SUNBURY - Northumberland County President Judge Robert B. Sacavage will rule within the next two weeks if he will overturn the 2006 conviction of former county prison guard Kazimir C. Grohowski on felony drug-related offenses, uphold the conviction or grant him a new trial.
Grohowski was in court again Tuesday morning before Sacavage, who heard arguments presented by defense attorney Edward E. Kopko, of Ithaca, N.Y., and Deputy Attorney General David Gorman regarding a post-sentence motion filed by Kopko requesting the judge to acquit his client or grant a new trial.
Meanwhile, the 39-year-old Grohowski, of Mount Carmel, remains free on $50,000 bail awaiting the outcome of his case that started in 2004 when he and six other county correctional officers were charged in a grand jury investigation involving alleged abuse at the archaic jail.
"My client was deprived of a fair trial," Kopko told the court. "There was no evidence presented during the trial identifying scheduled drugs. The commonwealth didn't prove beyond a reasonable doubt any of the charges against Mr. Grohowski."
Kopko also argued that his client was "ineffectively represented" by his former trial defense attorney, Richard Feudale, of Mount Carmel, and that Gorman, who prosecuted the case, committed prosecutorial misconduct throughout the trial.
"My client has been hounded, shadowed and humiliated by this case since 2004," Kopko said. "He is an innocent man who was wrongfully convicted."
Gorman requested the judge to dismiss Kopko's post-sentence motion because it wasn't filed within 150 days of Grohowski's sentencing. But Sacavage, who initially didn't think the legal brief involving the post-sentence motion was filed by Kopko by the deadline, agreed to hear Kopko's motion after learning that the attorney had filed the motion on Dec. 4, 2009.
Gorman, who prosecuted the case at trial, argued that a statement made by a juror after the trial about "wanting to send a message" had no bearing on the jury's verdict.
He also defended Feudale by pointing out that he filed pre-trial motions in the case and attacked the creditability of various witnesses at the trial, including various inmates.
"Mr. Feudale wasn't successful in having his client acquitted, but he wasn't ineffective and did not violate the defendant's constitutional rights," Gorman said. "The testimony presented at trial was sufficient and the jury made its determination based on the evidence."
In October 2009, Grohowski was sentenced by Sacavage to two to four years in a state correctional institution on three counts of delivery of contraband - cocaine, methamphetamine and marijuana - to an inmate at the jail, where he was employed as a correctional officer.
Grohowski was found guilty of the charges during a jury trial in September 2006, but hasn't spent any time in jail since his conviction because of various appeals filed in the case. He was found not guilty during the trial of another felony offense - aggravated assault against an inmate.
Following his conviction and prior to being sentenced, Grohowski, through Kopko, filed a motion for a new trial, citing ineffective counsel by Feudale.
In August 2007, Sacavage granted Grohowski a new trial, citing a need for "extraordinary relief," because Gorman made an improper argument to jurors when he asked them to "send a message" about alleged abuse of power at the prison by convicting Grohowski.
The judge also said Feudale provided ineffective counsel by not objecting to Gorman's remarks and requesting a mistrial.
Sacavage's decision to grant a new trial was appealed by the commonwealth to the state Superior Court, which in the summer of 2009 ruled in a 3-2 decision that extraordinary relief was not justified because the appeals process shouldn't occur until after sentencing.
Before being sentenced in 2009, Grohowski asked Sacavage to allow him to remain free on bail pending the appeal so he could continue to take care of his kids. The judge granted the request, noting that Grohowski, who works in construction, had appeared for every court hearing during the course of the case, which began in November 2004, when the charges were filed.
At the sentencing, Gorman said the three counts against Grohowski each carry a minimum mandatory two-year prison sentence and requested Sacavage to have the sentences on each count run consecutively rather than concurrently. Kopko objected to Gorman's request, and asked for a concurrent sentence and for his client to remain free on his own recognizance, pending the appeal.
Grohowski was among seven current or former county prison guards charged on April 14, 2004, as the result of a two-year grand jury investigation into offenses allegedly committed between 2000 and 2002 at the prison. Charges against one of the other guards were withdrawn. Another guard was acquitted of drug charges during a 2005 trial and allowed to return to work at the prison. The other four guards entered guilty pleas and received various sentences, but avoided spending time in prison.