Editorial: Westmoreland DA's Office needs to watch the clock on criminal cases

Do you remember the Hasbro game Perfection?

It’s a bright red frame with a blue board you push down. A dial is turned, starting a timer when the switch is flipped. You get one minute to take the 25 yellow plastic shapes and fit them into their corresponding geometric spaces on the board. Run out of time, and the board pops up, flinging all the pieces out.

The penalty is the pickup — and possibly stepping on the sharp peg handle of an errant piece.

On Tuesday, the Westmoreland County District Attorney’s Office got to relive that experience.

In a 12-page ruling, Common Pleas Judge Tim Krieger dismissed a case. Jesse Springer, 38, of Ligonier was charged with driving under the influence in May 2021. Just days short of two years later, Springer still hasn’t been to trial. He should have been in court by June 3, 2022.

That’s a problem in Pennsylvania — and America. The right to a “speedy trial” is right there in the Sixth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

In the Keystone State, the law in question is Rule 600. A case must come to trial within six months if the accused is in custody and within a year if they aren’t. There are ways to press pause on that clock with delays and postponements requested or agreed to by either prosecution or defense, but those timelines are the goal.

A simple DUI stretching two years is well beyond those limits, and Krieger took the DA’s Office to task for it. However, it wasn’t just Springer’s case he cited but also a trend — because Springer’s case wasn’t the only one to miss the deadline.

Krieger noted two other cases dismissed by two other judges — one in 2018 and one in 2021.

This shows the problem is bigger than DA Nicole Ziccarelli, who took office in 2021. The oldest case is definitely not her fault. Some delays in the second case might predate her, too. But failure to get Springer to court on time definitely happened on her watch.

It’s worth arguing that the DA’s Office has had significant cases to prosecute over that period of time, including murders and sexual assaults. Springer’s DUI was a misdemeanor with a summary taillight violation tacked on. It was a first offense. He had been released without bail. It was not the case of a hardened criminal.

The issue is: That shouldn’t matter. If a law is worth writing, it is worth enforcing. If it is worth arresting someone for breaking it, it is worth following the rules of prosecution to complete the process. It is unfair to the person arrested to drag it out. It is equally unfair to the taxpayers to waste an extra year juggling a case.

The DA’s Office blamed court administration for not scheduling the case on time. However, Krieger rightly noted that ensuring cases are scheduled in accordance with Rule 600 is the prosecution’s responsibility.

Ziccarelli spokeswoman Melanie Jones disagreed with the judge’s decision and indicated the office has a case record management system in place.

Springer’s case — and the two before it — would indicate the system is less than perfect and the DA’s Office needs to pay closer attention to prevent more cases from blowing apart when time runs out. Because trials are not a game.

Editor’s note: Krieger’s name was inadvertently substituted for Springer’s in two sentences in an earlier version of this editorial.