Montgomery County's top two public defenders were fired last month, allegedly for filing an amicus brief with the Pennsylvania Supreme Court that raised a host of concerns over the way the county court system was conducting bail hearings. Now both defenders and the ACLU of Pennsylvania have filed suit, with the attorneys claiming their First Amendment rights were violated and the ACLU contending that the county government violated the Sunshine Act.

On Monday, the ACLU of Pennsylvania filed a lawsuit on behalf of several Montgomery County residents, including criminal defense attorney Jules Epstein, alleging that the county and its commissioners violated the Sunshine Act when it decided to fire former Chief Public Defender Dean Beer and former Deputy Chief Public Defender Keisha Hudson in late February without giving the public an opportunity to wade into the issue.

The lawsuit comes nearly a week after both Beer and Hudson filed their own lawsuits against the county. Those suits alleged they were retaliated against for filing an amicus brief to the Supreme Court that shed light on the county's bail practices, including allowing bail hearings to go forward without defendants being represented by an attorney. Both of those suits were filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

"Plaintiff was terminated in retaliation for his filing of the amicus curiae brief which exposes Montgomery County's unlawful bail practices and  procedures," Beer said in his complaint, which was filed by Greenblatt, Pierce, Funt & Flores attorney Patricia Pierce. "Defendants' acts and omissions in retaliating against plaintiff for exercise of his First Amendment rights to free speech and to petition were a motivating or substantial factor in his termination."

READ BEER'S COMPLAINT:

Hudson sued only Montgomery County, while Beer's complaint named the county along with its commissioners and its chief operating officer. Although not named as a defendant in the lawsuits, President Judge Thomas Del Ricci of the Montgomery County Court of Common Pleas featured prominently in both complaints.

In an interview Monday, Pierce said the lawsuits raise a very "concerning" matter about the independence of public defenders offices.

"For the public defender to do their job appropriately, they have to be independent," Pierce said. "What has happened here smacks of a politicized environment that is completely untenable."

According to the complaints, the dispute can be traced back to the lawsuit the Philadelphia Bail Fund, along with 16 other defendants, filed in March 2019 against the First Judicial District. The suit challenged the court's cash-bail practices. In July, Pennsylvania Supreme Court took up the case under its King's Bench jurisdiction, and ordered an inquiry into the potentially problematic cash-bail practices.

In December, Senior Judge John Cleland issued a report saying that the court's procedures were "fundamentally sound," but could be improved, the complaints said. Over the next few months, several organizations filed amicus briefs.

In his complaint, Beer said he and Lee Awbrey, the office's chief appeals officer, prepared an amicus brief for the case, which he emailed to Montgomery County's chief operating officer, Lee Soltysiak and Josh Stein, the county's solicitor, Feb. 2. Beer filed the amicus the same day.

The brief was critical of of bail practices in Montgomery County, including saying that defendants' ability to afford bail was often not taken into consideration and that other times bail hearings were conducted without counsel being present for the defendants.

According to both Beer and Hudson's complaints, Soltysiak emailed Beer saying he did not think the brief was appropriate and that Beer should retract it. The complaints further said Del Ricci also called Beer into his office, where the judge was allegedly "visibly upset, as he held a copy of the amicus brief." The complaints alleged that Del Ricci told Beer he believed the brief was inaccurate and that, if he did not withdraw it, he would no longer support a proposed pretrial program Beer had advocated for and would not request the more than $1 million needed to start the program.

Several days later, Beer told Del Ricci he would withdraw the brief, but then, according to the complaints, Del Ricci asked Beer to publicly state that the brief was wrong, and to apologize to the judge personally. Del Ricci also threatened to file a disciplinary complaint against Beer, the complaints said.

The brief was formally withdrawn Feb. 12, but both Beer and Hudson were fired Feb. 26. Earlier this month, several defense attorneys petitioned the Supreme Court to allow them to refile the Public Defenders' initial brief.

According to ethics attorney Stuart Haimowitz, if proven, the president judge's alleged conduct could potentially run afoul of judicial conduct rules against allowing personal, political or financial matters to influence their decisions, and barring judges from engaging in activities that could reasonably seem to be coercive.

"If proven, these could be serious allegations," Haimowitz said.

Del Ricci did not return a message seeking comment left at his chambers Monday.

David Rudovsky of Kairys, Rudovsky, Messing, Feinberg & Lin, who is representing Hudson, said the defendants are likely to initially challenge the plaintiffs' ability to sue, given that they were public employees, appointed by the commissioners. However, Rudovsky said those arguments are unlikely to succeed because the amicus was filed outside the normal course of their employment, so the plaintiffs' First Amendment protections should attach. He further said allowing public defenders to be fired because they're advocating for better representation would also go against public policy.

"There should be a public policy exception for public defenders doing what they ought to be doing," Rudovsky said.

In its complaint filed Monday, the ACLU also argued that the county commissioners did not properly provide an opportunity for public comment before firing Beer and Hudson following an executive session Feb. 25.

"The process by which the Montgomery County commissioners fired Dean Beer and Keisha Hudson illustrates the commissioners' antipathy towards criminal justice reform and indigent defense," said Reggie Shuford, executive director of the ACLU of Pennsylvania, in a statement to the press. "These missteps have a chilling effect on public defenders across Pennsylvania and could end up significantly costing Montgomery County taxpayers."

Neither Soltysiak, nor any of the county commissioners, returned messages seeking comment.