Despite ‘inexcusable failures,’ U.S. court frees Pa. courts from lawsuit over handling of disabled man’s murder case

Although it found there were “inexcusable failures in Pennsylvania’s criminal justice and mental health systems” a federal appeals court panel ruled Tuesday that the state’s court system can’t be sued by advocates for a mentally disabled man who spent nearly a decade in custody awaiting trial in a murder case.

The Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts simply has legal immunity despite the wrongs done to Craig Geness, Judge L. Felipe Restrepo concluded in the opinion from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit.

It seems Geness was the victim of inertia within the court system that held his case in an excruciating limbo until the homicide charge against him was dismissed. The case lingered so long even though Geness was almost immediately deemed mentally incompetent to stand trial on charges regarding the death of another resident of his assisted living community in Fayette County in 2006.

The case began when the other man died after falling from a porch. Initially the incident was deemed an accident, but police later charged Geness, who was in his early 50s, Restrepo noted.

Even though he was repeatedly deemed incompetent to stand trial with no likelihood of improvement, action on Geness' case was continually deferred. For years his case was simply continued from court session to court session while he sat behind bars, Restrepo wrote.

A county judge’s order to transfer Geness to a psychiatric facility wasn’t obeyed, the circuit judge notes. Five years after his arrest, Geness was transferred from prison to another long-term care facility, although his murder case remained on the docket.

It wasn’t until December 2015 that a county judge dismissed the charge at the request of the district attorney due to Geness' inability to stand trial.

The lawsuit was filed the following year. Geness' advocated claim the handling of his case violated the Americans with Disabilities Act and his constitutional right to due process of law. The AOPC appealed to the circuit court after a U.S. Western District judge refused to grant the state court system immunity against the suit.

In reversing that decision, Restrepo found the claims in Geness' suit don’t pierce the immunity shield in the U.S.Constitution that protects state governments from most types of lawsuits. Besides, the circuit judge found, “AOPC had no power over the disposition of his case, and there is simply no allegation or argument before us regarding how AOPC’s alleged failure to contact the Supreme Court connects to Geness’s disability.”

Still, he wrote, “the human suffering endured by Geness due to the mishandling of his case cannot be overstated.”

The circuit court’s ruling does not affect other claims in Geness' suit that target the state Department of Human Services.

Judge Thomas L. Ambro filed a dissenting opinion opposing the decision to free the AOPC from the Geness suit. Ambro said the suit against that agency should have been allowed to continue to determine why the AOPC never alerted the state Supreme Court about how Geness' case was languishing.

“Mr. Geness languished in custody without a trial for over nine years before the case against him was dropped because he would never be competent to stand trial and substantial evidentiary issues impaired the commonwealth’s prosecution. This came after it was determined early on that he was incompetent and unlikely to improve,” Ambro wrote. “To say that Mr. Geness suffered a grave injustice at the hands of the system for justice is inadequate. There are no words.”

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