FOP fights retention bid by Nauhaus for judge

Tuesday, October 30, 2007
By Ann Belser, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

The city's police union has come out against a sitting judge, saying he is too soft on criminals and anti-police.

Members of the Fraternal Order of Police Fort Pitt Lodge No. 1, have taken up a collection among themselves to pay for yard signs calling for Common Pleas Judge Lester G. Nauhaus' ouster.

Normally, retention elections overwhelmingly return sitting judges to the bench. But a statewide campaign against retention, growing out of the legislative pay raise fiasco two years ago, has led Judge Nauhaus and others for the first time to raise money to support their retention.

The anti-Nauhaus signs went up over the weekend and police Lt. Bill Mathias said there are more that will be posted before election day along the major roadways around the city.

"It's always been the belief among police officers that he was anti-police," Lt. Mathias said.

Judge Nauhaus, who was elected in 1997, is the former public defender for the county. He said he was surprised the police are working against his retention because he said they have rarely filed appeals when he has ruled against them.

He argued that every decision he makes, other than guilt or innocence, is subject to appeal. In the last 10 years he has never had a sentence overturned and in the same time he has only had appeals on about five suppression motions where he ruled against the police. Of those, he noted, the rulings from the higher courts have been fairly evenly split.

Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen A. Zappala Jr. would not make a comment regarding a sitting judge.

"This is part of the public process," he said about the issues surrounding the retention election.

Lt. Mathias said he was the designated spokesman for the campaign because unlike detectives he doesn't have to appear in court very often.

He said his opinion of Judge Nauhaus was formed in the police academy when the judge, who was then a defense attorney, started a class for the officers-to-be by saying "Good Morning, how are my little piglets doing?"

He found that offensive.

The FOP as an organization did not take the initiative to go after Judge Nauhaus. Instead, FOP President Jim Malloy said, it was individual members, particularly detectives, who came to him asking to use the FOP's name on the signs.

"I didn't print the signs. The signs were printed by the policemen out in the zones," Mr. Malloy said. He said it was the members that took up the collection for the signs and had them produced.

The signs, which along four lines read "Support your police/ Vote no/ Judge Nauhaus/ Paid for by FOP Lodge #1" went up over the weekend mainly along Route 51 and in the North Hills.

Judge Nauhaus already was worried about retention before the police decided to take him on.

PA Clean Sweep, which two years ago led the fight against pay raises for legislators and judges, has targeted 66 of the 67 candidates up for retention statewide. Judge Nauhaus said the threat posed by the statewide campaign didn't worry him as much as the new voting machines which, unlike the old machines where retentions were hidden at the top, have a screen in which voters are asked to vote on retention.

The confluence of the new machines and the statewide anti-judicial campaign led Judge Nauhaus to raise $42,000 for a retention campaign. He is not the only local judge raising money. Common Pleas President Judge Joseph M. James has raised $118,000 for his own retention bid, according to the campaign finance report his committee filed on Friday.

Judge James said the bar association, which has endorsed the retention of all three Common Pleas judges running, is handing out slate cards at the polls for them. Judge W. Terrence O'Brien is the third Common Pleas judge running. He has not raised money for his retention bid.

The two judges started raising money because of the retention election two years ago in which, amid the furor over the legislative pay raise, voters threw out Supreme Court Justice Russell Nigro.

This is the first time that a group has taken on members of the Court of Common Pleas.

Even eight years ago, when Judge Jeffrey Manning's retention was not endorsed by the Allegheny County Bar Association, Judge Manning did not mount a campaign to save his job but still won retention.
First published on October 30, 2007 at 12:00 am
Ann Belser can be reached at abelser@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1699.