A Westmoreland judge has ruled that the county’s District Attorney’s Office failed to properly manage its caseload and violated the speedy trial rights of a Ligonier man charged in 2021 with drunken driving.

Common Pleas Judge Tim Krieger dismissed the case against 38-year-old Jesse Springer.

In a 12-page ruling, Krieger wrote the prosecution was among a continuing trend of incidents in which the District Attorney’s Office failed to monitor its calendar to ensure cases are scheduled for trial within a year.

Under what is known as Rule 600, prosecutors are required by state law to bring a case to trial within six months for suspects who are in jail and in a year for those who are not in custody. Time limits typically are adjusted throughout the course of a prosecution to account for attorney delays and administrative issues that result in postponements of trials.

“In carrying its burden of proving that it acted with due diligence, the commonwealth is required to come forward with sufficient evidence showing that it has a system in place for actively monitoring the Rule 600 dates for its cases. No such evidence was presented regarding the defendant,” Krieger wrote.

The judge said a Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruling requires the District Attorney’s Office to track dates and have simple systems in place to monitor deadlines and other scheduling concerns in criminal cases.

Melanie Jones, spokeswoman for District Attorney Nicole Ziccarelli, said in an email that the office disagreed with the judge’s rationale for dismissing the case against Springer. She also said the District Attorney’s Office has a case record management system in place.

According to court records, Springer was detained following a traffic stop May 21, 2021, in Latrobe. Police suspected he was drunk and subsequently charged him with driving under the influence of alcohol. By the following August, prosecutors realized the case had not yet been scheduled for a nonjury trial.

Krieger noted that a series of emails between attorneys and the court administrator led to the case finally being scheduled for trial last Dec. 1. Under speedy trial rules, the case should have gone to trial by June 3, 2022, the judge wrote.

Although the judge conceded that prosecutors were correct to say that the county’s court administration did not properly list Springer’s case on a schedule for nonjury trial, prosecutors are required to ensure the time requirements are met.

Efforts to list the case for trial were not made until August, more than two months after the deadline, according to the judge’s ruling. Krieger wrote that prosecutors ultimately are responsible for monitoring and adhering to speedy trial rules.

“The court observes that it is not the defendant’s obligation to shepherd his own case through the prosecution process,” Krieger wrote.

The judge noted that two previous cases, one in 2018 and another in 2021, were dismissed by two other judges based on speedy trial rights violations.

Jones declined to comment on the older two cases that were dismissed, saying they were prosecuted under the office’s previous administration.

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