Court of Common Pleas order: Stephen R. Reed
Transcript of Court of Common Pleas order: Stephen R. Reed
-
8/17/2019 Court of Common Pleas order: Stephen R. Reed
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l
DA
LE
E.
K
LElN
CLERKOF
1
HE COUR
T
DAU
P
HIN COUNTY
COURT
OF
COl\ofMON
PLEAS
Clerk
of
the Court
o Common Pleas
Date S l
~
FROM
\ J ~
Clerk o Courts
101
Market Street
Harr
i
sburg
,
PA
171
1
Phone: (717) 780-6530
Fax: (717) 7 8 6 4 7 2
Dauphin County
No. 84
8
1
DAU
PHI
NCOUNTYCOURTHOUSF.
SECOND
JILOOR
R
OOM202
101 MARKE J
l
HARR I
SBURG
PA 17101
(117)
780-6530
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ORIGIN L
.
I • . .
COMMONWEALTH
: IN THE
COURT
OF COMMON
PLEAS
: DAUPHIN COUNTY PENNSYLVANIA
vs.
: CRIMINAL DIVISION
STEPHEN
R.
REED
:
CP
-
22-CR-5068-2015
OPINION
AND
ORDER
Hess,
S.J., May
4
,
2016
Before this Court is the Omnibus
P r e ~
Trial Motion ofthe Defendant Stephen
R.
Reed .
The Motion seeks dismissal
o he
charges on
two
grounds. First,
the
Defendant contends that
the
applicable statute o limitation bars
the
majority
o
the charges. Secondly,
the
Defendant
contends that the
information is
facially
defective
because while
it
charges crimes it does
not
allege any
acts
which are in fact
c
riminal. The
procedural
and
factual
background
o
this case
is as follows:
The
Defendant, Stephen R.
Reed
, is the former mayor o the capital city o Harri
sb
urg.
He was
first elected
to
office in 1981 and
was
reelected
every
four
years until May
of2009. At
that
time
he lost
the Democratic
primary and left office on January
4 20 10. In 20 15
, the Office
o
he Attorney General convened a Statewide Investigating Grand Jury. Following the
.issuance
o a presentment by the Grand
Jury
the Attorney General s Office filed a criminal complaint.
The complaint was filed on July 14, 2015. On N
ovem
her
16
2015. the Office
o
he Attorney
General filed an Information which
like
the criminal complaint, relied on the
Grand Jury
pr
esentment in terms
o
setting forth the sp
ecifics
of the criminal acts alleged. information
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contains
449
counts which
focus,
inter alia, on certain activities of
the
Defendant in his capacity
as
the
mayor
o
Harrisburg.
In his
Omnibus
Pre-Trial Motion, the Defendant alleges that many o the activities n
ow
deemed to
be
criminal were carried out in a
o n ~
secretive fashion and occurred with the appJOval
o other
parts
ofHarrisb\U g government. As previously noted, the
Omnibus
Pre-Trial Motion
goes on to assert that
the presentment
does
not
describe
specific acts which
are
elements
o
crime. The
Office
o
he Attorney
General vehemently contends
the opposite.
We do
not reach
this issue
with
respect
to
at least
305
o
the
counts because we
believe they
are
clearly barred
by
the statute
o
limitations.
The Defendant has
been charged with numerous offenses,
including Dealing
in
Proceeds
o Unlawful Activities, Bribery, Theft by Deception, Deceptive Business Practices Cr
iminal
Solicitation Theft byReceiving Stolen Property
etc.
The offenses implicated by
the
statute o
limita
tions are
alleged to have been committed
as
early
as
September
2003 and no
later than
January
2010.
The statute
o f l i m i t t i o n ~
for all
o
hese offenses
is eithe
r
two
or
five years.
Thus for offenses committed in January of2010 the statute oflimitations
wou
ld expire in either
January of2012 or January of2015. In cases involving offenses committed by a public officer,
such as
the
mayor
o
a major city there is
however,
a
prov
ision
o
he
law
which potentially
extends
the
applicable statute
o
imitations by
an
additional eight years. This provision o the
l
aw can be found
at
42
P
a.C.S.A. § 5552(c)(2).
In
fact,
there is
no
dispute between the parties
that this statutory provision is applicable
to
this case. It
reads:
(c)
Exceptions.-Ifthe
period pr·escribed
...has
exp
ired a prosecution
rnay
nevertheless
be commenced for:
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(2) any offense committed by a
pubJic
officer or employee in the course of or in
connection with
his
office or employment at
any
time
when
the defendant is in
public office or employment or within
five years
thereafter, but in
no
case shall
this paragraph extend the period o imitation otherwise applicable
by more than
eight
years.
The
Commonwealth
construes
this
statute
to
mean that in prosecutions involving public
officials,
where the
statute
o
limitations is
five years
, this section operates
to
exte
nd the
statute
o
lim
itations
to
thirteen years
regardles
s
o
the time
which has
elapsed
since
the
offici
al left
office. This is
not
what Section
5552 c) 2)
says.
t says that in
order for
there
to be an extension
o the period o he statute o limitations, the prosecution must
be
commenced,
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by virtue of what we regard as the clear language o he sta
tut
e. there is no triggering o an
extension o he period o limitation in this
case.
The Commonwealth cites appellate case law, particularly court opinions
reg
arding the
called Orie sisters. The case o
Commonwealth
v.
Melv
in, 103 A.3d 1 Pa. Super. 20
14),
involved charges which were filed against Joan Orie Melvin alleging that
she
illegally used her
judicial staff in connection with the
2003
and 2009 campaigns for the Supreme Court of
Pe
rmsylvania.
The charges in the case
we
1e filed on
May
18, 2012 .
In 19
90, Ode Melvin
was
appointed to fill a vacancy on the Court o Common Pleas of Allegheny County and was elected
as
an Allegheny County judge in
1991.
In
1997,
she
was
elected as a judge on the Superior
Court o Pennsylvania and won retention in 2007 . In 2009 , she ran
for
the Supreme Court o
Pennsylvania and
was
elected to
a
ten-
yea
r term.
Thus, when
charges
were
brought, s
he
was
still
in office, clearly aBowing
for
an extension
o
he statute
o
limitations pursuant to 42 Pa.C.S.
A.
§ 5552(c)
2).
In
fac
t, the lengtho the statute o limitations was not
an
issue in her case.
Instead, she argued that s
he
was not a ''public officer or e
mp
loyee but rather was, instead, a
judicial officer, The Superior Court, not surprisingly, held that a judicial officer was, in fact. a
public officer.
In
Commonwe' lth
v.
Janine Orie
2013
W.L
. 97
453
87 Pa.
Com . P.L.) (Septem
be
r
12,
2013), Allegheny
Cou
nty Judge Nauhaus applied 42 Pa.C.S.A.
§
5552(c)(2) in
a
manner which
extended the statute oflimitations for a total of thirteen years . t the time of the investigation in
her case,
Ms.
Orie
was
an employee in the office
o
her sister, Supreme
Cow1
Justice Joan Orie
Melvin. For the ten years preceding, she had been on the Judge's staffduring her term on the
We
under
stand the Com
monwealth's well con
si
d
ered argument
that if
a public
offic
ial
wete to commit
a
serio
us offense on h.is or her last
d y
o office , t
here
would be virtua
ll
y no extension of a five yea r statute
of limitations. The fact, h
owever,
that a statute presents with
an
ano
mal
y does not mean that
we ;:u e at
libe1ty to rew
rit
e it.
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Supedor
Court.
Thus, the charges were not only filed within five years
of
her employment, but
were, in fact, filed at a time when she was a public employee?
Given the foregoing disposition with respect
to 305
counts in
the
info1mation, there
remain 144 counts, ofwhich 142 are the subject
of
he Defendant's second stated ground for .
relief. This is in the form
of
a motion to quash the information. The counts at issue are charges
of
theft by receiving stolen property. The statute,
18
Pa.C.S.A. § 3925, makes it unlawful
to
receive, retain, or dispose ofproperty knowing that it has been stolen or believing that it had
probably beenstolen. It is axiomatic that a jury may find a person guilty of receiving stolen
property even though the jury is satisfied that it was the defendant, himself,
who
stole the
property. In fact, an accusation of theft may be supported by evidence that it was committed n
any manner that would be theft
..
. notwithstanding the specification of a different manner
n
the
complaint or indictment 18 Pa
.C.S.A.
§ 3902. Theft, fundamentally, is the
un
lawful taking
or exel·cising of
unlawful control over property of another with intent to deprive
him
thereof.
l8 Pa.C.S.
A.
§
3921.
The thrust of he Grand
Jury
presentment is that the Defendant, while mayor, purchased
numerous items and artifacts intending that t
he
y be eventually housed in
so
me sort
of
museum.
The presentment, m
oreo
ver,.alleges that
these
various items
were
diverted from this pur
pos
e and
were found to
be
in the possession
and
control of he Defendant. Whether the evidence
as
ultimately presented will support
con
victions
for
theft by receiving stolen property
is for
a jury to
determine.
In
the meantime, we agree with the Commonwealth that a motion to quash the
information would be improper. As the Attorney General has noted, amotion to quash an
information is neither a guilt-determining procedure nor a pre-trial means
fo
r determining the
2
We are
also mindful
of the case of ommonwealth v O Donnell, 542 A.2d 1025 (1988). That was a
case
dealing with an
earlier
version
of he
sta
tute which
allowed
a prosecution
to
be
commenced within
one year after its discovery. Issues ofdiscove1y are
not
presented
in
thi
s
case. ·
s
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sufficiency ofthe
Commonwealth s
ev idence.
Commonwealth
v Meoli 452 A.2d 1032 (Pa.
Super. 1982 ,
6
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COMMONWEALTH
: IN THE
COURT
OF COMMON
PLEAS
: DAUPHIN COUNTY PENNSYLVANIA
VS.
: CRIMINAL
DIVISION
STEPHEN R.
REED
: CP-22-CR-5068 -2015
IN RE:
OMNIBUS
PRE-TRIAL MOTION FOR RELIEF
OR ER
/
.
..
AND
NOW
h i s ~
day
of
May, 2016 following argument thereon, the
Omn
ibu
s Pre-Trial
Moti
on
of
heDefendant isGRANTED to the extent that Information
Counts
1 through 3 through 35 ,
56
through
82
110 through 207, 303 through 444, and
446
through
449 are
DISMISSED.
BY THE
COURT:
Distributi
on:
-sin.
If