2008 Woodie Awards
Video related to this article is available below.Issue date: 3/27/07 Section: News
McIntosh resentence a back-and-forth debate
Emily Babay
As former Penn Neurosurgery professor Tracy McIntosh waits to see if the Pennsylvania Supreme Court will hear his case appealing a resentencing order from a Superior Court, the case seems to have become a battle of the briefs.
In December, a Superior Court ordered McIntosh to be resentenced by a lower court in connection to sexual-assault charges that he pled no contest to in 2004.
McIntosh appealed to the state Supreme Court following the decision, and Robert Graci, McIntosh's lawyer, said he and the Philadelphia District Attorney's office have both filed multiple documents to the Court concerning the case.
After McIntosh filed the petition for appeal, the prosecution had two weeks to respond with a brief in opposition and filed the brief within that time, Graci said.
He added that, generally, the petition and the opposing brief are the only documents the Supreme Court considers.
But in January, Graci took the additional step of filing an application for relief, requesting permission to reply to the prosecution's brief because of possible inaccuracies in that brief.
"It's an unusual step that we thought our circumstances warranted," he said. "We felt that there were matters that the DA had brought up in the brief of opposition that were not accurate, and we wanted the opportunity to correct and explain those."
The application for relief claims that the DA's brief includes "misstatements of law, fact and procedure" that are "designed to inflame the passions of the Court in its review of the petition."
Such misrepresentations, the document alleges, include the description of McIntosh as "a university professor and sexual predator who sexually assaulted one of his students," since McIntosh is no longer employed with Penn and never taught the case's victim as a student.
The prosecution then filed a response, stating that the brief included "no misstatements," and that the "defendant's creative effort to provide some amounts to word games."
In December, a Superior Court ordered McIntosh to be resentenced by a lower court in connection to sexual-assault charges that he pled no contest to in 2004.
McIntosh appealed to the state Supreme Court following the decision, and Robert Graci, McIntosh's lawyer, said he and the Philadelphia District Attorney's office have both filed multiple documents to the Court concerning the case.
After McIntosh filed the petition for appeal, the prosecution had two weeks to respond with a brief in opposition and filed the brief within that time, Graci said.
He added that, generally, the petition and the opposing brief are the only documents the Supreme Court considers.
But in January, Graci took the additional step of filing an application for relief, requesting permission to reply to the prosecution's brief because of possible inaccuracies in that brief.
"It's an unusual step that we thought our circumstances warranted," he said. "We felt that there were matters that the DA had brought up in the brief of opposition that were not accurate, and we wanted the opportunity to correct and explain those."
The application for relief claims that the DA's brief includes "misstatements of law, fact and procedure" that are "designed to inflame the passions of the Court in its review of the petition."
Such misrepresentations, the document alleges, include the description of McIntosh as "a university professor and sexual predator who sexually assaulted one of his students," since McIntosh is no longer employed with Penn and never taught the case's victim as a student.
The prosecution then filed a response, stating that the brief included "no misstatements," and that the "defendant's creative effort to provide some amounts to word games."
Be the first to comment on this story