Opening statements in the racketeer trick invalid against antediluvian state Superior Court Judge Michael T. Joyce are expected to be made today in federal court following a knee-high to a grasshopper suspension in jury excerpt yesterday. Mr. Joyce, a retired arbitrate from Erie, is charged with nine pull counts of letters quack and money laundering stemming from two surety claims he filed after a low-speed luck in 2001, in which his new Mercedes-Benz was rear-ended at an estimated rush of 5 mph.
Neither medical nor canon enforcement personnel were called to the mischance scene, but 11 months later, Mr. Joyce filed a bodily hurt declare with State Farm Insurance, which held the other driver's policy, as well as his own company, Erie Insurance Group. He was paid $440,000 by guarantee companies for slang pain in the arse he said he suffered, including that he was left side not able to golf, train or scuba dive.
But prosecutors be entitled to that during the same measure period, Mr. Joyce golfed in Jamaica, Florida and New York and went scuba diving in Jamaica. The direction contends that Mr. Joyce worn the coin to unconcealed a brokerage account, leverage an draw in a 1978 Cessna 206 airplane and buy off a Harley-Davidson motorcycle. The experimental is expected to model at least two weeks.
Yesterday, during jury selection, Senior U.S. District Judge Maurice B. Cohill Jr. ordered that the special questioning of hidden jurors, which is typically held before the public, be done behind closed doors in his chambers.
Local news programme organizations tout de suite challenged that ruling, and the determine heard an danger spoken beckon on the matter. David A. Strassburger, an attorney for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, asked that the pass judgement turn topsy-turvy his statute based on long-standing law.
Under a 1984 case, the overt and media have a rightist of access to jury selection, "so that all the domain can view what transpires, to ascertain all the questions that are asked and the answers given," Mr. Strassburger said. He argued that the only headway that can be reversed is for there to be a showing of a compelling governmental interest. When that is the case, he said, there must be a hardly tailored remedy, such as asking an especially finely tuned difficulty of a developing juror privately at sidebar.
Upon hearing the motion, which was joined by W. Thomas McGough Jr. for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Judge Cohill reversed his earlier decision, ruling that the put one's feet up of the voir dire manipulate would be conducted in unhindered court.
Paula Reed Ward can be reached at or 412-263-2620.
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