Judicial vacancy could be filled soon

WEST CHESTER » A vacancy on the Chester County Common Pleas Court is likely to be filled within the next several weeks, giving the court an extra hand as it continues to grapple with the case backlog caused by the COVID-19 pandemic shutdown earlier this year, according to those aware of the situation.

An appointment would fill the seat left empty when Judge Anthony Sarcione announced that he would step down in December 2018. Anyone appointed would serve until December 2021, unless he or she won election to a 10-year-term in November of that year.

The appointment reportedly would come as an agreement between Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat, and the Republican leaders of the state Senate. Without the Senate’s positive action, any nomination by Wolf of a Democrat to a Common Pleas Court seat would fall flat.

“From the information available to me, I believe an appointment by the governor is likely by mid-September,” said a member of the Chester County Bar Association who is aware of the process. The attorney said there would also be appointments across the state involving both Democrats and Republicans — a sort of judicial quid pro quo.

It remains to be seen, as well, whether the governor decides to appoint a person of color to the county bench, which has not had such a judge since Judge Juan Sanchez left to take a seat of the U.S. District Court in Philadelphia in 2004. Sanchez now serves as the chief judge of that court, the first Latino to ever hold that position. The last Black judge to serve was Judge Curtis Joyner, who is among Sanchez’s colleagues on the federal bench, serving as a senior judge there.

According to sources, the list of attorneys who have applied to the Governor’s Judicial Advisory Commission includes two members of the Chester County District Attorney’s Office, a civil litigator with the state Attorney General’s Office, and two private practice attorneys.

They are:

• Deputy District Attorney Carlos Barraza of Kennett Square, who has served as a county prosecutor since 2002. He received his undergraduate degree in mathematics from the University of Connecticut and his law degree from the University of Wisconsin School of Law. Barraza, who has won convictions in homicide, sexual assault, and other major trials, was named the county’s “Prosecutor of the Year” in 2016.

• Deputy Attorney General Megan Kampf of Tredyffrin, who has served in that office’s civil litigation department in Norristown since 2017. She was a prosecutor with the Chester County District Attorney’s

Office for 10 years, worked in private practice, and also was legal counsel for West Chester University. She is married to former state Rep. Warren Kampf.

• Deputy District Attorney Thomas Ost-Prisco of Downingtown, who has worked in the D.A.’s Office for more than 20 years after having been a judicial clerk for the late Judge M. Joseph Melody. A specialist in arson prosecutions, Ost-Prisco is a member of the National Fire Protection Association, which develops national guidelines for fire investigators. Most recently, he won a first-degree murder conviction for a West Goshen man accused of fatally shooting his neighbor.

• Attorney Alita Rovito of West Goshen, a family law specialist with her own practice in West Chester, who previously served as a Special Judicial Master in the county after several years as a county prosecutor, when she helped to establish the D.A.’s Child Abuse Unit. She is a graduate of Penn State and the Dickinson School of Law.

• Attorney Anthony Verwey of Downintown, who is a partner with the West Chester firm of Gawthop Greenwood. He specializes in real estate and government law, and is solicitor for the county Controller’s Office. Before coming to Gawthrop Greenwood, Verwey worked as a staff attorney with the Disciplinary Board of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, where he led investigations of alleged rules violations. He is married to Kathleen Verwey, judicial clerk for Common Pleas Judge Jaqueline Carroll Cody.

All five confirmed that they had made application to the judicial commission for consideration.

The vacancy came as part of 10 vacancies in Courts of Common Pleas across Pennsylvania as a result of elections and resignations. To be eligible for appointment to a vacancy on the Court of Common Pleas, applicants must be at least 21 years of age, a member of the Pennsylvania bar, must have resided within the relevant district for one year before their appointment and must continue to do so while in office.

The commission will screen all applicants to determine whether they meet the qualifications mandated by the Constitution and laws of the Commonwealth and whether they possess the necessary personal qualifications of character, integrity, experience, competence, and temperament.

Whoever is nominated by Wolf and approved by the state Senate can choose to run in the Primary Election in 2021, and, if nominated by either party, run for election that November.

In addition to Sarcione’s former seat, a second judicial position will be on the ballot in 2021, as Judge Mark Tunnell has announced he will not seek retention to a new 10-yearterm when his term expires next year.