A Cambria County judge ran afoul of the Constitution by conducting the mass trial and incarceration for 54 people held in contempt of court, a state appellate court concluded.
Cambria County Judge Tamara Bernstein jailed defendant Gregory Mauk for two weeks. Mauk, along with dozens of others, were held in contempt for failing to pay fines and were not given the opportunity to defend themselves against the charges, according to the Pennsylvania Superior Court, which vacated Mauk’s sentence and said that Bernstein’s ruling was fundamentally wrong.
