough To Make Anyone Gag

The Orie-Zappala war -- in which District Attorney Stephen Zappala and his soldiers are marching stridently, exploiting political opponents' weaknesses (self-inflicted and otherwise) while demonstrating a striking lack of self-awareness concerning their own -- returns to the courtroom of Judge (and former prosecutor) Jeffrey Manning tomorrow morning.

Judge Manning apparently proposes to address Jack Orie (left) concerning Mr. Orie's public statements concerning the trial of his sisters, regarding which trial Judge Manning issued an order compelling to the parties to remain silent.

Jack Orie, however, does not appear to be a party. Perhaps Judge Manning proposes to introduce and enforce an elastic standard with respect to the breadth of his orders?

Creative or expansive interpretations might not be necessary with respect to the public statements that have been issued by the prosecution with respect to the trial since Dec. 15 (when the gag order was issued).

Historic evidence indicates that the district attorney's office is a repeat offender in this context, but that Allegheny County judges can be lenient -- at least, when the extra-order-inary yapping is being done by the district attorney's office.

We don't expect Mr. Zappala himself to attend tomorrow's hearing, however, despite his office's obvious emphasis on the Orie prosecution; he must be too busy investigating casino lobbyist filings, local angles to the Luzerne County cash-for-jailed-kids scandal, and fraud with respect to placement of inappropriate financial instruments with public agencies by politically connected cream-skimmers (say, members of a Network).

Infinonytune: Talk Talk, Talk Talk

8 comments:

MH said...

I'm hearing good things about trial by ordeal.

James said...

Do you mean of the tie them up, load them with stones, and toss them in the river variety? I could stand to hear a little more.

MH said...

Except for juvie. There you use a kiddie pool and whiffle bats.

James said...

Actually, having seen pictures of Jane, I wonder if she weighs the same as a duck.

Anonymous said...

I wonder what would happen if during the re-trial citizens had a petition drive in front of the courthouse to abolish the elected DA for an appointed one under home rule charter.

James said...

[looks up home rule charter]

Well, as I read it, the HRC can only be amended once every 5 years and the charter was last amended in 2005, so it is certainly possible. I think it more likely that people would like to fold the Sherrif's office from an elected position to an appointed one first.

MH said...

I still can't believe the old sheriff only got house arrest. It's too bad he didn't try to forge a note blaming the whole thing on his subordinates.

MH said...

If you get silent about this now, I'm going to assume you are Jack Orie.