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Two county judge candidates participated in a forum at the Roads to Freedom Center for Independent Living this week in anticipation of the November election.
Current District Attorney Ryan Gardner and Judge William Carlucci answered questions related primarily to the disabled community's access to the community and advocacy of the disabled population in Lycoming County, but also the general condition and outlook for the court system.
Candidate Andrea Pulizzi said she was unable to attend due to a work-related time conflict.
The first question specific to the justice system was what initiatives the candidates supported to expand the mental health services and support systems tailored to the needs of incarcerated citizens or citizens involved in the judicial system.
Carlucci outlined his recent days in court this week. "Out of all of those cases, the vast majority of them are PFAs (protection from abuse)," he said. "If you asked me what percentage of domestic violence incidents are the result of drugs or alcohol, I would say 80 or 90%."
He highlighted the services that are in place in the court system to foster substance abuse treatment, but said that it often requires a judge to impose those programs on people in need.
"The notion that we are preventing people from getting those services is ridiculous," Carlucci said. "We often have to force them on individuals ... the first person you learn to deceive when you're an addict is yourself."
Gardner also referenced the constructs in place to help identify and help those with mental health needs.
"The fundamental shortcoming of all of this is lack of funding to prevent a mental health individual from ever stepping inside of the Lycoming County Prison," Gardner said.
Gardner spoke with legislators last week on this issue and said that identifying these individuals is always a consideration for his current office.
"I know that the prison would welcome with open arms someone with MHIT, but it comes down to a lack of resources," he said. "I know the current commissioners have done a lot of work in identifying these needs and I have faith and confidence that the new ones will be making funding available or more readily available."
Another important question as part of the forum was whether each candidate supported alternatives to guardianship related to the aging or disabled.
"We don't realize a lot of situations where guardianship is the go-to answer," Gardner said. "The objective is individual autonomy. They want to be able to age in place. How do we accommodate that? The court has an obligation not to bring about a guardianship. Individual autonomy is important to me and I am sure it's important to someone who is disabled."
Carlucci said in his experience, guardianships were only ever granted for a period of 72 hours and only in case of extreme life-saving emergencies.
"Don't believe what you see on television about what these guardianships are about," Carlucci said. "The cases that come to us are desperate cases ... if someone comes in and asks me not to grant a guardianship, there is almost no chance I would do it."
When asked if the courthouse runs as efficiently as it can, both Gardner and Carlucci spoke to their work in making it operate that way.
Gardner took over as district attorney shortly before the COVID-19 pandemic essentially shut the system down.
"At that time, there was a significant backlog of cases," he said. "Everyone worked together to fix that situation and we did. We went to a trial list that was well in excess of 500 and got it to near 100."
Gardner said the county is facing a similar backlog now, but they will continue to strive for the goal of accused individuals seeing court in the same year they were charged.
"I will say this," Gardner said. "The court system is always striving to better itself."
As judge, Carlucci said he has done a lot to streamline the judicial process.
"I almost always make decisions within five business days," he said. "But nearly always on the same day."
Carlucci has also been strict about approving continuances of trials and cleared up six cases that were locked in a standstill by simply scheduling them for trial and forcing attorneys to work to resolve the cases.