David N. Wecht
Justice of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court
Assumed office
January 4, 2016 (2016-01-04)[1][2]
Preceded bySeamus McCaffery
Judge of the Superior Court of Pennsylvania
In office
January 4, 2012 – December 31, 2015
Preceded byRobert A. Freedberg
Succeeded byH. Geoffrey Moulton[3]
Trial Judge of the Pennsylvania Court of Common Pleas for the Fifth Judicial District
In office
February 2003 – January 2012
Personal details
Born (1962-05-20) May 20, 1962 (age 61)[4]
Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.
Political partyDemocratic
SpouseValerie Wecht
Children4
Alma materYale University (BA, JD)

David Norman Wecht (born May 20, 1962) is an American attorney and jurist, who has served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania since 2016. Prior to his election in 2015, Wecht had served as a judge of the Superior Court of Pennsylvania.[5][6]

Early life and education

He was born in Baltimore, Maryland, on May 20, 1962. Wecht is the son of Cyril Wecht, a nationally-recognized pathologist and former Allegheny County medical examiner,[7] known for famously disagreeing with the single-bullet theory in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.[8] His mother spent the first six years of her life living under Nazi occupation in Norway.[8]

Wecht graduated from the Shady Side Academy in 1980. He then attended Yale College, where he was elected to the Phi Beta Kappa Society and graduated with the distinction summa cum laude for his studies in history and political science in 1984.[8] Wecht then attended Yale Law School where he served on the Yale Law Journal and graduated in 1987. He clerked for federal judge George MacKinnon in Washington, D.C., and worked as an associate at Williams & Connolly.[9]

Career

Before his election to the Superior Court in 2011, Wecht served in Allegheny County government, holding elected executive and judicial offices since 1998. Wecht served as Allegheny County's elected register of wills and clerk of orphans' court from 1998 to 2003, and then trial judge from February 2003 until January 2012,[7][8] working extensively in the civil and family divisions. From 2009 to 2011, he served an administrative judge of the Family Division, where he was credited for implementing several reforms, including a conflict counsel program for juvenile delinquency cases, and a unified family court, in which the same jurist guides a family through its entire experience with the court.[8]

Wecht ran as a Democrat for Pennsylvania Supreme Court in 2015,[5] and was part of a Democratic sweep of all three court vacancies, along with Kevin Dougherty and Christine Donohue. They defeated Republican candidates Judith Olsen, Michael George, and Anne Covey in a campaign that has been described by media outlets and advocacy groups as the "most expensive judicial election in U.S. history".[10][11] Wecht campaigned on a "five-point plan" to improve transparency and ethical standards in the Pennsylvania judiciary, calling for a ban on nepotism and gifts to judges, "mandatory ethics training" for judges, a requirement that judges state for the record why they are recusing themselves from a case, and the implementation of cameras in the courtroom except in the cases of child abuse and juvenile cases.[8]

In August 2018, Wecht partially concurred when the majority found that the criminal conviction of a rapper for making a song entitled "Fuck the Police" did not violate the First Amendment to the United States Constitution because the song was found to contain true threats.[12][13]

In November 2020, Wecht ruled in a lawsuit challenging the Joe Biden's victory in Pennsylvania that the effort to overturn the results of the election was "futile" and "a dangerous game."[14]

In June 2021, Wecht ruled that the prosecutor who brought the case against Bill Cosby was bound by the promise his predecessor, Bruce Castor, made to not prosecute Mr. Cosby. He wrote that Mr. Cosby relied on this promise when giving otherwise incriminating testimony in the civil case Andrea Constand brought against him in 2005. Supporters of Constand argue that there is no physical evidence of this verbal promise between Cosby and Castor, and Castor was ruled not credible at trial, however, the promise was fully documented in a press release by Castor at the time. Wecht's ruling[15] cites "the undeniable reality that Cosby relied to his detriment upon D.A. Castor’s decision." Cosby's conviction was overturned and any further prosecution was barred. The decision also lamented what Wecht sees as the judiciary permitting testimony akin to character attacks.

Personal life

Wecht is married and has four children.[5]

See also

References

  1. ^ "Drawing determines court seniority". Unified Judicial System of Pennsylvania. December 3, 2015.
  2. ^ Santoni, Matthew (January 7, 2016). "David Wecht sworn in to Pennsylvania's highest court". Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.
  3. ^ "6/27/16 Executive Nominations - Two-Thirds Vote" (PDF). Committee on Rules and Executive Nominations - PA General Assembly Senate.
  4. ^ "Personal Data Questionnaire - David Wecht" (PDF). Pennsylvania Bar Association. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2022-12-06.
  5. ^ a b c "David Wecht to seek state Supreme Court vacancy". Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. December 4, 2014. Archived from the original on November 18, 2015. Retrieved November 4, 2015.
  6. ^ Kraus, Scott; Sheehan, Dan; Assad, Matt (November 4, 2015). "Incumbents fare well in Lehigh Valley elections". The Morning Call. Archived from the original on November 5, 2015. Retrieved November 4, 2015.
  7. ^ a b "Snapshot look at candidates for Pa. appellate courts". Delaware County Daily Times. Associated Press. November 3, 2015. Archived from the original on November 17, 2015. Retrieved November 4, 2015.
  8. ^ a b c d e f "Get to know the candidates for state Supreme Court". LNP Media Group. October 31, 2015. Archived from the original on July 30, 2017. Retrieved November 4, 2015.
  9. ^ The Pennsylvania Manual. Vol. 16. Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Department of Property and Supplies for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. 2003. pp. 5–59. ISBN 9780818202858. Archived from the original on 2015-11-18. Retrieved 2015-11-06.
  10. ^ Bishop, Tyler (November 10, 2015). "The Most Expensive Judicial Election in U.S. History". The Atlantic. Archived from the original on December 13, 2015. Retrieved December 17, 2015.
  11. ^ Palazzolo, Joe (November 3, 2015). "Race for Pennsylvania Supreme Court Breaks Spending Record". The Wall Street Journal. Archived from the original on December 22, 2015. Retrieved December 17, 2015.
  12. ^ Note, Recent Case: Pennsylvania Supreme Court Finds Rap Song a True Threat, 132 Harv. L. Rev. 1558 (2019).
  13. ^ Commonwealth v. Knox, 190 A.3d 1146 (Pa. 2018).
  14. ^ Corasaniti, Nick (February 15, 2021). "Pennsylvania G.O.P.'s Push for More Power Over Judiciary Raises Alarms". New York Times.
  15. ^ Court document pacourts.us June 3, 2021

External links

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Statewide political officials of Pennsylvania
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