Family Court

Officials will cut the ribbon today on the new home for the Gloucester County family court, although court will not convene until Wednesday. The structure will relieve cramped chambers at the Gloucester County Courthouse at Broad and Delaware Streets. The move to the former site of a First Union Bank at Broad and Cooper Streets will increase security for the family-court system, which handles divorce, custody, juvenile-delinquency and domestic-violence cases. The 40,000-square-foot, three-story building will contain five courtrooms.

HARRY KAUFFMAN didn't like to talk about his Army experiences in World War II. Like a lot of veterans, he felt much of it was better not resurrected, too many bad memories better left buried and forgotten. However, some events came out gradually over the years, and often inadvertently. As a prisoner of the Germans during the Battle of the Bulge, he recalled, he found a horse's head in the bucket of soup the prisoners were given for food. A fellow prisoner was a Philadelphian named Hal Albertson, who Harry found out had a child back home.

After nearly two years and more than $10 million, Pennsylvania Chief Justice Ronald D. Castille has killed the no-bid development deal for a new Family Court building. Castille decided to dismiss developer Donald Pulver after The Inquirer disclosed that Pulver had made lawyer Jeffrey B. Rotwitt a partner in the project - at the same time that Rotwitt was being paid as Castille's representative. Castille said Rotwitt had never told him about what he called a possible conflict of interest.

In the courtroom of life, there's not much order for Philadelphia judge Lisa Richette. She's been beaten and robbed on the streets of Center City - twice. She's been punched in the head while sitting in her car. She's had her chambers taken over by a deranged woman who donned her judicial robes. And now, at almost 79, the senior Family Court jurist has been assaulted by her own son, police say. Moreover, the day after his arrest, he exposed himself on camera to a TV reporter. It's a monster hit on YouTube.

In the latest state Supreme Court onslaught against city court spending, 88 Family Court employees have received layoff notices and Traffic Court President Judge George Twardy has been threatened with contempt of court. Supreme Court Justice Nicholas Papadakos, in charge of the budget cuts, said the Family Court layoffs, combined with the elimination of 22 vacant positions, will save more than $3 million. Family Court currently has about 650 employees. The layoff notices, the first in Family Court, were received over the weekend and take effect July 1. Family Court Administrative Judge Jerome Zaleski is on vacation and could not be reached for comment.

Your Dec. 30 editorial on the crisis in the Family Court was most welcome. For years I have watched the court atrophy. Instead of serving children, families and the public with the best judges and most efficient operations, the court was left to languish like a lost child. Your editorial must be heeded. The court needs an adequate staff of well- trained, compassionate and learned judges. And, as you correctly noted, the court must also be staffed appropriately. The court currently has a critical shortage of probation officers and clerical staff.

One of the first tests facing Judge Esther Sylvester, the new administrative judge of the Family Court, will be a choice between patronage and reorganization. At the center of controversy is the court's medical branch. Its top two employees have been targeted for removal by the city's court czar. Executive Court Administrator Geoff Gallas issued a report that describes as "counter-productive and superfluous" the $53,331 job held by branch chief John J. Fitzgerald and the $51,961 job of his assistant, Margaret J. Sosnowski.

In a move designed to lighten the workload now shouldered by two judges, a third state judge has been assigned to Family Court in Gloucester County. State Superior Court Judge Mary Eva Colalillo, currently presiding in Camden County, will move to Gloucester County, effective Sept. 1, under an order signed yesterday in Trenton by State Supreme Court Chief Justice Robert N. Wilentz. Colalillo will join Superior Court Judges John J. Lindsay and Martin A. Herman, now handling most of the caseload in Family Court.

Harry Kauffman didn't like to talk about his Army experiences in World War II. Like a lot of veterans, he felt much of it was better not resurrected, too many bad memories better left buried and forgotten. However, some events came out gradually over the years, often inadvertently. As a prisoner of the Germans during the Battle of the Bulge, he told about finding a horse's head in the bucket of soup the prisoners were given for food. The prisoners were freed when George S. Patton's Third Army arrived to help rout the Germans' final offensive of the war in the Ardennes Forest in the bitter winter of 1944.

HARRY KAUFFMAN didn't like to talk about his Army experiences in World War II. Like a lot of veterans, he felt much of it was better not resurrected, too many bad memories better left buried and forgotten. However, some events came out gradually over the years, and often inadvertently. As a prisoner of the Germans during the Battle of the Bulge, he recalled, he found a horse's head in the bucket of soup the prisoners were given for food. A fellow prisoner was a Philadelphian named Hal Albertson, who Harry found out had a child back home.

A NORTH Philadelphia teen's bid to be tried as a juvenile for his alleged part in a botched robbery-turned-murder last May was thwarted Thursday. Marvell Hargrove, 18, needs more rehabilitation than he could have ever received in the three years he'd be eligible to be in the juvenile-justice system, Common Pleas Judge Benjamin Lerner concluded. "This is an incredibly sad day. Not as sad as that day back in May of last year," noted Lerner, who said he wasn't convinced that it would have been in the public's best interest for Hargrove to be tried in Family Court.

When doctors at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia laid their eyes on Khalil Wimes on Monday night, they saw a broken and emaciated little boy. He was unconscious, sunken, and sallow, 6 years old but weighing only 29 pounds. His mother, Tina Cuffie, 44, had five other children who were removed from her care. She had taken her son to the hospital, saying he had slipped in the bathroom. She could not explain the sea of scarring along the boy's arms, face, back, and neck. Khalil died within the hour of blunt-force trauma to the head, a medical examiner ruled.

When Cheryl L. Austin and Keir Bradford-Grey embarked on post-law school paths, they initially chose two different sides of the courtroom. Austin stood before judges as a prosecutor in Montgomery County. Bradford-Grey argued on behalf of defendants who could not afford a lawyer in Philadelphia and Delaware. But years after separately beginning their legal careers, they achieved historic milestones together in 2012. Austin became the first African American woman to serve as a judge in the Court of Common Pleas in Montgomery County when she took the oath of office in January.

The new Family Court will be one story taller than originally planned, but the Philadelphia Art Commission told the architects Wednesday to beautify the building's roof to improve the neighbors' view. The Art Commission, which regulates public building designs, delayed a vote last month on increasing the court's height to 15 stories after neighbors said they needed time to evaluate the proposal. It was not clear then whether the extra story complied with height restrictions, but commissioners have since determined that it would.

By Joanne Aitken It's hard to believe that there could be yet another reason the new Family Court is a study in how not to procure a public building. But the new year brought more evidence of its special status. To those who know anything about the way countless public projects are successfully planned, designed, and constructed in this country, the story is astounding. First, officials decided to abandon the well maintained, fully functional, and historically significant court building on Logan Circle, possibly leaving it vacant for years, even though the only court building in need of replacement may be the one at 11th and Market Streets.

Family Court may go down in history as the ultimate stealth building. Now under construction at 15th and Arch Streets, the scandal-tainted state courthouse was initially outsourced to a private developer and designed in secret. Then City Council quietly rezoned the site to accommodate a bulkier structure than normally allowed. By the time the public learned about the new courthouse, it was virtually a done deal. On Wednesday, the courthouse almost ducked under the radar again when the Philadelphia Art Commission voted to approve a measure that would add an extra story to the 14-story building.

By Shira J. Goodman and Lynn A. Marks Having advocated a new Family Court building for years, we are very pleased that its construction is progressing at 15th and Arch Streets, and that the city's families will have a new, unified court in the foreseeable future. This is a major accomplishment for the public, the court system, and Chief Justice Ronald D. Castille. However, the process leading to this achievement has been fraught with problems, complications, and setbacks.