{"id":9921,"date":"2012-06-18T09:04:24","date_gmt":"2012-06-18T13:04:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/?p=9921"},"modified":"2012-06-18T09:04:24","modified_gmt":"2012-06-18T13:04:24","slug":"court-judge-subverted-justice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/?p=9921","title":{"rendered":"Court: Judge subverted justice"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rita Arnold found to have acted improperly to protect son, then herself<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/em>By Kathleen Brady Shea<\/span><\/strong>, Managing Editor, UnionvilleTimes.com<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

District Justice Rita Arnold<\/p><\/div>\n

The Court of Judicial Discipline has found \u201cclear and convincing evidence\u201d that Magisterial District Judge Rita A. Arnold violated the rules of professional conduct.<\/p>\n

In a press release issued Friday, the court referenced Arnold\u2019s improper handling of a Jan. 19, 2010, citation filed in her court by state police against her son, Forrest C. Solomon Jr., 34, and the subsequent investigation of that matter.<\/p>\n

Arnold, who is represented by Heidi F. Eakin, has 10 days to file written objections to the court\u2019s opinion; if she does not, the court will conduct a July 24 hearing on sanctions in Harrisburg, the press release said. The sanctions could range from a reprimand to removal from office.<\/p>\n

Last month, in an apparent effort to avoid trial, Arnold agreed with the facts presented by the state Judicial Conduct Board \u2013 the same facts that form the basis of the Court of Judicial Discipline\u2019s 16-page opinion.<\/p>\n

In February, the Judicial Conduct Board filed a formal complaint against Arnold, a 17-year jurist whose district serves the townships of Birmingham, East Caln, East and West Bradford, and the Borough of Downingtown.\u00a0At the time, Chester County President Judge James P. MacElree ordered Arnold to leave her office avoid any contact with employees; however, only the Court of Judicial Discipline can suspend her pay, which it has not done. A senior magisterial district judge has performed her duties and been paid a daily rate.<\/p>\n

The Judicial Conduct Board\u2019s complaint focused on a case involving an altercation on Jan. 19, 2010, between Solomon, who has a 12-year history of convictions ranging from indecent assault to drug offenses, and his half-brother, Jonathan Arnold, 29, both of whom lived with Rita Arnold.<\/p>\n

The complaint said a citation for assault was issued by a state trooper against Solomon but was not recorded for nearly three months. As a result, Solomon’s probation officer could not take any action against him on the new charge because he did not know about it, the complaint said.<\/p>\n

Arnold’s office manager testified that the judge told her to “hold onto” the citation until instructed otherwise, to avoid adversely affecting “Solomon’s probationary status.” When troopers questioned Arnold about the fact that the citation had not been docketed, Arnold said “her court was really backlogged,” the complaint said. Later, she blamed the delay on the fact that her office had been relocated and said she had forgotten about it. That explanation contradicted the testimony of a state police supervisor who called to inquire about the citation, said court records, which also showed that no other citations were delayed by the move.<\/p>\n

Once the citation was docketed on April 5, 2010, Arnold violated procedure again by transferring the case to District Judge Mark Bruno in West Chester without the requisite transfer order from MacElree, the complaint said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is easy to see that from the time the state police citation came into her office,\u201d Arnold engaged in an improper course of conduct, the Court of Judicial Discipline wrote. It said that after she violated procedures, \u201cshe made false statements\u201d to investigators and instructed her office manager \u201cto testify falsely,\u201d the opinion said.<\/p>\n

The court said Arnold\u2019s conduct, which involved failing to perform her duties and prejudicing \u201cthe proper administration of justice,\u201d consisted of eight separate violations, making her subject to discipline.<\/p>\n

Documents filed by Eakin list six possible character witnesses for Arnold: attorneys Paul J. Rubino and Alan Novak; Downingtown Police Chief James McGowan; West Chester Police Lt. James Morris; Mario Spoto, a Downingtown chiropractor; and Robin Whiteman, an Exton real-estate agent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rita Arnold found to have acted improperly to protect son, then herself By Kathleen Brady Shea, Managing Editor, UnionvilleTimes.com The Court of Judicial Discipline has found \u201cclear and convincing evidence\u201d that Magisterial District Judge Rita A. Arnold violated the rules of professional conduct. In a press release issued Friday, the court referenced Arnold\u2019s improper handling […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":9975,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,7],"tags":[15,1477,1407,1478],"class_list":["post-9921","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-featured","tag-birmingham","tag-court-of-judicial-discipline","tag-judicial-conduct-board","tag-rita-arnold"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9921","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9921"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9921\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9975"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}