By Kevin Zwick
Staff Reporter
Capitolwire
HARRISBURG (Nov. 18) – Attorney General Kathleen Kane’s law license suspension is putting both internal and external pressure on the office that “requires constant vigilance,” four of her top deputies testified Wednesday.
“The confluence of the internal and external problems is really significant. It’s hard to overstate the issue,” First Deputy Attorney General Bruce Beemer told the Special Committee on Senate Address, which is probing whether Kane could fulfill the duties of her office with a suspended law license.
He and three division chiefs testified under subpoena they believe the actions the office has taken in the few weeks since Kane’s law license was suspended were “valid” despite the absence of the top law enforcement officer in key legal decisions.
“I believe this presents enormous challenges,” Beemer said. “All we could do is operate with the hand we’ve been dealt with, so to speak. And we believe to read otherwise in certain circumstances would have created a result via the Supreme Court order that would have effectively crippled the functioning of one of the more important state agencies in government.”
He said the office potentially faces a “myriad of legal challenges” from defense lawyers challenging the authority of the office, and there is “constant concern” staff attorneys could be accused of assisting Kane in the unauthorized practice of law.
Beemer and the three deputies – Criminal Division Chief Lawrence Cherba, Public Protection Division Chief James Donahue III, and Civil Division Chief Bob Mulle – wrote a memo to Kane on Oct. 22 expressing concerns any action construed as Kane practicing law exposes her or staff attorneys to disciplinary sanctions.
The OAG press office’s assertion last month that “98 percent” of Kane’s duties were administrative caused “great anxiety,” Beemer said.
“The Attorney General is the chief law enforcement officer, so most of what the Attorney General does ultimately is make decisions about cases,” said Donahue. “The vast majority of the work she does is legal work.”
But since the Oct. 22 suspension of the law license, Kane has been cut out of the legal decision-making process, they said. The state Supreme Court ordered Kane’s law license suspended on Sept. 21, but the suspension didn’t take effect until 30 days later on Oct. 22. She did not take part in any new legal matters since Sept. 21, they said.
“To the best of my knowledge, we have not been sharing legal files or legal correspondence or legal memos or court documents other than what’s public because it’s been filed in court,” Mulle said.
All four deputies said they’ve had little contact with Kane. Cherba said he has had personal and telephone contact with her while the other said they’ve had limited electronic communications with her.
And she has not made any effort to interfere with Beemer becoming the top legal official of the office, they said.
Beemer said he has “executed” a number of Kane’s duties since her suspension, but that the office is still working through the issue of who has the authority to discipline, hire and fire OAG employees, a situation he called “tricky.”
Particularly with staff attorneys, he said, “it creates enormous problems if that control continues to be vested with the Attorney General.” When Beemer was asked if Kane still controls hiring and firing, he said: “That control is…we are still working through that issue, the matter of personnel.”
“We have a situation where the person at the top can’t act in the full capacity that’s required of that job,” said Sen. Gene Yaw, R-Lycoming.
“Defense attorneys are probably going to raise as many of these issues as possible,” Yaw said, adding it creates “a snow-balling, ugly effect long term.”
Beemer said as time goes on, he hopes the office would be able to internally refine the boundaries of how the office functions. But external problems will multiply, he said.
“As time goes on, the volume of things we’re going to have to deal with is going to go up, up, up,” he said. “None of us like to think about where that crescendo is going to top off.”
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