PA DA wants her property back; prosecutor claims 'malicious, reckless' intent behind search warrant
A political tiff almost 90 miles north of Harrisburg is ringing familiarly clear in local ears and resembling a similar squabble in and around the state's Capitol.
Stacy Parks Miller is district attorney for Centre County, about 200 miles northwest of Philadelphia. She is being investigated by police for allegedly forging a judge's signature on a court order purported to reduce a man's bail more than a year ago as he awaited trial on drug charges.
According to new paperwork filed Monday in the Centre County Court of Common Pleas, Miller affirms the county commissioners are retaliating against her for a prior investigation of hers into a son of one of the commissioners as a potential murder suspect.
Through her lawyer, Miller filed a petition for return of seized property today after cops raided her county office Saturday night and allegedly took sensitive documents, such as information relating to the identities of confidential informants and wiretaps.
Miller claims her district attorney's office was searched and items seized with the intent of retaliation. She claims this is based on Miller's prior investigation into one of the commissioners' sons, as well their "contentious policy disagreements" with regard to work release for prison inmates, lengthy sentences for criminals and other differences – according to court papers. She is also reportedly investigating the commissioners for violations of the state Sunshine Act.
Monday's petition asks the court to compel members of the Bellefonte Police Department to return the items seized from her office which are "necessary to the performance of her duties as district attorney and that [police are] obstructing the administration of justice by unlawfully retaining them," as quoted from the court filing.
Miller claims that the search warrant was invalid, lacked probable cause and was issued in violation of the U.S. and state constitutions. She further avers that the issuing authority lacked jurisdiction to sign the warrant and that she had already been cooperating with the investigation led by the Attorney General's Office.
Speaking of AG, enter Kathleen Kane.
Kane has been embroiled with her own differences between a special prosecutor charged with investigating misdeeds by her office in the form of top-secret grand-jury information leaked to the Daily News.
In her filing, Miller maintains that only the AG's Office has the jurisdictional power to investigate her under the law, and that, as the chief law enforcement officer in Centre County, subordinate police officers have no business there.
She claims they did so in an effort to keep Miller from performing her duties as DA and to circumvent the normal legal procedures that the AG had already begun to employ.
According to sources familiar with the case, the Centre County Commissioners insist they have the power to ask for the appointment of a special prosecutor in order to dodge the requirement of the case lying with the AG. Just last week, the commissioners, with the approval of the county solicitor, publicly voted to seek the appointment of a special prosecutor.
Miller says this is contrary to the law requiring the AG to step in under such circumstances.