Courts

Judge of Superior Court (10-year term) Vote for one. Democratic David N. Wecht. . . Unopposed Republican (95% of voting districts) Vic Stabile. . . 348,890 Paula A. Patrick. . . 184,507 Judge of Commonwealth Court (10-year term) Vote for one. Democratic (95% of voting districts) Kathryn Boockvar. . . 292,414 Barbara Behrend Ernsberger. . . 294,517 Republican (95% of voting districts)

It's spring, and that means that budding Michael Jordans and Larry Birds in Woodlynne can practice their hooks, dribbles and slams at one of the borough's two basketball courts on Fourth Street. It's spring, and that means that toughs - most of them from outside Woodlynne - can practice their beer-guzzling, swearing and loitering at one of the borough's two basketball courts on Fourth Street. Those were the equations in years past, but borough officials and residents are now looking for a way to control who can use the courts, for what, and when.

Local officials in New Jersey should regionalize their municipal court systems not just to save money, but also to eliminate any pressure on judges to levy fines to raise revenues, according to an influential former prosecutor. James J. Gerrow Jr., who co-chairs the state Bar Association's Judicial Administration Committee, recently made that recommendation to a state commission that is studying ways to get the state's 566 municipalities to share services or merge. The commission was appointed last year by Gov. Corzine, who has touted shared services as a way to cut costs and taxes during the recession.

Players hoping to use the Jenkintown High School basketball courts are going to have to start playing by the borough's rules. The school board and Borough Council have devised a plan to solve the problem of overcrowding at the high school basketball courts - the hiring of a monitor to police the courts, making sure that Jenkintown residents are getting their fair share of playing time. The board also agreed to limit the number of nonresidents allowed on the courts. In the last two months, many residents have complained to police and school and borough officials that nonresidents were monopolizing the courts, cutting into residents' playing time.

Union workers at the Bellevue Stratford got moral support from a sympathetic City Council yesterday in their fight to keep the landmark hotel open. But the final determination on whether the Bellevue remains open past the scheduled closing on Sunday was expected to come from the courts today. Local 274 of the Hotel & Restaurant Employees and Bartenders International Union has petitioned both federal and Common Pleas courts for injunctions that would force the hotel to keep operating.

If state Supreme Court Chief Justice Ronald D. Castille were a fan of social networking, he might use Twitter, Facebook, or a similar online service to throw out this question to cyberspace: Should the Pennsylvania courts be opened up to citizens in ways more in step with the 21st century? The answer should be obvious, as the chief justice no doubt would learn by a likely flood of positive online responses. Castille has at least begun exploring that question in a more traditional way, by directing that a Supreme Court committee come up with policy recommendations.

I have been reading your editorials and columns for years and have a great deal of respect for your views and those of your Unfortunately, I must object to Zack Stalberg's Editor's Note regarding Judge Norma Shapiro and the prison- cap issue. You offer a simplistic and incorrect view of our criminal justice system and seek to demonize a hard-working, well-intentioned federal judge. I agree there are major problems with criminal justice in Philadelphia. I am also outraged at the anecdotal information you present as evidence of Shapiro's failings.

WHO IS Judge Frederica Massiah-Jackson kidding? Does she think anyone cares about "parameters of the rules of professional conduct and the code of civility"? We all know most lawyers don't care. What I and columnist Michael Smerconish and most normal citizens in Philadelphia care about is whether or not we have idiots serving on our benches. Thanks to Michael, we know we have at least one. Lisa Rau should let this thug and felon live in her house. Tom Schmidt, Philadelphia The father of Shannon Schieber has intimated that his daughter would still be alive if the police had broken down her door after they were called to her apartment by the call reporting a "woman screaming.

The past and present owners of Philadelphia's John Wanamaker department- store chain are trading lawsuits, showing that when it comes to the final selling price, the two can't meet under the Eagle. In fact, they're $57 million apart. Woodward & Lothrop, a department-store company based in Washington, D.C., bought Wanamaker's in December for $183 million, with the final selling price was to be adjusted according to the company's book value as of the closing date, Dec. 31. In April, according to documents filed in the Court of Common Pleas in Philadelphia, Woodward & Lothrop received a report from its accountant, Touche Ross & Co., on Wanamaker's book value, saying that Carter Hawley Hale, Wanamaker's former owner, had overstated the book value by $57.1 million.

MAYS LANDING, N.J. - "Both?" Double murder suspect Antoinette Pelzer expressed surprise and swallowed hard in a court appearance Tuesday afternoon after learning that both the Canadian women she allegedly stabbed with a 12-inch butcher knife in an attack Monday in the tourism district of Atlantic City had died. According to charges read by Superior Court Judge Michael Donio, who set bail at $1.5 million for Pelzer, the older of the two victims, an 80-year-old, intervened as Pelzer attacked the younger, who was 47 and believed to be the older woman's daughter.

PITTSBURGH - State Supreme Court Justice Joan Orie Melvin, stripped of her duties, vowed to fight the criminal charges filed against her Friday and said she had no plans to quit Pennsylvania's highest court. "My faith will see me through this," Melvin said outside the Municipal Court Building. She denied what she called "these politically motivated charges. " The charges brought by Allegheny County prosecutors involve use of taxpayer-paid staff for political campaigning - and are rooted in evidence that emerged in the case against Melvin's sister, State Sen. Jane Orie, convicted in March of similar charges.

Johnson & Johnson's courtroom fights over Risperdal resume in Philadelphia on Wednesday, when Commonwealth Court judges are scheduled to hear an appeal of decisions to dismiss Pennsylvania's 2008 lawsuit that alleged the company fraudulently profited from sales of the antipsychotic drug through the Medicaid program. While Pennsylvania's case did go to trial in Philadelphia, it did not get far. In 2010, a Philadelphia judge threw out the lawsuit, which sought to show that J&J had tricked the state into paying millions more for the drug than it should have.

TRENTON — Democratic lawmakers want to divert some nonviolent offenders into drug treatment rather than prison, a notion Gov. Christie made one of his priorities this year. But two bills winding their way through the Senate and Assembly would use a two-county pilot program to test Christie's belief that forcing people into drug treatment can work. Christie wants to make participation in drug court, a program that keeps drug-addicted offenders out of jail and in treatment, mandatory.

Three people from South Jersey were to be arraigned this afternoon in federal court in Camden in connection with a $2.6 million time share mortgage fraud scheme, the U.S. Attorney for New Jersey said. Ashley Lacerda, 32, of Egg Harbor Township, Francis Santore, 52, of Northfield and Brian Corley, 27, of Egg Harbor, were among 16 defendants charged on April 17 with a variety of offenses, including conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud. Authorities said Lacerda, Santore and Corley worked for The Vacation Ownership Group and that the investigation revealed that from at least March 2009 to September 1, 2011, the defendants, often using false identities, telephoned owners of time-share vacation properties purchased through Flagship Resort Development, Wyndham Vacation Resorts Inc. and other time-share developers.

LYNCHBURG, Va. - Mitt Romney, needing badly to stir momentum among skeptical evangelical Christians vital to his presidential hopes, told a polite audience Saturday at Liberty University, an influential Christian school, that he shared and deeply respected their values. "People of different faiths, like yours and mine, sometimes wonder where we can meet in common purpose, when there are so many differences in creed and theology," said Romney, whose Mormon religion has been criticized in some evangelical circles.

Commonwealth Court has ordered former Philadelphia Housing Authority Executive Director Carl R. Greene to pay a $1,653 fine to the state Ethics Commission and to file missing reports on his income and expenses. In March, the ethics panel filed suit, seeking to enforce its fine and order that the reports from 2004 to 2009 be filed. In an order filed Wednesday, Judge J. Wesley Oler Jr. ruled that Greene submit the missing reports and pay the fine within 30 days. Greene had failed to meet the commission's repeated requests that he file the reports.

Robert Mongeluzzi, the Philadelphia plaintiff's lawyer representing families of two Hungarian tourists killed in the duck-boat accident, is known both for his surgically precise trial technique and for the hundreds of millions of dollars he has won in verdicts and settlements for clients. Mongeluzzi is a founding partner of his firm, Saltz Mongeluzzi Barrett & Bendesky P.C., of Center City, and chairs its workplace-accident and product-liability practice groups. His trial trademarks: preparing meticulously and putting complex issues of legal negligence into simple, emotionally accessible language that jurors can relate to. "He is able to be very diplomatic, but he is also very aggressive when it comes to causes that he believes in," said Steven G. Wigrizer, a plaintiff's lawyer with the firm of Wapner Newman Wigrizer Brecher & Miller who has known Mongeluzzi for decades.

Chester Upland School District officials, in federal court Wednesday hoping to receive assurances that they will have enough money to educate 700 special-education students this fall, painted a grim picture of the district's finances. District officials told U.S. District Judge Michael Baylson that Chester Upland will end up the year owing charter schools, vendors, and special-education providers about $29 million that it cannot pay. The district, they said, will receive only $17 million to $18 million this school year from the state.