Recent Blog Posts in July 2009 |
| July 31, 2009 |
| DA John Peck Comes to Judge's Defense |
| Posted By L. Anthony Bompiani, Esquire |
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Here is an excerpt from an article published in the Tribune Review on July 30, 2009. The article was written by Rich Cholodofsky. Click here for the full text of the article.
District
Attorney John Peck said Wednesday that Internet child predators won't
run free in Westmoreland County in the wake of the attorney general's
announcement that the state office will no longer prosecute those cases
here.
"It's
not going to affect us. We're going to look very closely at each and
every case to file all possible cases if the attorney general's office
is not going to prosecute those in Westmoreland County," Peck said.
Attorney
General Tom Corbett's office announced on Tuesday that it has withdrawn
its Internet child predator task force from a Westmoreland County
office and will no longer bring cases before county judges. Instead,
the task force will try to steer suspects to other counties to make
arrests.
That
decision was the fallout over a sentencing disagreement involving the
case against Thomas Rose, a former sports editor at the
Observer-Reporter in Washington.
Rose
went before Judge Richard E. McCormick Jr. on Tuesday after
Pennsylvania appeals court judges ordered McCormick to reinstate a
felony conviction he had set aside following a three-day trial in
October 2006.
McCormick,
who in early 2007 imposed a four-year probation term on Rose, gave him
no further sentence on the felony offense. Prosecutors with Corbett's
office wanted Rose, 56, of Delmont, to spend at least two years in a
state prison.
That
prompted Corbett, through an office spokesman, to say that state agents
would no longer bring child predator cases in Westmoreland County
because McCormick's sentence was too lenient.
Peck
did not comment on the Rose case yesterday but defended McCormick,
saying his sentences typically are neither lenient nor excessive."
Judge
McCormick's career on the bench has been characterized by his unlimited
patience for litigants and his never-ending willingness to understand
arguments. He has a very refined sense of individualism as a judge, and
he's not a servant of the prosecution or defense attorneys.
"He's not deserving of personal criticisms because he made a decision a prosecutor doesn't agree with," Peck said.
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| July 16, 2009 |
| Collaborative Law and Divorce |
| Posted By L. Anthony Bompiani, Esquire |
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Collaborative
Law is the practice and art of settling cases with legal counsel, but
without court intervention at any stage. All negotiations take place in
four-way conferences between the parties and their attorneys. Each
client has built-in legal advice and advocacy during negotiations and
each attorney is committed to guiding the clients toward reasonable
solutions.
The attorneys cannot go to court or threaten to
go to court. In fact, at the beginning of the proceed, all parties and
attorneys sign a contract agreeing that if either party decides to take
the case to court, then both parties must hire new attorneys. This puts
the responsibility on the attorneys to keep the case under control,
which is very important in divorce cases. In Collaborative Law,
settlement is the only agenda and all involved rely upon an atmosphere
of cooperation and professionalism.
For more information
regarding the Collaborative Law movement in Pennsylvania, contact L.
Anthony Bompiani, Esquire at (724) 925-9600.
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| July 08, 2009 |
| FACEBOOK and Divorce |
| Posted By L. Anthony Bompiani, Esquire |
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Here is an interesting article by Belinda Luscombe of Time Magazine:
Not
long after Patrick told his wife Tammie he wanted a divorce, she posted
an angry, hurt note on "the wall," or public-comments section, of his
Facebook page. Embarrassed that his colleagues, clients, church friends
and family could see evidence of his marital woes, he deleted it and
blocked his wife from seeing his page. A couple of days later, the IT
worker in Florida--who asked that his last name not be used in this
story — found alarmed messages from two Facebook friends in his inbox.
Tammie had used a mutual friend's account to view Patrick's wall and
e-mailed several women he had had exchanges with. He says her e-mails
were borderline defamatory. She says they merely noted that he was
married with children, a fact he had left off his Facebook profile.
Either way: Ouch.
Find the rest of the article here.
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