I know, I know. He looks like he's ready to strangle that poor woman, but don't worry. He's a Doctor. A Doctor of Law. And that's his wife, who's still alive. ... I hope.That's Robert L. Sharpe, Jr., Esq., a Juris Doctor who supposedly graduated from Temple Law School. He drives a black Mercedes and likes to point out that I don't have much money. He's right. too. Bottom feeding is much more lucrative if you practice law.
But if he really did graduate from Temple Law, he should ask for his money back. He's just filed a ridiculous ballot challenge against Lehigh County DA Jim Martin that will certainly be bounced on Friday. Let me give you the details.
In a challenge filed Tuesday, Not-so-Sharpe is trying to knock Martin off the ballot because the Big DA asked his secretary to notarize nomination papers. Never mind that she's really a County employee and does not work for Martin. It's back to Martin Guitars for Jimbo, says Sharpe.
But this Mercedes-driving legal beagle should stick to chasing ambulances. Members of one party have no standing to challenge the nomination petitions of another party. Sharpe,who is actually a Democratic Committeeman, is challenging a Republican's nomination petition, and that's a no-no, according to our Commonwealth Court.
Judge Madeline Palladino, who hails from Lehigh County, provides this reasoning. "Pennsylvania maintains a system of strictly partisan primary elections. Our anti-party raiding legislation provides that only registered electors of a particular party may participate in that party’s candidate selection process. No cross-over voting is permitted. Only registered and enrolled members of a party may sign the nominating petitions of party candidates, and even the right to circulate a petition is strictly limited to members of that political party. Therefore, the conclusion is inescapable that while voting members of a particular political party do have a substantial interest in assuring Election Code compliance of the candidates in that party’s primary election, non-members, who are not eligible to participate in any manner, do not have such a substantial interest."
Game over.
What Not-so-Sharpe should be very worried about is that DA Jim Martin actually knows the law, is not pushed around too easily and has been known to bite back. Sharpe has just exposed himself to a Judicial Code sanction for vexatious conduct because his action was not brought in good faith, but to harass, the DA.
Don't get me wrong. There's probably a good hundred thousand people who hate Martin's guts.
They're behind bars.
