Councilman’s defamation suit begins with a bang

The defamation lawsuit brought by city councilman Jack Kelly against a political detractor started off with a bang this morning as a Court of Common Pleas Judge threatened to throw the defendant's lawyer in jail.

Judge A.J. Snite Jr. stopped proceedings during opening statements to call a sheriff's deputy to the courtroom.

The judge warned C. Scott Shields, attorney for defendant Paul Corbett, that "you're going to be taken into custody." if Shields continued to interpret the state constitution for the jurors.

The judge said he had warned Shields three times against doing that and yelled and banged and pounded the bench with his hand as he warned Shields to "stop smiling."

"I'm not going to proceed here unless there's a sheriff who can take you into custody if need be," the judge said.

Kelly is suing Corbett for defamation for fliers that Corbett distributed during the 2007 general election that accused Kelly of supporting the "homosexual lobby" and "sodomy" and corruption of minors for his vote to end the city's rent-free lease on the Boy Scouts' headquarters at 22nd and Spring Garden Streets.

The judge stopped Shields as he was reading from the Pennsylvania Constitution regarding the right to free speech and hardly could contain his anger as he told the jury that he would be instructing them on the law, not the attorney.

Just before 11:30 a.m. Shields asked the judge for a mistrial for his comments in front of the jury, and to recuse himself because he believed his client could not get a fair trial before Snite.

Snite denied both motions from the bench and called the jury back so Shields could finish his opening statement.