Judge: Kathleen Kane’s verdict ‘just.’
A Montgomery County judge says former Attorney General Kathleen G. Kane’s trial was fair and that her conviction of perjury and abuse of power charges should be upheld by a state court.
“(Kane) was tried before a jury, the members of which found beyond a reasonable doubt that she violated the law she swore to uphold,” Judge Wendy Demchick-Alloy wrote in court papers urging the Pennsylvania Superior Court to uphold Kane’s conviction and sentence.
Demchick-Alloy, who presided over Kane’s trial last August, said Kane was accorded all of the “constitutional, statutory and rulebased rights” to which she was entitled. The judge said she “impartially and dispassionately” reviewed the entirety of the court proceedings from the inception “and respectfully suggests that the trial was fair and the verdict was just, hence the judgment of sentence should be affirmed.”
Demchick-Alloy was required to write an opinion for the state court once Kane appealed her conviction.
On Aug. 15, Kane, the first Democrat and the first woman ever elected attorney general, was convicted of charges of perjury, obstructing administration of law, official oppression, false swearing and conspiracy. The jury determined Kane orchestrated the illegal disclosure of secret grand jury information to the media and then engaged in acts designed to conceal and cover up her conduct. District Attorney Kevin R. Steele and co-prosecutor Michelle Henry argued Kane did so to exact “revenge” on a former state prosecutor with whom she was feuding.
Kane, 50, a former Lackawanna County prosecutor who was elected attorney general in 2012, was sentenced in October to 10 to 23months in the county jail butwas permitted to remain free pending her appeal.
In her appeal, Kane, through her lawyer, Joshua D. Lock, cited nine allegations of trial error, including the denial of her pretrial motion to recuse all county judges from hearing her trial based on her contention that Judges William R. Carpenter, Carolyn T. Carluccio and Risa Vetri Ferman had close ties to the investigation surrounding her.
“In these actions, neither Judges Carpenter, Carluccio and Ferman, nor their spouses, held any interest in the outcome, financial or otherwise,” wrote Demchick-Alloy, adding she “correctly” denied Kane’s motion for recusal. “Appellant’s failure to cite any legal authority supporting her argument suggests that it lacks even arguable merit.”
Kane’s appeal also challenged the denial of her pretrial request to dismiss the case due to “selective and vindictive prosecution.” Demchick-Alloy responded that Kane failed to plead facts sufficient to support her claims.
“Notably, appellant has not claimed that the evidence was insufficient to support the guilty verdicts, nor that the verdicts were against the weight of the evidence, nor that the sentences were illegal or an abuse of judicial discre- tion, and therefore she concedes that the verdict was supported by sufficient and weighty evidence and that the sentence was legal and just given the facts of record,” Demchick-Alloy wrote.
At trial, prosecutors argued Kane’s quest for revenge took root on March 16, 2014, when she read a Philadelphia Inquirer article that was “critical” of her for failing to pursue criminal charges against some Philadelphia politicians and for shutting down that sting operation which was led by a former state prosecutor, Frank Fina.
At trial, witnesses testified Kane believed Fina was responsible for the negative publicity.
To retaliate against Fina, Steele and Henry alleged, Kane orchestrated the release to a reporter of a memo, emails and the transcript of an interview pertaining to the 2009 Investigating Grand Jury No. 29, an investigation that centered on a Philadelphia civil rights official, which Fina supervised and then didn’t pursue charges. Prosecutors argued the civil rights official, who was never charged with any crime, was harmed by the release of the grand jury information.
Kane also was convicted of lying to the 35th statewide grand jury in November 2014 to cover up her leaks by lying under oath when she claimed she never agreed to maintain her secrecy regarding the 2009 grand jury investigation.
Prosecutors said they discovered evidence that Kane signed a so-called “secrecy oath” on her second day in office on Jan. 17, 2013, promising her secrecy for statewide investigating grand juries one through 32. The oath compelled Kane to maintain the secrecy of all matters occurring before past and present statewide grand juries, prosecutors alleged.
Kane did not testify at her trial.
However, throughout the investigation, Kane claimed she did nothing wrong and implied the charges were part of an effort to force her out of office because she discovered pornographic emails being exchanged between state employees on state email addresses.