Sep 30, 2014 3 min read

“Look at the mess we are in” was the headline for a story on the front page of the Observer-Reporter Tuesday. It was a quote from Neil Capretto, the medical director at Gateway Rehabilitation Center, describing the growing epidemic of heroin and prescription drug abuse throughout Southwestern Pennsylvania.

But it would also be an apt headline for a story on the state of affairs within the Washington County district attorney’s office.

On Friday, Deputy District Attorney Joseph Zupancic was suspended with pay after it was determined the district attorney’s office engaged in prosecutorial misconduct following Zupancic’s testimony he forgot to give letters to an attorney that could have potentially exonerated a robbery suspect.

The letters were written by Christopher Pitzarella, a Washington resident convicted of robbing a pizza delivery driver in March 2013. In the letters, Pitzarella initially absolves alleged accomplice Shayne Coffield. But then, in a second letter, Pitzarella backtracks on that claim, asserting he wrote the first letter after Coffield threatened him.

Coffield’s attorney, Amanda Como, testified that she was not aware of the letters until they were presented to her Sept. 8, the day Coffield’s trial was due to start. Zupancic initially said he was not aware of the letters, but then said he forgot about them. Como believes Zupancic purposely kept the letters from her because he thought it would “destroy” the case against Coffield.

District Attorney Gene Vittone said he is “looking into” Zupancic’s continued employment with the district attorney’s office.

To make matters worse, charges against a third defendant in the robbery were dismissed because the case was not brought to trial within a year, a requirement under Pennsylvania’s Rule 600. In August, two other cases were dismissed for the same reason, one an attempted murder and the other centering on a defendant who was accused of several offenses, including drug possession and attempting to elude police. At the time, Vittone expressed disappointment at the outcome and promised a new case-management system would speed things up.

“This is going to happen in systems where things are still done manually,” he said.

Vittone has another reason to hope that cases like these come to trial more expeditiously: The voters will be offering their verdict on his tenure when he comes up for re-election a year from now.

The way things are going, voters would have every reason to offer a vote of no confidence.