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Philadelphia – Prosecutors are seeking to remove a federal judge from a murder case in which he has twice sought to free a woman convicted of killing a high school rival.



In court papers filed last Tuesday night, state prosecutors asked the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to remove Judge Stewart Dalzell from deciding the fate of Lisa Michelle Lambert, who was convicted in the 1991 slaying of 16-year-old Laurie Show.



A spokesman for Attorney General Mike Fisher said prosecutors believe Dalzell is biased in favor of Lambert. She has maintained that she was framed by police officers and prosecutors.



An attorney for Lambert, who was on vacation in the Cayman Islands last week, said he could not comment on the filings because he had not yet seen them. The attorney, Peter Greenberg, said that any claim that the judge is biased “has no merit under the facts and under the law.”



The attorney general’s spokesman, Kevin Harley, said prosecutors planned to file another petition asking Dalzell to delay his most recent decision to free Lambert until the appeals court hears the motion to remove him.



If Dalzell denies that petition, prosecutors expect to ask the appellate court to suspend proceedings until it decides whether Dalzell will stay on the case.



In any case, Harley said, “We don’t anticipate that there will be any release of her in the immediate future.”



The filing for Dalzell’s removal came six days after the judge reinstated his 1997 decision to free Lambert in the killing of Show, both of whom lived in suburban Lancaster.



Lambert was freed after the 1997 ruling, but was returned to prison a year later following a ruling by the appeals court, which said his decision was premature because Lambert had not exhausted her appeals in state courts.



In his most recent ruling, Dalzell did not order the immediate release of Lambert. Instead, he gave attorneys until Dec. 20 to file further arguments in the case.



Lambert was convicted in 1992 of slaying Show with the help of two friends. Lambert’s trial was highly publicized and the story was the basis for the USA Network movie “The Stalking of Laurie Show,” which aired last year.



In a 31-page opinion, Dalzell said, as he did in his 1997 ruling, that Lambert was innocent of the killing and was the victim of “wholesale prosecutorial misconduct.”



“Virtually all of the evidence which the commonwealth used to convict … was either perjured, altered or fabricated,” Dalzell wrote.



In his 1997 opinion, Dalzell said prosecutors and police committed gross misconduct in Lambert’s case, including destroying evidence, committing perjury, corrupting a defense expert and ignoring evidence that could help Lambert.



Subsequent inquiries by federal investigators and the state Supreme Court cleared Lancaster County authorities of wrongdoing.



Lambert’s two alleged accomplices in the case, boyfriend Lawrence Yunkin and friend Tabitha Buck, are still in prison. Buck is serving a life sentence. Yunkin pleaded guilty to third-degree murder and received a 10- to 20-year term.



Prosecutors said Lambert, angry that Show had previously been involved with Yunkin, stalked, intimidated and murdered the teen. Lambert and Buck were convicted of slitting Show’s throat while Yunkin drove a getaway car.

Court Rules for Coal Co. in Mining Case

Pittsburgh – A Commonwealth Court panel has rejected a challenge to the state’s mining law, ruling that a coal company may continue the practice of longwall mining despite the damage subsidence can cause above ground.



A group of Washington County homeowners had brought the case of People United to Save Homes v. Department of Environmental Protection- which represented the first constitutional challenge to the state’s existing mining law – claiming the state Department of Environmental Protection failed to enforce subsidence protections under the law when it granted a mining permit to Consol Energy’s Eighty-Four Mining Co.



Under Act 54, the 1994 amendment to the state mining law, companies are allowed to mine seams of coal as long as they do not cause irreparable harm and pay to repair damage to properties caused when ground above the mines collapses. Homeowners have complained repeatedly that mine companies should not be able to mine under their homes without their approval.



In Commonwealth Court, the plaintiffs alleged there were more than 245 errors in the state DEP’s permit allowing Consol to extract coal from the Pittsburgh seam under some 42,500 acres and 600 homes.



The court disagreed in a decision released last week, saying subsidence damage to homes and water supplies does not constitute an illegal taking of property owners’ rights since the coal companies own the rights to mine the seams.



The decision was written by Judge Dan Pellegrini and supported a July 1999 ruling by the state’s Environmental Hearing Board. That ruling upheld state regulations saying longwall mining could only be prohibited if it were likely to result in irreparable damage above ground.



“Commonwealth Court has ruled that vandalism is OK in Pennsylvania as long as you’re a coal operator,” said Charles Murray, treasurer of People United to Save Homes, or PUSH, a citizens group which took the coal company to court. “We were just up against interests that are too damned powerful.”



Sandra Hamm, a spokeswoman for Consol, said only that the decision spoke for itself.



In southwestern Pennsylvania, longwall mining has, in many instances, replaced more traditional methods of extracting coal. In more traditional room-and-pillar mining, workers leave behind pillars of coal which can support the surface.



In longwall mining, machines take out an entire panel of coal, which can be 1,000 feet wide and miles long, with hydraulic supports preventing collapse. As the machines move forward, hundreds of feet underground, the supports go with them. The previously mined area, without the supports, caves in, and the surface subsides, sometimes several feet.

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