Senate GOP hammers Biden’s pick for Pennsylvania federal court at committee hearing
Republican lawmakers took aim at a Pennsylvania magistrate judge’s decision to toss the conviction of a university official involved in the Penn State sex abuse scandal.
JUL 26, 2023 | REPUBLISHED BY LIT: AUG 1, 2023
AUG 1, 2023
Above is the date LIT Last updated this article.
WASHINGTON (CN) — Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday voiced their displeasure with the Biden administration’s judicial nominees as they needled the latest slate of potential jurists to appear before the upper chamber’s legal panel.
“There’s a long and unfortunate pattern in this administration of Joe Biden nominating individuals to serve on the bench who have a repeated pattern of showing excessive leniency to criminals,” Senator Ted Cruz opined. “I don’t believe doing so is in the interest of the American people.”
The Texas Republican’s comments were directed at U.S. Magistrate Judge Karoline Mehalchick, the White House’s pick to fill a vacancy on in the Middle District of Pennsylvania where she currently sits.
Mehalchick took the brunt of the GOP’s cross-examination Wednesday as lawmakers set out to impugn her record.
In particular, the jurist drew Republicans’ ire with her 2019 decision to throw out a misdemeanor child-endangerment conviction against Graham Spanier, the former president of Penn State University. Spanier was removed from his position following the college’s 2011 sex abuse scandal amid reports that he had failed to respond to complaints about then-assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky.
Mehalchick ruled at the time that Spanier was improperly convicted under a 2007 child endangerment law because the actions for which he was charged took place in 2001 and instructed prosecutors to retry the former university president under a previous version of the law enacted in 1995. The ruling was overturned by an appeals court in 2020 and Spanier served a two-month prison sentence.
Tennessee Republican Senator Marsha Blackburn grilled Mehalchick on that decision.
“This comes across as a lack of respect for children and the rule of law,” Blackburn said, pointing to the Third Circuit decision overturning the ruling, which found that the district court judge misapplied existing case law.
Mehalchick responded that she had approached Spanier’s case like any other in her career, with “open and engaging argument” among all parties involved.
“When I issued that decision, I thought I was doing it correctly,” the judge told Blackburn. “The Third Circuit found that I did it incorrectly. I would stand by what the Third Circuit has said.”
South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, the judiciary panel’s ranking member, went after Mehalchick’s broader record, pointing out that the jurist had had her rulings reversed by a higher court on 31 occasions.
Louisiana Republican John Kennedy meanwhile used his allotted five minutes of questioning time to walk through several of those cases, forcing an increasingly exasperated Mehalchick to say whether her decision had been reversed.
“You’ve been reversed a lot,” said Kennedy, holding up a printed list he called “longer than King Kong’s arm.”
Mehalchick defended her record, arguing that the number of cases in her body of work that were later reversed by higher courts was less than 2%, and that more than two-thirds of those reversals only partially walked back her rulings.
“The bulk of my work that has been appealed has been affirmed by the district court and by the Third Circuit, and I think that that exhibits a basis for having faith in my work,” Mehalchick added.
Hawaii Democrat Mazie Hirono went to bat for the nominee, pointing to a recommendation letter from U.S. District Judge Judge John Jones, whose seat Mehalchick was selected to fill in the in the Middle District of Pennsylvania. Hirono too downplayed criticism of Mehalchick’s decision record, arguing that 31 reversals out of more than 1,500 rulings was actually a decent score.
“That is a success rate of 97.4%,” the Hawaii Democrat said. “That is a pretty good batting average in anybody’s opinion.”
At least one expert pushed back on Republicans’ line of questioning after Wednesday’s hearing.
“This is part of a refrain from GOP senators’ 2024 playbook to portray Democrats as soft on crime,” said Carl Tobias, chair of the University of Richmond Law School. “However, it is quantitatively and qualitatively false with respect to Biden nominees.”
Tobias observed that Mehalchick “showed fine temperament” in responding to GOP needling and pointing out that reversals only comprised a small percentage of her rulings.
Although Mehalchick was largely under the GOP microscope, lawmakers also dialed in on the other five judicial appointees who testified before the judiciary panel Wednesday. Republican committee members questioned the nominees on their support for whistleblowers, nodding to a pair of whistleblowers from the Internal Revenue Service who came forward last week to accuse the Justice Department of slow-walking an investigation into Hunter Biden’s business dealings.
Graham pressed Southern District of Delaware nominee Jennifer Hall on her knowledge of U.S. Attorney David Weiss’s inquiry into President Biden’s son. Hall had until 2019 served as an assistant U.S. attorney in the District of Delaware.
Now a magistrate judge, Hall cited the judicial code of conduct and said she could not comment on a pending investigation, but told Graham that she had not been involved in the Hunter Biden probe.
Margaret Garnett, tapped by the Biden administration to fill a vacancy on the Southern District of New York, said that while whistleblower complaints should be taken seriously, “my own approach would not be to take the word of any whistleblower … at face value.”
Tobias noted Hall was “very poised” in her response to Graham and said Hall “possesses much valuable experience and seems perfectly suited” for the Delaware federal court.
“Garnett was very clear and comprehensive in her answers, even when the senators asked her very difficult and some politicized questions about certain probes and cases,” the professor added.
Wednesday’s hearing proceeded in the absence of Illinois Senator Dick Durbin, who chairs the judiciary committee. Durbin announced over the weekend that he had tested positive for Covid-19 — his third case in the last year — and was recovering from the illness at home.
In the context of judicial nomination rejection in the United States, a “blue slip” refers to a Senate tradition that allows home-state senators to provide their approval or disapproval of a judicial nominee from their state.
The blue slip process is most commonly associated with the nomination of federal district court judges and circuit court judges.
Here’s how the blue slip process typically works:
Nomination
When a President nominates a candidate for a federal judgeship, the nomination is first sent to the Senate Judiciary Committee for consideration.
Blue Slips
The Senate Judiciary Committee then sends a blue slip to the two senators representing the nominee’s home state.
These blue slips are essentially pieces of paper or electronic forms on which the senators can indicate their support or opposition to the nominee.
Senatorial Courtesy
The blue slip process is considered a matter of senatorial courtesy, and it allows the home-state senators to have input on the nomination process. It is designed to give senators from the nominee’s state a say in who serves as a federal judge in their jurisdiction.
Impact on the Nomination
Historically, if either home-state senator did not return a positive blue slip for a nominee, it would be seen as a significant obstacle for that nominee’s confirmation.
The Senate Judiciary Committee and the Senate leadership would typically be hesitant to move forward with a confirmation hearing or vote if a negative blue slip was received.
Senate Republicans grill Mehalchick over Sandusky case ruling
JUL 26, 2023 | REPUBLISHED BY LIT: AUG 1, 2023
U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee Republicans repeatedly questioned federal judge nominee Karoline Mehalchick’s decision to overturn a high-profile Penn State University sexual abuse case conviction four years ago during her confirmation hearing Wednesday.
They also tried to raise doubts about Mehalchick’s worthiness to serve as a U.S. District judge by pointing to higher courts overturning at least partly more than 30 of her rulings as a federal magistrate judge.
Sen. John Kennedy, R-Louisiana, ran through a litany of overturned cases.
“I don’t have time to finish this list. It’s longer than King Kong’s arm here,” Kennedy said. “You’ve been reversed a lot.”
In the Penn State case, Mehalchick overturned former university president Graham Spanier’s child endangerment conviction in April 2019, but a federal appeals court reversed the ruling and faulted her for failing to review and analyze the case thoroughly enough.
“If you don’t examine cases closely, and if you have a high rate of reversals, then how do we expect you as you move to the court to be more careful in your job and more careful in your decision making?” Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tennessee, asked.
Mehalchick, a Clarks Summit resident and chief magistrate judge for the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania since January 2021, told Blackburn only 2% of her rulings were at least partly reversed.
“And I think that that exhibits a basis for having faith in my work,” Mehalchick said.
President Joe Biden announced June 28 he would nominate Mehalchick, 47, to a vacancy on the Middle District court and formally sent the nomination to the Senate on July 11.
The committee did not set a date for a vote on Mehalchick’s nomination.
The Penn State case involved sexual abuse of young boys by former football defensive coach Jerry Sandusky, later convicted and still serving a 30- to 60-year state prison sentence. Spanier was convicted in 2017, of a single misdemeanor related to failing to properly handle an assistant coach’s 2001 report that Sandusky abused a boy in a university locker room.
A state court rejected Spanier’s appeal of his conviction, but Mehalchick overturned the conviction the day before he was scheduled to begin a minimum two-month jail sentence followed by two months of house arrest. She ruled prosecutors charged him under a revised law on reporting abuse when they should have used the law in effect in 2001. The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned her ruling in December 2020, and Spanier served 58 days in jail.
Pressed by Blackburn on whether she still thinks her ruling was right, Mehalchick said she thought she ruled correctly.
“The 3rd Circuit found that I did it incorrectly,” she said.
“Did you agree with their reversal?” Blackburn asked.
“Yes, I would stand by what the 3rd Circuit did,” Mehalchick replied.
Kennedy asked if Mehalchick knew former Sen. Pat Toomey blocked her nomination, a claim never previously publicized before.
“You know that Sen. Toomey thought you were so unqualified, that he refused to even allow the Judiciary Committee to consider you, is that correct?” he asked.
Mehalchick said she never discussed the matter with Toomey and never learned his reason.
Attempts to reach Toomey were unsuccessful.
Committee Democrats treated Mehalchick more kindly.
Sen. Mazie Hirono, of Hawaii, said the reversal of only 31 of Mehalchick’s rulings among more than 1,200 cases reflects “a pretty good batting average.”
“I believe that extensive record prepares me well for the position,” Mehalchick said.
Sen. Bob Casey, who introduced her, quoted a letter from former U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III, now the president of Dickinson College, whom Mehalchick would replace. In a letter to the committee, Jones offered “enthusiastic and unqualified support.”
“The greatest appellation I can award to a fellow jurist is that she is a judge’s judge,” Jones wrote, according to Casey. “This fits Judge Mehalchick perfectly.”
Judge Karoline Mehalchick
Nominee to the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania
JUL 27, 2023 | REPUBLISHED BY LIT: AUG 1, 2023
President Biden has nominated fellow Scranton native Karoline Mehalchick, a federal magistrate judge, to a vacancy on the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania.
Background
Born in 1976 in Scranton, Pennsylvania, Karoline Mehalchick received a B.Sc. from Pennsylvania State University in 1998 and a J.D. from Tulane Law School in 2001.
After graduating, Mehalchick clerked for Judge Trish Corbett with the Lackawanna County Court of Common Pleas and then joined Oliver, Price & Rhodes as an Associate, becoming Partner in 2008. In 2013, Mehalchick was appointed to be a federal magistrate judge, where she currently serves.
History of the Seat
The seat Mehalchick has been nominated for opened on August 1, 2021 with the move to senior status of Judge John Jones.
Legal Experience
Between 2002 and 2013, Mehalchick worked at the firm of Oliver, Price & Rhodes in Lackawanna County, frequently representing municipalities in defending against various suits. See, e.g., Smith v. Borough of Dunmore, 633 F.3d 176 (3d Cir. 2011). Among her notable cases, Mehalchick represented the Diocese of Scranton in defending against suits brought by individuals alleging sexual abuse from ordained clergy in the diocese. See Doe v. Liberatore, 478 F. Supp. 2d 742 (M.D. Pa. 2007). Mehalchick has also represented private parties, including in an unfair competition suit brought in federal court. See Bobrick Corp. v. Santana Prods. Inc., 698 F.Supp.2d 479 (M.D. Pa. 2010).
On the plaintiff’s side, Mehalchick represented plaintiffs in a suit denying them a permit to place an outdoor sign on Interstate 81. See Joyce Outdoor v. Dep’t of Transp., 49 A.3d 518 (Comm. Ct. Pa. 2012).
Mehalchick also argued cases before the Third Circuit, including a defense of the Borough of Dunmore against a 1983 suit brought by a full-time firefighter. See Dee v. Borough of Dunmore, 549 F.3d 225 (3d Cir. 2008).
Judicial Experience
Since 2013, Mehalchick has served as a federal magistrate judge on the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania. In this role, Mehalchick handles bond and release decisions, administrative law cases, discovery disputes, settlement, as well as reports and recommendations on substantive motions. See, e.g., Luciano-Jimenez v. Doll, 547 F. Supp. 3d 462 (M.D. Pa. 2021) (Mannion, J.) (accepting Judge Mehalchick’s recommendation ordering a prisoner released with conditions).
A number of Mehalchick’s rulings and opinions have been appealed to the Third Circuit, which has largely affirmed the rulings. See, e.g., Talley v. Wetzel, 15 F.4th 275 (3d Cir. 2021) (affirming district court order allowing prisoner to proceed in forma pauperis). In one notable opinion, Mehalchick ruled, on an issue of first impression, that incentive bonuses by third parties need to be included by employers when calculating the overtime rate. See Secretary United States Department of Labor v. Bristol Excavating Co., 935 F.3d 122 (3d Cir. 2019). The Third Circuit affirmed in part and reversed in part, finding that all incentive bonuses do not necessarily need to be considered when calculating overtime and that the record did not support the conclusion that the overtime bonuses in this case should be considered. See id. at 128.
Among other cases where Mehalchick’s opinion has been reversed, two Third Circuit panel reversed her grant of summary judgment against prisoner suits for lack of exhaustion. See Downey v. Pennsylvania Dep’t of Corr., 968 F.3d 299 (3d Cir. 2020); Hardy v. Shaikh, 959 F.3d 578 (3d Cir. 2020).
Political Activity
Mehalchick’s sole donation of record is to former Scranton mayor Christopher Doherty, a Democrat.
Overall Assessment
With experience in private practice and a decade as a magistrate judge, Mehalchick has racked up a significant legal record for her relatively young age.
Given her relatively mainstream record, Mehalchick should see a comfortable confirmation.
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