Long term in assault on city judge

A North Philadelphia man, left a paraplegic when he was shot while lunging at the judge who was about to sentence him on a parole violation, was sent to prison yesterday for 161/2 to 35 years for the 2004 courtroom attack, and a later assault while he was in a rehabilitation hospital.

Shawn Frazier, who turned 27 yesterday, was also ordered into seven years of probation when he gets out of prison.

Sitting in a wheelchair, Frazier apologized to Common Pleas Court Judge Pamela Pryor Dembe for the April 13, 2004, assault on Common Pleas Court Judge Gary S. Glazer, and a May 22, 2004, attack on a police officer while Frazier was a patient at Moss Rehabilitation Center. He pleaded guilty last year to assault and other offenses in both cases.

Assistant District Attorney Jan McDermott asked Dembe for a long prison term because of the significance of an in-court assault on a judge.

Defense lawyer Robert T. Vance Jr. said he would ask Dembe to reconsider the sentence because it was unclear whether she meant the sentences on the two attacks to be served consecutively or concurrently. If the sentences are concurrent, Vance said, Frazier's minimum sentence would be reduced to 10 years.

Frazier asked Dembe to consider his poor health and let him be with his family. Paralyzed from the waist down since the courtroom shooting, Frazier has lost part of one leg because of diabetes.

In 2004, Frazier was before Glazer in a Criminal Justice Center courtroom to be sentenced to a two- to four-year term for violating his parole in a firearms case by testing positive for drugs.

Frazier suddenly screamed at the judge and approached him, and then knocked over a table as a deputy sheriff tried to restrain him. During the struggle with Deputy Sheriff Thomas E. Clark, the officer fired a shot from his pistol and wounded Frazier in the back.

Glazer was rushed out of the courtroom and was not physically assaulted, but the charge was still assault because of the circumstances.