Senate Republicans grill Mehalchick over Sandusky case ruling

Jul. 26—U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee Republicans repeatedly questioned federal judge nominee Karoline Mehalchick's decision to overturn a high-profile Penn State University sexual abuse case conviction four years ago during her confirmation hearing Wednesday.

They also tried to raise doubts about Mehalchick's worthiness to serve as a U.S. District judge by pointing to higher courts overturning at least partly more than 30 of her rulings as a federal magistrate judge.

Sen. John Kennedy, R-Louisiana, ran through a litany of overturned cases.

"I don't have time to finish this list. It's longer than King Kong's arm here," Kennedy said. "You've been reversed a lot."

In the Penn State case, Mehalchick overturned former university president Graham Spanier's child endangerment conviction in April 2019, but a federal appeals court reversed the ruling and faulted her for failing to review and analyze the case thoroughly enough.

"If you don't examine cases closely, and if you have a high rate of reversals, then how do we expect you as you move to the court to be more careful in your job and more careful in your decision making?" Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tennessee, asked.

Mehalchick, a Clarks Summit resident and chief magistrate judge for the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania since January 2021, told Blackburn only 2% of her rulings were at least partly reversed.

"And I think that that exhibits a basis for having faith in my work," Mehalchick said.

President Joe Biden announced June 28 he would nominate Mehalchick, 47, to a vacancy on the Middle District court and formally sent the nomination to the Senate on July 11.

The committee did not set a date for a vote on Mehalchick's nomination.

The Penn State case involved sexual abuse of young boys by former football defensive coach Jerry Sandusky, later convicted and still serving a 30- to 60-year state prison sentence. Spanier was convicted in 2017, of a single misdemeanor related to failing to properly handle an assistant coach's 2001 report that Sandusky abused a boy in a university locker room.

A state court rejected Spanier's appeal of his conviction, but Mehalchick overturned the conviction the day before he was scheduled to begin a minimum two-month jail sentence followed by two months of house arrest. She ruled prosecutors charged him under a revised law on reporting abuse when they should have used the law in effect in 2001. The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned her ruling in December 2020, and Spanier served 58 days in jail.

Pressed by Blackburn on whether she still thinks her ruling was right, Mehalchick said she thought she ruled correctly.

"The 3rd Circuit found that I did it incorrectly," she said.

"Did you agree with their reversal?" Blackburn asked.

"Yes, I would stand by what the 3rd Circuit did," Mehalchick replied.

Kennedy asked if Mehalchick knew former Sen. Pat Toomey blocked her nomination, a claim never previously publicized before.

"You know that Sen. Toomey thought you were so unqualified, that he refused to even allow the Judiciary Committee to consider you, is that correct?" he asked.

Mehalchick said she never discussed the matter with Toomey and never learned his reason.

Attempts to reach Toomey were unsuccessful.

Committee Democrats treated Mehalchick more kindly.

Sen. Mazie Hirono, of Hawaii, said the reversal of only 31 of Mehalchick's rulings among more than 1,200 cases reflects "a pretty good batting average."

"I believe that extensive record prepares me well for the position," Mehalchick said.

Sen. Bob Casey, who introduced her, quoted a letter from former U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III, now the president of Dickinson College, whom Mehalchick would replace. In a letter to the committee, Jones offered "enthusiastic and unqualified support."

"The greatest appellation I can award to a fellow jurist is that she is a judge's judge," Jones wrote, according to Casey. "This fits Judge Mehalchick perfectly."

Contact the writer: bkrawczeniuk@timesshamrock.com; 570-348-9147; @BorysBlogTT on Twitter.