The Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas has a new president judge, Judge Pamela Pryor Dembe, who served previously as supervising judge of the criminal division.  Judge Dembe was elected by her fellow judges to replace outgoing President Judge C. Darnell Jones II, who has been sworn in as a United States District judge for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
 

The Supreme Court’s Civil Procedural Rules Committee has proposed new Rule 233.1 to address “frivolous litigation by pro se plaintiffs.”  The rule would permit a defendant to move to dismiss an action by a pro se plaintiff that alleges the same or related claims against the same or related defendants where the claims have already been resolved by settlement or court action.  Comments on the proposal are due by November 26 to the Civil Procedural Rules committee, at civil.rules@pacourts.us.  PMC plans to submit comments questioning why only self-represented litigants should be singled out in the rule.  If litigation should be dismissed because it is friovolous and/or duplicative, that rule should apply equally to self-represented litigants and litigants represented by counsel.

On election day, four counties in three states (Alabama, Missouri and Kansas) chose Merit Selection over judicial elections.  In three of these elections, voters chose to switch from elections to Merit Selection.  In the fourth, votes rejected the offer to switch from Merit Selection to judicial elections.  The critical point is that in each of these jurisdictions, voters were gi

The Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts (AOPC) has announced that the court system is preparing for a busy election day and that the courts will be ready to handle any election-related issues that may arise.  Chief Justice Ronald Castille was quoted in an AOPC press release explaining that although nothing unusual was expected, "it was essential for the courts to be open and

Pennsylvania is now using a new master jury list with 11.5 million names.  Available for use by the counties in summoning citizens to serve, the goal is to include more Pennsylvanians in the process.

The Pennsylvania court system has launched a new website at www.pacourts.us.  This site leads users to sections for the public, the media, and the legal profession as well as to sites for the trial courts, appellate courts and Supreme Court.