On June 11, 2010... Frank P. Barletta filed an "entry of appearance" for the Luzerne County DA's office with the Superior Court of Pennsylvania, regarding convicted murder Harlow Cuadra's appeal.
While it's widely known that Barletta strictly does appeals for Luzerne County... it makes one wonder... what happened to the original prosecutor Michael Melnick, and why isn't he still handling this?
Update @ 06/27/2010: A source tells me that the reason Melnick is no longer listed as the DA, is because Frank Barletta handles higher court appeals for the Luzerne County District Attorney's Office. Jackie Musto Carroll does it that way so regular ADA's aren't jammed up with appeals and can concentrate on current caseloads, leaving Barletta to handle appeals.
Shifting appeals to one lawyer appears to be a good idea considering that appeals go so slowly, and are based only on the court testimony of record unless someone can show something signifigant was left out or unknown at the time of trial.
ReplyDeleteI personally can not see anything showing up that was not shown at the trial.