Editor’s note: The author represents six of the 11 judges who have sued over the mandatory retirement provision for judges in the Pennsylvania Constitution.
A recent opinion piece by Northampton County District Attorney John M. Morganelli published Tuesday in The Legal, ” Pa.’s Constitutional Crisis: Will Judicial Self-Interest Trump the Constitution?” about the case before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court challenging the mandatory retirement provision for judges asked, rhetorically: “ What happens when judicial self-interest collides with the Constitution?” Morganelli then proceeded to pronounce that “Pennsylvania may be on the precipice of a constitutional crisis” and suggested that the 11 judges who brought these three lawsuits must somehow be engaged in some grand conspiracy because there is precedent from some 20-plus years ago upholding the constitutional provision now being challenged. Morganelli should know better.
