Hits and Misses
MISS: We’re still baffled as to why Washington County Court Judge John DiSalle proceeded with jury selection in the death-penalty case against Brandon Wolowski, accused in the slaying of a Washington man and the wounding of another person, when Wolowski’s attorney, Noah Geary, was attempting to have DiSalle removed from the case because of an alleged pro-prosecution bias. Jury selection for the case began back on Sept. 24 and continued for weeks before the state Supreme Court ruled Oct. 11 against Geary’s petition for review of a Superior Court denial. Geary filed an emergency motion for reconsideration on Oct. 22, and three days later, at the request of both the prosecution and defense, DiSalle agreed to scrap jury selection and start all over again in February. Considering that Geary’s attempt to remove DiSalle was not settled, we wonder why the case wasn’t delayed until next year in the first place.
HIT: The Pennsylvania Department of Corrections came under fire a few months ago when it adopted a policy prohibiting the direct donation of books and other publications to inmates from approved organizations, such as the Philadelphia-based Books Behind Bars. The department said the policy was being implemented to keep drugs out of prison, but the Pennsylvania ACLU, the Abolitionist Law Center and other advocates for the rights of prisoners argued that it would needlessly limit the access prisoners had to reading material and limit their educational opportunities. On Thursday, the Department of Corrections announced it was walking back the policy, adopting a new series of rules allowing book organizations to continue to send books to inmates, and allowing family and friends to purchase books and other materials from “original sources,” such as online sales outlets and bookstores. Now, however, the material must be sent to a security processing center to make sure the books and magazines are not a conduit for drugs. This policy makes sense. Why wasn’t it adopted in the first place?
MISS: There are some growing pains associated with Washington County’s growth. With a seventh judge needed in 2020 as the population increases, the county is spending $370,000 to buy the building at 26 S. Main St. in Washington. While the county isn’t expected to place a courtroom inside that building, it apparently will be needed to shift around a court-related office to make room for the new judge in the courthouse. Still, it could cost a lot of taxpayer money to renovate the building into useable office space. It will also take another storefront off Main Street and another property off the city’s already-depleted tax rolls. It’s obvious that the old courthouse doesn’t have much room to expand, but it seems foolish that the county needs a seventh judge when its population in two years will be at the very bottom of the third-class county classification. What’s more foolish is that the county is buying an entire building rather than finding other ways to squeeze the staff into other parts of the courthouse or the county office building directly behind it.
MISS: The good news is that turnout in Tuesday’s midterm elections is expected to top 50 percent of eligible voters, and maybe even reach 60 percent, which is typically the turnout in presidential election years. But the bad news is that 40 percent of eligible voters won’t cast a ballot. While some of this cohort has legitimate reasons to not vote, such as polling places that are hard to get to, or job demands that preoccupy them for the entirety of Election Day, some voters simply don’t care. One non-voter told The Washington Post this week, “In the grand scheme of things in my life, the decisions that politicians make do not really affect my daily life … We do not make any actual changes.” This is, of course, a painfully short-sighted view. To paraphrase Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky, he may not be interested in politics, but politics is interested in him.