A law firm has been hired to help the Centre County Prothonotary look into court documents that may have been mishandled by a judge.
On Thursday, the Centre County Commissioners approved a contract with attorney Dan McGee of the State College-based firm of Delafield, McGee and Jones at the request of the county’s prothonotary Debra Immel. McGee will provide his services at $95 an hour, and the costs will not exceed $2,000, according to the contract.
Centre County Solicitor Louis Glantz says Immel has expressed concerns on multiple occasions that “more than 20” pages of court documents are either missing or have not been properly preserved in the public record. Glantz says the contract with McGee is a way for Immel to “make sure she’s doing everything she can to preserve the county’s records.”
Immel is currently out of the office, and could not be reached by StateCollege.com for comment.
Commissioner Michael Pipe says it’s his understanding that the contract with McGee will deal with documents that may have been mishandled by Common Pleas Judge Bradley Lunsford last year.
The issue first came up in December 2014, when the prothonotary’s office contacted Glantz with concerns that documents were missing from the files of several criminal cases heard by Lunsford. Some of those cases included unsuccessful motions to have Lunsford removed as the presiding judge.
Glantz has previously told StateCollege.com that when he reached out to Lunsford about the missing documents, Lunsford said the issue was a misunderstanding. He explained that the documents in question were pieces of evidence that had been stricken from the record, and that he was unsure if stricken evidence was supposed to remain in the case file.
Glantz responded that striking evidence does not expunge it from the public record, which is a much more difficult process. He also noted that, although some of the documents had been returned, they appeared to be copies instead of the originals.
Also in December, Centre County President Judge Thomas Kistler signed an order that reassigned Judge Lunsford, preventing him from hearing criminal cases with the exception of DUI charges. The order did not specify a reason for Lunsford’s reassignment.
Lunsford declined comment, explaining that judges are not permitted to offer public comment on court proceedings. Kistler has also declined comment on Lunsford’s reassignment for the same reason.
Pipe says the prothonotary’s office already had the $2,000 for the new legal services in its budget. At the commissioner’s next public quarterly budget review, they will update the prothonotary’s budget to reflect the new contract with McGee.
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