David Wecht sworn in to Pennsylvania's highest court
A few blocks from where David Wecht's immigrant grandparents once ran a grocery store in the Hill District, a ballroom full of supporters watched him join the state's highest court Thursday.
“When you're an immigrant, a Jew from Eastern Europe, your son is going to be a doctor,” said his father, Dr. Cyril Wecht, joking that David's failure at violin lessons and decision not to become a doctor were his own father's only disappointments. “Nobody would be more proud here than David's grandfather.”
David Wecht, having risen from Register of Wills in 1998 to the Court of Common Pleas Family Division in 2003, then the Superior Court in 2012, was sworn in Thursday for a 10-year term on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in the Duquesne University Union Ballroom. His four children gathered around while his wife held the century-old Bible his grandfather brought to Pittsburgh when he fled anti-Jewish attacks in Lithuania.
Wecht was one of three Democrats elected to the court in November amid a retirement, a conviction and an email scandal that led to three justices leaving and three open seats on the bench. After thanking supporters, he said the court must restore its reputation.
“The people watch us. They expect excellence; they are entitled to it,” Wecht said. “We must be a court that is about law, not about patronage. We must be a court known for openness, not intrigue. We must be a court that is about public service, not politics. ... We must concern ourselves with precedent and reason; not with turf and acrimony.”
All the speakers, including Dr. Wecht, Sen. Robert Casey and David Pollock, former chair of the Pennsylvania Bar Association's Family Law division, extolled David Wecht's fairness and integrity.
“This is an opportunity to rejuvenate the sterling reputation of this court,” said Justice-elect Christine Donohue, who had joined Wecht and Philadelphia Judge Kevin Dougherty on the Democratic ticket and won.
The election of Wecht and Donohue gives Western Pennsylvania a majority representation on the court: Donohue lives in Point Breeze; Justice Debra Todd is from Cranberry; and Justice Max Baer is from Mt. Lebanon. Chief Justice Thomas Saylor is from Cumberland County.
Baer and Todd noted how closely their lives had intertwined with the Wechts'. Baer said his family had probably lived in the Hill District at the same time as Wecht's, and recounted how he had urged David Wecht's future wife, Valerie, to date him when they were both working in the Court of Common Pleas' Family Division. Todd said she'd been in law school with Sigrid Wecht, David's mother, and served with Valerie Wecht on the board of Pittsburgh Action Against Rape.
Justice J. Michael Eakin was not present, since he is suspended by the Court of Judicial Discipline over inappropriate emails in the scandal that also led to the suspension and abrupt retirement of Justice Seamus McCaffery.
Donohue will be the last of the new justices to be sworn in. Her ceremony is set for Friday at the Duquesne Club.
Matthew Santoni is a Tribune-Review staff writer. Reach him at 412 391 0927 or msantoni@tribweb.com.
