Ordinarily, lawyers arguing before the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals must wait until about 10 days before the argument date to learn the names of the three judges on their panel and whether the court has agreed to hear argument. But in the appeals stemming from the fraud convictions of former state Sen. Vincent J. Fumo and his longtime aide, Ruth Arnao, the identities of the three judges were revealed more than a month before the May 23 argument date.
The docket in Fumo’s appeal shows that prosecutors filed a motion last year asking to seal a portion of the appellate appendix, and that the 3rd Circuit clerk’s office referred that motion to the “merits panel.”
