Pa. Supreme Court Suspends Ex-Centre County DA for More Than 1 Year

Former Centre County District Attorney Stacy Parks Miller speaks outside the Centre County Courthouse in 2017. (Photo: Dan Gleiter, PennLive.com)

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has suspended former Centre County District Attorney Stacy Parks Miller over conduct that included ex parte communication with judges and using a fake Facebook account to “snoop” on suspects.

The Supreme Court entered a one-page per curiam order Feb. 8, suspending Parks Miller for one year, plus one day. The ruling follows the recommendations of the Disciplinary Board, which had significantly increased the punishment that disciplinary counsel and the three-attorney hearing panel had initially suggested.

Because the suspension is for more than one year, Parks Miller will need to reapply to obtain her law license before she can go back to practicing.

James Kutz of Post & Schell, who is representing Parks Miller, said it is unlikely she will seek reconsideration.

"We were extremely disappointed that the Disciplinary Board rejected the recommendations of the hearing committee, who sat and heard the evidence, and further rejected the Office of Disciplinary Counsel's recommendation, both of which were three months' suspension being adequate," Kutz said.

Kutz noted that, under prior counsel, Parks Miller defaulted in the case, so she was unable to contest many of the facts.

The disciplinary charges Parks Miller faced stemmed from ex parte communications she had in seven matters, most of which involved retired Centre County Judge Bradley Lunsford, as well as charges stemming from the creation of a fictitious Facebook account, which made friend requests to defendants and friended the pages of several establishments suspected of selling bath salts.

According to the disciplinary board’s 45-page recommendation, the Facebook issue raised a novel question in Pennsylvania of whether a prosecutor violates disciplinary rules by “engaging in a covert activity through the use of social media.”

Although the hearing committee had determined that the conduct was not a violation but only showed “lack of care” by Parks Miller, the Disciplinary Board said the conduct rose to the level of a violation.

“Parks Miller knowingly created a fake social media persona, provided access to a fake Facebook page to her staff, and indicated that the page should be used to ‘masquerade’ and ‘snoop’ around on Facebook,” the filing said. “The Facebook page created by Parks Miller and disseminated to her staff was fake, and constituted fraudulent and deceptive conduct.”

The board was further critical of Parks Miller for failing to obtain any ethics consults before creating the fake account and noted that a 2009 ethics opinion from the Philadelphia Bar Association Professional Guidance Committee had determined that simply concealing a “highly material fact” as to why contact is being made on social media could constitute an ethics violation.

In her defense during the proceedings, Parks Miller argued that the Facebook page was used in an effort to curb the sale of bath salts in the county.