By Ralph Ciprianofor BigTrial.net
In the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, Common Pleas Court Judge Anne Marie Coyle presided this week over emergency hearings designed to expedite the early release of supposedly non-violent inmates.
The judge was expecting to deal with small-time criminals in jail for low-level, non-violent offenses.
But the 80 case files brought to Judge Coyle's virtual courtroom over two days included some major heroin dealers, and other convicted criminals jailed for crimes that included arson, aggravated assault, domestic violence and assaults against police officers.
The public defender, with the district attorney's approval, wanted the judge to sign off on group releases. But the judge said, no, we're going case by case. The judge subsequently found that none of the defendants fit the criteria of being small-time criminals jailed for low level and nonviolent crimes. So one by one, the judge denied the releases and ordered all 80 criminals to be kept in jail.
For doing the job she was elected to do, Judge Coyle was attacked by the D.A. and the public defender's office, and vilified by the Inquirer. Finally, after the Inquirer published the judge's photo, a gang of protesters on Wednesday verbally attacked, harassed and tried to spit on the judge as she was escorted by cops to and from the Criminal Justice Center.
Besides the crazed demonstrators she had to wade through, Judge Coyle was up against a dedicated team of social justice warriors.
Let's face it, the public defender's office and D.A. Larry Krasner -- the self-described "public defender with power" -- as well as the Progressive reporters and editors at The Philadelphia Inquirer are all playing on the same team.
They view criminals as the victims of an oppressive criminal justice system that's racist, sexist, etc. So when the coronavirus hit, everybody on the team decided it was a great time to use the health crisis as an excuse to empty the jails.
Standing in the way was Judge Coyle, a former prosecutor for 15 years in the D.A.'s office who's got a reputation among her fans as being a strict but fair judge. The Inquirer, however, did an analysis a while back that found the judge sentenced criminals who had violated the terms of their probation to state prison at a higher rate than any other judge in Philadelphia.
The judge, who carries a heavy case load, explained at the time that this may have been the result of overseeing serious cases in a major trials courtroom. But her record upset the Inky's social justice warriors.
On Tuesday, the Inquirer ran a story with the headline, "A Philly judge has denied every inmate's bid to get out of jail amid the coronavirus. defense lawyers are trying to cut her out of the process."
The story reported that the judge over two days had rejected every bid for early release, and in four cases, had actually increased bail. Now that's what you call moxie!
That prompted the public defender's office to send a letter to the leadership of the First Judicial District to complain about the judge. Amazingly, email that amazingly was "obtained by The Inquirer" -- a fancy way of saying it was leaked -- so they could write a hit piece on the judge on behalf of the social justice warriors agitating to empty the jails.
According to the email from the public defender, the judge told the lawyers lobbying for early release "that they should be careful what [they] wish for." And then she sent them packing, and kept all their clients in jail.
"We are compelled to reach the unfortunate conclusion that Judge Coyle does not share the understanding reached by all of the stakeholders involved in this extraordinary circumstance," Chief Defender Keir Bradford-Grey wrote in a email that managed at the same time to be both lofty and condescending.
So yesterday, the public defender's office moved to withdraw another 70 cases before Judge Coyle because they believe it was not in their clients' best interest to argue their cases in front of the judge. It was time for the public defender's office to go judge-shopping for a more pliable jurist, which happens to be illegal, but Larry Krasner won't let that get in the way of his revolution.
So far, according to the Inquirer, the public defender's office has succeeded in releasing 380 prisoners early because of the coronavirus. City officials told the newspaper that one inmate has already died of the disease and that 54 more inmates were infected.
In the Inquirer story, District Attorney Larry Krasner, who's been stonewalling this blog for the past nine months, huffed to the newspaper that he fully supported the public defender's plan to go around Judge Coyle.
"There's not much point in doing all that work and then having every single case rejected," Krasner told his favorite newspaper.
Later that day, the Inquirer updated the story to add Judge Coyle's photo. So the protesters outside the Criminal Justice Center were able to recognize the judge when she was coming to and from court.
A Unicorn Riot video posted on youtube.com Wednesday shows the protesters chanting "Free Our People" as they honked horns and agitated outside the courthouse, accompanied by a couple of coffins with slogans written on them that equated judicial inaction with murder.
On camera, the host of the video yelled at Judge Coyle over blaring car horns, wanting to know if she considered the inmate who died of the coronavirus "blood on your hands."
It didn't matter that the judge wasn't the one who put away the inmate who died.
One rabid dreadlocked protester, who was interviewed after she appeared on camera screaming at the judge, said, "All they want to do is lock us up and rape us."
OK, you're a lunatic. Another angry protester explained her screaming at the judge by saying in an on-camera interview, "People are dying and she's playing politics."
After they got through protesting at the courthouse, somebody hung a banner over a Schuylkill River expressway tunnel that said "JUDGE COYLE IS A MONSTER." The cops subsequently took it down.
"Anne Marie has never forgotten that she is an elected official who serves the people not the criminals," the supporter wrote, adding, "Krasner you are a POS!!!!!!"