WEST CHESTER >> The retirement of two Chester County Common Pleas Court judges have necessitated a shuffling of assignments among the other judges in the county Justice Center, and brought about plans for nominations for Harrisburg to fill the vacancies.
Judge James P. MacElree II and Judge Phyllis Streitel both announced their retirements from the active bench earlier this year, giving President Judge Jacqueline Carroll Cody and the county’s Court Administration staff the chance to put into place a new lineup of judges handling criminal, civil, family, juvenile, and Orphan’s Court cases.
In addition to MacElree and Streitel stepping down, Judge William P. Mahon, an 18-year-veteran of the court, decided to relinquish his criminal trial list, with the exception of a homicide trial that he has been supervising for the past several months.
Beginning in January, two of the county’s jurists who previously have not heard misdemeanor or felony criminal cases will take on those dockets in place of the retiring judges and Mahon’s switch to a purely civil caseload. Judge Allison Bell Royer and Judge Jeffery Sommer will begin hearing criminal trial cases, with Sommer essentially taking over MacElree’s caseload and Royer taking Mahon’s list.
Royer and Sommer will also hear Family Court cases.
Streitel, despite her retirement, will continue to hear criminal cases on a limited basis as a senior judge.
The other judges hearing criminal cases are Cody, Judge Anthony Sarcione, Judge Patrick Carmody, Judge David Bortner, Judge Ann Marie Wheatcraft, and Senior Judges Thomas Gavin and Ronald Nagle. Wheatcraft, in addition, will take over Streitel’s supervision of the county’s treatment courts, most notably Drug Court, in which Wheatcraft had served as a prosecutor earlier in her career.
The remaining judges on the bench will hear civil, family, juvenile, Orphan’s Court, and miscellaneous cases. They are Judge Edward Griffith, Judge Katherine B.L. Platt, Judge John Hall, and Judge Mark Tunnell. Senior Judges Robert Shenkin and Charles Smith will continue to handle civil and miscellaneous cases.
In addition, the county’s two major political parties are expected to make recommendations on candidates to fill the bench seats left open by MacElree and Streitel’s departures.
Recently, county Democratic Chairman Brian McGinnis said that he would recommend two well-known attorneys for Gov. Tom Wolf’s nomination. They are former Magisterial Judge Daniel Maisano and West Chester attorney Anthony Verwey.
“Both men are known to me, and have been recommended by attorneys and others in the county,” McGinnis said. “They are both well qualified.”
Maisano, 65, of Kennett has previously sought the Common Pleas Court bench, running on both party tickets in 2015. He did not win nomination. In 2016, he briefly announced a run for the state Senate’s 9th District seat as a Democrat, but dropped out early on in the primary race. He retired from the MDJ seat in Kennett Square in January 2016. He is married to newly elected county Treasurer Patricia Maisano.
Verwey, 57, of Caln, is a partner at the law firm of Unruh, Turner, Burke, and Frees in West Chester. He ran for Common Pleas judge as a Democrat in 2013, winning the nomination in the primary but later dropping out of the general election. He has also served as a solicitor for the party.
Verwey investigated and prosecuted attorneys for ethics violations for 10 years while serving as an attorney with the Office of Disciplinary Counsel of the Disciplinary Board of the state Supreme Court and was appointed as a Special Assistant District Attorney in Monroe County.
On the GOP side, county Republican Chairman Val DiGiorgio said that no candidates for nomination had yet been decided on by the party, but that he expected to provide recommendations to the state Senate Judiciary Committee in February.
Both DiGiorgio and McGinnis acknowledged that the seats will likely be filled in a “packaging” process in which the two parties in Harrisburg compromise on a bundle of nominees to the Common Pleas benches across the state. The Judiciary Committee, which must vote to approve judicial candidates before their names are sent to the full state Senate, is controlled by Republicans, while the governor’s office, which makes the formal nominations, is in the hands of Wolf, a Democrat. Thus, no side can fill a seat on the courts without the cooperation of the other.
In the past, the parties have agreed to accept nominees from the other side in exchange for help with their own. Thus, a Republican in Chester County, where the party remains in the majority, would be balanced by a Democrat in Montgomery County, where that party has the edge.
“There is a pattern of nominations that are put together by Democrats and Republicans in conjunction with the governor,” DiGiorgio said. Such a compromise occurred in Chester County in 1992, when Cody, a registered Democrat, was appointed to the bench along with Republicans MacElree and Howard F. Riley Jr.
To contact staff writer Michael P. Rellahan call 610-696-1544.
