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Former candidate challenges election of convicted felon
By jeanne starmack
new castle, pa.
A convicted felon’s election to city council is being challenged by the candidate he beat Nov. 8.
Gary Mitchell is one of three Democrats who won three open seats in the council race. He is set to begin a four-year term Jan. 10.
The final candidate and lone Republican in the race, John Altman, is contending the seat rightfully belongs to him because Mitchell is ineligible for public office and should not have been allowed to run. The state constitution bars a convicted felon from holding public office.
Altman wants the Lawrence County Court of Common Pleas to stay certification of the election results, because if the election is certified, Mitchell will be the official winner. If he’s removed from office at that point, the electorate will be thwarted because the city council will have the right to appoint whomever it wants to the vacancy, Altman says.
It wouldn’t be him, he believes.
“Four Democrats and a Democratic mayor,” he told The Vindicator on Thursday. “They’ll put a Republican in?”
Altman and Mitchell were in Lawrence County Common Pleas court Thursday — for the second time. Altman had challenged Mitchell’s candidacy before the election, but common pleas Judge John Hodge ruled Altman did not have standing to petition for Mitchell’s removal.
Standing to bring that legal action belongs to either the county district attorney or the state attorney general, Judge Hodge said at the first hearing in August. Both must refuse to take action before a private citizen could do so.
Complicating the issue, Mitchell was not yet an officeholder. Altman said in August that District Attorney Joshua Lamancusa told him he would not consider acting unless Mitchell was elected.
Lamancusa still has not indicated whether he will take action, Altman’s attorney, Angelo Papa, told Judge Hodge on Thursday.
“That’s one of the issues,” Papa said.
Altman is the injured party in the case now, along with the will of the electorate, Papa told Judge Hodge.
Thomas Leslie, Lawrence County’s attorney, contends that the board of elections had no authority to keep Mitchell from running, and he said Thursday there is no reason to stay the certification.
“The election was held,” Leslie said, adding that Altman has no more standing now than he did in August.
Altman told The Vindicator he now has a letter from the attorney general indicating his office would take action only in the case of a state official.
Lamancusa said Thursday he is awaiting word on whether the attorney general’s office will pursue action to remove Mitchell. If the attorney general declines to act, Lamancusa said, he will do so after Mitchell is officially in office.
Papa also argued Thursday that Mitchell’s nominating petition was defective.
Altman said that on the back of the petition where candidates certify they are qualified to hold an office, Mitchell did not fill in which office.
Altman’s petition for relief wants the court to order the board of elections to investigate and remove Mitchell from the election. Then Altman, who lost to Mitchell by fewer than 200 votes, should be certified as the winner, the petition states.
Mitchell won 1,866 votes to Altman’s 1,693. Mitchell represented himself in court Thursday.
Mitchell was convicted in 2002 of selling crack cocaine to undercover agents. He asked Judge Hodge on Thursday for 45 more days to “clear his name.”
He told The Vindicator that he is waiting for word from the state board of pardons.
Mitchell says he’s changed and wants to serve his community. Besides, he added, he wants to be the first black elected official in New Castle. “I want to make history,” he said.
Leslie told The Vindicator that if Mitchell doesn’t get his pardon and the district attorney acts to remove him, Altman would not get the post.
“That’s not the way it works. You don’t go to the next person,” he said. He said the law gives council the right to fill a vacancy.