Court Opinion

ID: 9752661
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 18:27:55.86138+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:27:20.754144
License: Public Domain

TAMILIA, Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. I am in agreement with Judge Johnson in his dissent to the extent that a per se rule should not be pronounced by this Court in circumscribing the power of a district attorney to assign a case to a neighboring district attorney when he perceives a conflict in prosecuting a case. The possibility of conflict in a small county district attorney’s domain is vastly greater than in metropolitan districts. The freedom to call upon neighboring district attorneys substantially increases the efficiency of all law enforcement processes in those matters, whether it be due to the prosecution of a relative, colleague or friend of the district attorney with primary jurisdiction or because, as here, of a financial conflict in taking a civil case related to the criminal case being prosecuted. The true issue, which is not a matter for consideration by this Court, is whether the law firm should have accepted a case in which a member, as district attorney, is the prosecutor.
Having divested himself of jurisdiction, it is inappropriate, unless evidence so indicates, to presume a conspiratorial arrangement or hidden control of the prosecution by the district attorney of Adams County vis a vis the district attorney of Cumberland County. It is absolutely clear that J. Michael Eakin, then District Attorney of Cumberland County, but since elected to this Court, conducted the investigation and trial of this case in a totally independent fashion and that the evidence and law clearly warranted a conviction.
*497It is improper for this Court to gratuitously assign impropriety or the appearance of impropriety, where none exists, or to posit a new rule of conduct on the operation of district attorney’s offices when none is justified. I would affirm the judgment of sentence.