Pennsylvania Casework,
Philadelphia on the Record

The Pennsylvania casework can be taken in at a glance, and it is described here at its actual size. It runs to wrongful death, homicide defense and police practices: on one side, a wrongful death claim brought on behalf of an estate against Philadelphia police; on the other, homicide defense work in the state courts. Police practices work is a separate entry in the file, and the rest of this page is about what those records required.

A wrongful death claim of that kind turns on paper the agency generated before anyone filed suit. The incident and supplemental reports, the use of force documentation, dispatch and radio traffic, the internal affairs file, the involved officers' training and discipline records, and the policy the agency had on its books that day are the spine of it. Where body-worn, dash or surveillance video exists, it is watched against those documents rather than in place of them, because a camera shows one angle of what a report claims happened.

Homicide defense asks a different question of a similar stack of paper. There the file is examined for how the case against the accused was assembled: what investigators collected and what they did not, how witness statements were taken and recorded, how evidence was handled and logged, and whether the reports say what the underlying material actually supports. Where a question in either lane is medical or scientific, it is deferred on the record to a qualified expert in that discipline, and the police practices opinion does not answer it.

Both lanes get the same measure, on the totality of the facts and circumstances: written agency policy, the training its officers received, and national standards and practices. Legal conclusions remain counsel's; what the opinion supplies is a police practices reading of the conduct. The published Pennsylvania matter sits alongside the practice's other public results on the case history page.

Two of the three Pennsylvania matters in the practice file name Philadelphia in the citation, and the agency those citations name is the City of Philadelphia. One of the three Pennsylvania matters in the practice file names Erie in the citation.

A matter is counted here only when its own citation names the place or an agency of it; nothing is inferred from a court, a docket or a judge. The published results, where there are any, are on the panel above and on the case history page.

The Philadelphia citations name the same agency in both forums: the police practices entry noted above is the file's federal court matter, and the wrongful death claim is in the state courts. A shared agency does not make one record of them. Each matter's policy, training and supervision questions are answered inside that matter, and nothing about that city's direction of its officers carries from one to the other. For a Philadelphia wrongful death claim that rests on a use of force, the analysis is the one described on the excessive force practice page.

The Erie part of the file is a single matter, the homicide defense work in the state courts described above, and its citation names Erie County and no agency at all. A criminal citation that names no agency puts the first question to the investigative file itself: which agency investigated, and which written policy and training that investigation answers to.

Pennsylvania matters have come from federal court and from the state courts, and the state side holds civil and criminal work alike: the published Philadelphia recovery was a state court matter. Where a claim is pleaded under Section 1983, the analysis asks what was known to the officer at the moment, judged without hindsight, and what the agency's training, supervision and policy contributed to the encounter. A civil claim pleaded under state law puts much the same conduct at issue under a different legal theory, and a criminal charge turns the record toward the investigation instead, toward the statements taken and the procedures that produced them.

What the analysis never decides is whether an opinion comes in. In federal court that question runs through Fed. R. Evid. 702; in a Pennsylvania state court it runs through the rule that court applies. The report is written so that each opinion in it can be traced to the file rather than to the argument counsel intends to build from it, and that traceability is the part of the question an expert can control.

Admissibility in any particular matter remains retaining counsel's responsibility. The courts where testimony has been admitted are listed on the Library page on how many matters and where.

Retaining from Pennsylvania runs on the same terms as every engagement. It opens with a conflict check, and counsel hears about a conflict immediately. A first inquiry holds the case type and posture, the jurisdiction and case number, the governing deadlines, what the record contains so far, and the parties for the conflict check. Nothing privileged travels with a first inquiry, and privileged material is never exchanged by email.

After retention the record travels on physical media, a computer flash drive or an external hard drive by mail or courier; online sharing services are not used. Depositions are taken by Zoom or a similar platform, so a Pennsylvania deposition does not wait on a travel calendar. Expert reports require sixty days of advance notice, and a bullet-point outline of the report is approved with retaining counsel before writing begins.

The practice is based in Naples, Florida, and trial testimony is offered in Pennsylvania on the published travel terms. The fee schedule and the travel terms are set out in full on the For Counsel page, and the Library note on what to send with a first inquiry covers the first step item by item.