Corbett signs Traffic Court's death warrant

HARRISBURG - Like the Packard automobile popular at the time of its founding, the end of the road has arrived for Philadelphia Traffic Court.

Gov. Corbett on Wednesday signed legislation that abolishes the scandal-plagued court and immediately transfers its duties to Municipal Court.

"Traffic Court has been the subject of calls for elimination for decades, and it finally reached such heights of corruption there really was no other choice," said Erik Arneson, spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi (R., Delaware), chief sponsor of the legislation. "Multiple reform efforts through the years failed. People eventually reached the conclusion it needed to be totally dismantled."

The signing came four months after federal indictments were issued against nine current and former Traffic Court judges in a ticket-fixing scandal, just the latest that has plagued the 75-year-old court.

The new law also cancels the November election that would have filled vacancies that the indictments created on the seven-member bench.

Instead, Municipal Court will get two more judges, and an as-yet unspecified number of hearing officers will be appointed to handle about 200,000 moving violations issued each year in the city.

Common Pleas Court Judge Gary S. Glazer, appointed by the state Supreme Court to overhaul Traffic Court after FBI agents raided it in 2011, said he and court officials would now establish a process to screen new appointees who will preside in traffic cases.

"We will make every effort to select hearing officers who are the best we can find," said Glazer, a former federal corruption prosecutor. "We are going to do it through a fair, merit-based process. It is going to result, I hope, in the selection of people who are going to decide these fairly - and end the case-fixing."

Glazer, whom the high court has asked to continue overseeing the merger of Traffic Court's duties into Municipal Court, said he was unsure when the first newly appointed examiners would begin hearing cases. Until then, judges named by the Supreme Court will continue to hear cases.

The 112-employee workforce will stay on the job, and cases will still be heard at the Traffic Court building at Eighth and Spring Garden Streets, he said.

Ronald D. Castille, chief justice of the state Supreme Court, who ordered an investigative report on Traffic Court, said he was pleased with the actions by Corbett and the legislature, which gave overwhelming bipartisan support to Pileggi's bill.

"For far too many years, two tracks of justice applied at Traffic Court: one for the politically connected and one for the honest citizen," he said in a statement. "Such a disgrace that reaches back decades and involved two other FBI raids will finally end."

A companion bill to amend the state constitution to formally eliminate Traffic Court also was approved. But changing the constitution is a much longer process - that bill must be passed by the legislature again next session and then approved by voter referendum. That cannot happen until 2015 at the earliest.