Appeals denied, former magisterial district judge Arnold taken to prison
WEST CHESTER >> Rita Jo Arnold’s fight to maintain her freedom while battling cancer has come to an end, as she was taken into custody late Thursday and transported to Chester County Prison to begin serving her state prison sentence.
Senior Judge John Braxton, the Philadelphia jurist who was appointed to preside over her case and who sentenced her three years ago to 16-to-32 months in jail, denied motions the former magisterial district judge from Downingtown filed earlier this month to have that sentence overturned. Braxton ruled that Arnold and her attorney, A. Charles Peruto Jr., had not shown cause why the sentence should not stand.
The judge’s decision, after a 30-minute hearing that started after the Chester County Justice Center had closed for the day, means that Arnold has exhausted her avenues to delay the imposition of her sentence. She was led away by sheriff
deputies as the courtroom, packed with family and supporters, briefly erupted in commotion and Braxton left the bench, with some members of Arnold family breaking down into tears.
Observers said, however, that Arnold, a 19-year-veteran of the criminal justice system, appeared resigned.
Peruto had filed three separate motions, one asking Braxton to reconsider his October 2013 sentence, a second contending Arnold’s original attorney had given her bad legal advice prior to her sentencing, and a third asking that she be allowed to remain free on bail while the post-conviction petition was being considered.
Braxton, however, denied the first motion almost immediately, saying that his sentence had been reviewed by the state Superior Court and upheld, and that the state Supreme Court had refused to review it. He had previously denied Arnold’s request to lessen her sentence in December 2013.
The second issue was whether defense attorney Heidi Eakin of Harrisburg had been ineffective in representing her at the original sentencing. Both Arnold and her husband, Gary Arnold, testified that Eakin told her that Braxton was likely to give her “a taste of jail” but that she would likely have to serve only a month or so, not the nearly 1½ years behind bars she now faces.
Arnold also said that she had a “plea agreement” with the state Attorney General’s Office that would have allowed her to serve only probation. But Braxton, holding up her guilty plea document, noted that there was no evidence that it had been an agreement; rather, it he said it was an “open” plea of guilty, leaving the sentence up to him.
Eakin was not called to testify by Peruto about her advice. But Braxton said that nothing Arnold had told him suggested that her rights had been infringed by Eakin’s predication of a short prison term. Peruto, contacted Friday, essentially agreed, saying that while Eakin’s prediction of a light jail sentence was perhaps inartful, it was not cause for overturning the decision to plead guilty.
“Attorneys shouldn’t do it, but really it has no legal bearing,” he said.
Peruto spoke with Arnold in the sheriff’s holding cells following the hearing, and reported that she was “very, very upset, mostly because of her health issues.” Suffering from cancer and other conditions, she is concerned that she will not receive proper medical care in the state prison.
But Peruto said that Arnold also realizes that she has no further recourse to avoid the prison time she faces. “There is no other avenue,” for appeal, he said.
The hearing was attended by several current and former colleagues of Arnold’s on the minor judiciary bench, including Magisterial District Judge Mark Bruno, and retired judges John Anthony, Thomas Martin, Daniel Maisano, and Dawson R. Muth.
Muth, now a defense attorney in West Chester, had represented Arnold when she first faced the accusations of tampering with records and obstruction of justice before the state’s Judicial Conduct Board. He spoke about Arnold and the sentence when contacted at his office Friday.
“It’s a very sad matter,” he said. “I have known Judge Arnold for 30 years or more, and I know she is one of the most compassionate and caring persons you would ever meet. I’ve seen her give defendants money to help, and bring them into her home. She did something wrong, but I don’t think the punishment fits the charges in this case.”
Braxton, in imposing his sentence in the case, had deviated strongly from state sentencing guidelines, which had called for a standard sentence of between probation and three months in jail for a person like Arnold with no prior criminal record. Braxton said that he was sending her to state prison because of the dishonor she brought to the bench, since she committed the crimes in her position as a magisterial court judge.
“I think the judge was trying to send a message with his sentence, but I don’t think that message needed to be sent,” Muth said. Other judges, seeing what had happened to Arnold, would have been on notice that they could face serious consequences outside of prison if they committed similar offenses, he said.
“She lost her job, she lost her reputation, she lost her pension, and she lost her health benefits,” Muth said. “She lost everything. I think that is enough to send a message to other judicial officers. It is just a harsh, harsh sentence.”
According to court records, the case against Arnold began more than six years ago when her two sons got into a physical confrontation at her home in West Bradford and state police were called. At the time, the state trooper who responded issued a citation for assault to one of her sons, Forrest Solomon Jr., who was on probation for drug offenses at the time.
When the citation was turned in to Arnold’s court in January 2010, it was placed in the court’s docketing bin, as are all summary charges. But when Arnold saw it, she called a sergeant at the state police barracks at Embreeville to ask why it citation had been issued. The sergeant promised to look into it, but before he could answer her question he received the returned citation in the mail from Arnold’s office.
The sergeant, Brandon Daniels, called Arnold and told her that the citation had been properly issued and needed to be refiled.
“She lost her job, she lost her reputation, she lost her pension, and she lost her health benefits,” Muth said. “She lost everything. I think that is enough to send a message to other judicial officers. It is just a harsh, harsh sentence.” — Dawson R. Muth
The court received the citation on Feb. 8, 2010, but Arnold failed to docket it. She later told a court employee that she would tell her when to docket it, saying that Solomon had a probation hearing coming up and she did not want the citation to negatively affect his case.
One month later, the trooper who issued the citation told Daniels that it had not yet been docketed, and Daniels called the court. Arnold told him that her court was “backlogged,” and that the citation would be filed soon. It was eventually docketed on April 5, 2010, but Arnold had it surreptitiously transferred to District Court 15-1-01 in West Chester, changing the sex, race, and birth date of the defendant. She also failed to inform the Chester County Court Administrator’s Office of her action, as she was required to do.
The irregularities of the citations were eventually discovered by court administration, and when then-President Judge James P. MacElree II asked her to explain them, Arnold told him the delay in docketing had been because her court had been closed for several days because of noxious fumes in the building. But a review of other citations conducted by state investigators found that no other summary citations received at the time as Solomon’s experienced delays.
After the matter was discovered, the state Court of Judicial Conduct suspended Arnold for three months because of her actions. During the investigation, Arnold approached a court employee who said that Arnold asked her to testify that she had not known of the citation until April 5, 2010, when in fact she had known about it beforehand. Arnold later asked that the employee, who had cooperated with investigators, be replaced from her court.
She was charged by the state Attorney General’s Office in April, 2013. She resigned almost immediately and pleaded guilty in October of that year.
In his appeal, Peruto asked Braxton to take Arnold’s serious medical condition into account, saying that subjecting her to incarceration in the state correctional system would cause her medical condition to deteriorate significantly.
“Clearly, your honor never intended the sentence to be a death sentence in prison,” he wrote, addressing Braxton. She suffers not only from breast cancer but also diabetes, lymphedema, retinopathy, and neuropathy. “These medical issues need constant and daily monitoring, and she needs regular doctor visits to control her condition.”
Based on doctor’s reports, the petition declares, “Arnold will likely suffer and die in prison.”
On Friday, Arnold was being held at the county prison in Pocopson, awaiting transfer to one of the state’s two correctional facilities for female inmates. She arrived at the prison around 6:30 p.m. Thursday. She previously served six days in prison in 2013 at the state prison at Muncy before being released on $100,000 bail.