Opinion ID: 4448072
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Orie’s second trial and exclusion of her expert

Text: witness In February 2012, Orie went to trial again on both her original charges and new charges related to the fake exhibits. During this second trial, the prosecution called an expert who testified that Orie’s office lease barred her staff from using that office for anything besides legislative work. Orie asked to call an expert in rebuttal. She said that her expert would testify that the senate rules let staff do political work from senators’ legislative offices on comp time. (Compensatory time, often called comp time, is time that an employee may take off work in return for having worked extra hours. See, e.g., 29 U.S.C. § 207(o).) The prosecution argued that the senate rules were irrelevant. It pointed out that Orie’s behavior could break the law 5 even if her behavior did not violate the senate rules. The court agreed. The court also worried that the jury might think her expert was opining on the law. So it excluded her senate-rules expert. The jury convicted Orie of theft of services, conspiracy to commit theft of services, evidence tampering, and forgery. It also convicted her of using her political position for personal gain, in violation of the Pennsylvania Ethics Act, 65 Pa. Cons. Stat. § 1103(a) (conflict of interest). See also id. § 1102 (defining conflict of interest). The court sentenced Orie to prison for her theft-of-services, conspiracy, evidence-tampering, and forgery convictions. But on the Ethics Act convictions, it imposed “[n]o further penalty.” App. 1066a; see Pa. Cons. Stat. § 9723.