The Pennsylvania Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected state Attorney General Kathleen Kane's challenge to a grand jury investigation that concluded with a recommendation that she face criminal charges.
In a 4-1 decision, the court said judges have full legal authority to appoint special prosecutors to investigate leaks from grand juries.
The opinion means that Montgomery County District Attorney Risa Vetri Ferman must now decide whether to charge Kane, a Democrat, with perjury and obstruction of justice and other crimes for the alleged leak of information to a newspaper in a bid to embarrass a critic.
Lanny J. Davis, a spokesman for Kane, said the attorney general was disappointed at her loss.
"We have faith in the judicial system and that the district attorney of Montgomery County will look at the evidence and the law and find that Attorney General Kane is innocent of any violations of the law," he said in a statement
Ferman, a Republican, could not immediately be reached for comment.
The grand jury, led by Special Prosecutor Thomas Carluccio, recommended that Ferman bring a series of criminal charges against Kane, including perjury and obstruction.
The high court's five members _ there are two vacancies _ split 4-1. The three Republicans, including Chief Justice Thomas Saylor, were joined by Democrat Max Baer in the majority opinion. The other two Republicans in the majority were Justices J. Michael Eakin and Correale Stevens.
Justice Debra M. Todd, a Democrat, was the sole dissenter _ and even her dissent provided Kane with little solace. Though Todd disagreed with the court's main argument, she nonetheless said that for technical reasons she would have given Ferman permission to bring a case.
In the 14-page opinion written by Saylor, who is in his first year as chief, the Supreme Court rejected Kane's argument that Judge William Carpenter, of the Montgomery County bench, lacked any legal authority to appoint Carluccio.
In fact, Saylor wrote, Carpenter "acted with his authority and sound prerogative in appointing the special prosecutor."
Kane has argued that no explicit state law authorized the appointment of special prosecutors and the last one to do so expired a decade ago.
The high court didn't dispute that, but said the point was irrelevant. It said judges had inherent authority to see that their orders were obeyed, notably including orders that grand jury proceedings be kept silent.
Carluccio led an investigation that found that Kane ignored warnings from her own aides in order to provide the Philadelphia Daily News with grand jury information she believed would embarrass a critic, former state prosecutor Frank Fina.
She arranged for the paper to receive information suggesting that Fina failed to aggressively pursue a corruption case against a Philadelphia civil rights leader. Fina has vigorously denied that.
Kane has admitted providing some information to the paper, but said she acted lawfully in doing so.
The information leaked to the paper dated to 2009 and involved a grand jury investigation that had since closed.
(c)2015 The Philadelphia Inquirer
