for BigTrial.net
A couple of overzealous prosecutors who work for District Attorney Larry Krasner have a documented history of being untruthful when it comes to dealing with judges.
In January, Philadelphia Common Pleas Court Judge Karen Simmons admonished Assistant District Attorney Rachel Black for a lack of candor regarding the ability of one of the complainants to show up in court in a sex abuse case against former Chief Inspector Carl Holmes.
Basically, Judge Simmons caught ADA Black over the course of a year in court repeatedly making a bald-faced lie -- that a complaining witness who had accused Holmes of sexual abuse was hiding out in Florida, for fear of catching COVID. The truth was that the witness herself, in one Facebook post after another, dismissed the pandemic as a hoax and a sham, and had previously driven from Pennsylvania to Florida in a fully equipped RV, so she was perfectly capable of driving up to Philadelphia.
"Miss Black's actions were inappropriate, they were wrong, they were intentional," Judge Simmons stated in court to two of ADA Black's supervisors on Jan. 13th. One of those supervisors who came to court to defend ADA Black was her boss, Assistant District Attorney Patricia Cummings, head of the D.A.'s Conviction Integrity Unit.
But according to a federal judge, ADA Cummings has the same problem that ADA Black does.
On Feb. 11th in U.S. District Court, Judge Mitchell Goldberg issued a formal 23-page "memorandum opinion" that amounted to an admonishment of ADA Cummings for violating her "duty of candor" to the court. Judge Goldberg wrote that Cummings should have informed him that she had parallel litigation going in state court in her crusade to get Antonio Martinez out of jail, who was serving a life sentence after he was convicted in a 1985 double homicide.
Yesterday, there were rumors circulating through the Philadelphia legal community that ADA Black had resigned. Black, however, did not respond to a request for comment; neither did her boss, District Attorney Krasner, nor his official spokesperson, Jane Roh.
ADA Patricia Cummings, however, is still at large.
Last October, a Philadelphia Common Pleas Court judge vacated Antonio Martinez's 31-year-old conviction because his constitutional rights had allegedly been violated.
Martinez, at 73, was a free man. But the judge's decision in state court blew out a parallel case that the D.A. had going in U.S. District Court to free Martinez in Judge Goldberg's courtroom.
In his 23-page admonishment, Judge Goldberg said he had arranged a hearing in federal court where the D.A. would have had a chance to question one of the original prosecutors in the Martinez case about shocking allegations of prosecutorial misconduct made in federal court by Cummings.
In his memorandum opinion, the judge cited many concerns that he had about the crusade that Cummings was on regarding the facts in the original Martinez case, and the many shocking allegations that Cummings had made in federal court against the original prosecutor in the case:
Although a Post Conviction Relief Act (“PCRA”) petition was pending in state court, which would normally preclude my involvement, the CIU Supervisor articulated numerous, specific reasons why the District Attorney was waiving state court exhaustion and affirmatively represented that she and Petitioner’s counsel had agreed to litigate this matter in federal court.
The reason given for the request that I vacate Petitioner’s homicide convictions was disconcerting: a veteran former Assistant District Attorney (the “Trial ADA”) or the assigned detectives had knowingly and intentionally withheld substantial evidence pointing to another suspect. Then, according to the CIU Supervisor, the Trial ADA prosecuted a potentially innocent person, obtained a first-degree murder conviction, and stood silent as a life sentence was imposed.
The reason given for the request that I vacate Petitioner’s homicide convictions was disconcerting: a veteran former Assistant District Attorney (the “Trial ADA”) or the assigned detectives had knowingly and intentionally withheld substantial evidence pointing to another suspect. Then, according to the CIU Supervisor, the Trial ADA prosecuted a potentially innocent person, obtained a first-degree murder conviction, and stood silent as a life sentence was imposed.
But according to Judge Goldberg, in federal court, Cummings hd shown no interest in questioning the original prosecutor to determine whether any of the allegations she had made against him were actually true:
Yet, before making these remarkable allegations, the CIU Supervisor made no effort to obtain any type of explanation or information from the Trial ADA or anyone associated with the original prosecution. The CIU Supervisor has also never offered a plausible reason or motive as to why the Trial ADA would engage in such unethical, reprehensible conduct.
The answers to these pressing questions and others were about to be explored through the testimony of the Trial ADA at an evidentiary hearing scheduled before me on November 10, 2020. Although the District Attorney had unilaterally pre-determined that this veteran prosecutor’s testimony would not be credible, I viewed, and continue to view, his testimony as indispensable information that any responsible prosecutor and/or judge would want to carefully consider before agreeing to overturn a double homicide state court conviction.
Answers to many unasked questions were especially important when the only information before me about the Trial ADA’s version of events was a report from the CIU Supervisor, advising that the Trial ADA believed the District Attorney had made several critical misstatements to me.
Yet, two weeks before the Trial ADA’s testimony was to be heard, and unbeknownst to me, at a hearing in state court, which had been scheduled and fully prepped, complete relief was granted and Petitioner released.
When Judge Goldberg got upset by Cummings's lack of candor, he gave Cummings an opportunity to explain herself in court, but it didn't go well:
In an effort to provide the CIU Supervisor with every benefit of the doubt, I gave her an opportunity to explain her conduct. Unfortunately, the Supervisor of the District Attorney’s Conviction Integrity Unit believes that what occurred in this case was perfectly acceptable. The CIU Supervisor stated that she “absolutely believed” that she had no obligation to inform me of the state proceeding . . . These statements reveal the poorly informed thought process that led us to where we are today in this case.
Judge Goldberg also rejected an argument put forward by the D.A.'s office that Cummings didn't have to disclose to the judge what she was up to in state court because her involvement in the litigation in state court to free Martinez was "short-lived."
The judge then listed seven bulleted items detailing past actions by Cummings that refuted that argument, and showed that she was heavily involved in the state litigation to free Martinez.
Those actions included:
-- Cummings voluntarily turning over more than 3,400 pages of the D.A.'s files in the case to a defense lawyer for Martinez;
-- Cummings "directly communicated" with the state judge when the petition to free Martinez in state court was in danger of being dismissed;
--- Cummings emailed the state judge to set up a conference between herself, Martinez's lawyer, and the judge before an Oct. 23 hearing was held in state court that led to the release of Martinez.
That led Judge Goldberg to conclude:
In a statement from the D.A.'s office that was published by the the D.A.'s official apologists at The Philadelphia Inquirer, D.A. Krasner didn't offer any apologies on behalf of Cummings; instead he implied that Judge Goldberg was actively engaged in a conspiracy and an ongoing cover-up of past prosecutorial misconduct:
In my opinion, it is no surprise that when you do the work of undoing institutional wrongs, there is resistance from people who want to make excuses for those wrongs. On behalf of all Philadelphians, the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office will not be cowed or deterred from our duty to seek justice in the future.
In Philadelphia, the Inquirer and other media outlets continue to cast Cummings as a reformer engaged in rescuing the innocent and wrongly convicted from jail cells that they were unjustly confined to.
But Cummings's unethical conduct in a past case back when she was working as a criminal defense lawyer in Texas have drawn a national audience.
As Big Trial has previously reported, Cummings has been portrayed as the villain in a five-part Showtime series,"Outcry," that ran last June. It's the story of Greg Kelley, an 18-year-old high school football star in Texas who in 2014, was sentenced to 25 years in prison without parole for sexually assaulting a four-year old child in a day care.
Only Kelley was falsely convicted. Patricia Cummings was Kelley's defense lawyer at the time, whom a judge found, was not only ineffective, but she also had an undisclosed conflict of interest. It turned out that Cummings had as a former client the woman who owned the day care where the attack took place. And that client of Cummings had a son who not only lived at the day care where the attack took place, but he was also suspected of being the real child abuser.
But Cummings kept quiet about her conflict for three years while Greg Kelley, an innocent man, rotted in jail. [The picture at top is of Cummings and Kelley in a Texas courtroom].
The Showtime series, completely ignored by Krasner's official apologists at the Inquirer, does not present a pretty picture of Larry Krasner's crusader.
Cummings has another role in the Philadelphia D.A.'s office that the general public is not aware of.
Every month, her unit goes through the personnel jackets of police officers. And every month, Cummings' unit voluntarily turns over materials from those personnel files to defense counsels, to aid them in their efforts to impeach those officers. The net effect is to disqualify cops from testifying at trial against criminal defendants.
Every month, cops receive letters like the following that refer to so-called Giglio information, material used to impeach the character or testimony of a prosecution witness at a criminal trial:
Dear Officer . . .
The DAO has received Giglio information regarding you as reflected in the summary below . . .
Pursuant to the law and the DAO's policy regarding police misconduct disclosures, the misconduct will be disclosed to the defense in all cases where you may be called to testify as a witness and said disclosure may also be made if required in closed cases where you were a critical witness.
Also, if required by law, supporting documentation in our possession regarding the misconduct will be disclosed to the defense.
Please note, if you believe our information is incorrect, feel free to communicate to us in writing through counsel.
Thank you for your attention in this matter.
Respectfully,
Patricia Cummings
Assistant District Attorney
For an accused cop, there is no forum where a police officer may defend himself, other than the unfriendly confines of the D.A.'s office.
The net effect has been that hundreds of police officers in the Philadelphia Police Department, if not thousands, are now prohibited from testifying against criminal defendants, thanks to the under-the-radar anti-cop campaign being waged by ADA Patricia Cummings, with the full support of cop-hating Larry Krasner.
Against this backdrop of yet another possible witch hunt against cops being conducted by the D.A.'s office under Larry Krasner, I'd like to offer any accused officer a possible means of recourse.
Step one: print out the following Big Trial story about Cummings's own ethical lapses, as portrayed in the Showtime series.
Step two: mail that copy back to ADA Cummings at the D.A.'s office and "respectfully" inquire how ADA Cummings can make any charges of possible misconduct against police officers when she has engaged in some glaring acts of misconduct and ethical lapses of her own, as showcased in the Showtime series.
Step three: contact ralph@bigtrial.net and let me know how you made out.