4 Seek 2 Seats For Pennsylvania Superior Court
By Bob Small
Two seats are up on Pennsylvania Superior Court and those seeking them are Maria C. Battisa and Harry F. Smail Jr. on the Republican ticket; and Jill Beck and Timika Lane on the Democrat one.
The court was established in 1895 and is one of two statewide intermediate appellate courts. It hears appeals in criminal and most civil cases from county courts of common pleas; and matters involving children and families.
Terms are 10 years and the court is headquartered in Harrisburg.
Maria C. Battista received her Juris Doctorate from Ohio Northern University. She has worked with the Pennsylvania Coalition of Nurse Practitioners and currently works for the Judge group in Wayne, Pa..
She has been endorsed by the Pennsylvania FOP.
Jill Beck is a graduate of Duquesne Law School. She has worked at Kids Voice a private nonprofit representing Allegheny County abused, at-risk, and neglected children. At Blank Rome, she was co-chair of their working group aimed at protecting the right to protest. She worked for a decade as a clerk with Justice Christine Donahue. She has also focused on representing “low-income criminal defendants.” Shlives in the Squirrel Hill section of Pittsburgh with “her husband, two children, and their rescue dog”.
Timika Lane has her law degree from the Rutgers University of Law-Camden. She was elected to the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas in 2013 and has also served as a chief legal counsel for the Pennsylvania Senate. Her philosophy is that “litigants are not just names on a pleading”.
She sees the greatest threat to the practice of law as “ keeping up with the changes of technology and its effect on traditional methods of litigation.”
She also worked for Habitat for Humanity during Hurricane Katrina,.
Harry F. Smail, Jr. has been a Westmoreland County Common Pleas Court judge since being appointed by Gov. Tom Corbett in 2014. He attained his Duquesne University of Law Degree while working as a full-time Probation/Parole Officer. He has also worked for the Federal Public Defender’s Office of indigent defendants.
‘I do not legislate from the bench; rather, I apply and enforce the law as intended as the third branch of government providing the checks and balances that make our government functional,” he said.
He is a member of The Federalist Society
He states his opinions “have a 97 percent affirmation rate.”
He said that his decisions about setting aside ballots without the required dates were affirmed by Commonwealth Court and the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.
He lives in Westmoreland County with his wife and two daughters.