Morning Call: New Northampton County District Attorney Stephen Baratta will be sworn in Jan. 2. Here’s what he wants to do first.
By ANTHONY SALAMONE | asalamone@mcall.com | The Morning Call
PUBLISHED: December 28, 2023 at 7:00 a.m. | UPDATED: December 28, 2023 at 3:04 p.m.
Stephen G. Baratta played basketball in high school (Bangor Area) and college (Lafayette). That’s where he learned about the teamwork and the cohesion players need on the court for the squad to succeed.
“I could still play, but I don’t have the explosion I used to have,” the thin, 6-foot-2-inch Baratta said with a smile, recalling days he also played in summer leagues in Easton and New York.
Baratta, who will be sworn in Jan. 2 as Northampton County district attorney after being a county judge for 25 years, has spent his adult life in the legal system — the court of law. He hopes his work and the staff he brings to the office will bring about teamwork in the community like that of a finely oiled starting five on the basketball court.
To that end, Baratta said during a sit-down interview he wants to meet people — law enforcement, community residents — to talk and build consensus about ways residents can feel safer.
“The DA’s job is not to fix the 3rd or 4th Ward,” he said. “But the DA can be at the table to talk about community policing and try to encourage people to get invested in the community. Whatever makes sense, if it’s going to make the community a more collective body that’s working together, I want collaboration.”
That’s good news to Joseph E. Welsh, founder and executive director of Lehigh Valley Justice Institute, a nonpartisan advocacy organization working to develop more fairness in the criminal justice system.
“We are looking forward to establishing a working relationship with the new district attorneys both in Northampton and Lehigh counties,” he said.
In Lehigh County, Gavin Holihan is succeeding the retiring Jim Martin, who became the longest-serving DA in county history after being appointed in 1998. Holihan returned to the office in January to serve as second-in-command, then ran unopposed for the post.
Baratta won the Democratic primary in May against incumbent Terry Houck by a roughly 55% to 45% margin in an at-times nasty and expensive campaign.
During the primary campaign, Baratta, who retired as a judge at the end of 2022 to run for district attorney, aggressively attacked Houck’s operation of the office.
Baratta was still assembling the nearly 40 people to work in his office in late December but said attorney Robert Eyer would be first district attorney, and other assistant prosecutors would include attorneys Jeffrey Dimmig and Matthew Falk from the Lehigh County District Attorney’s Office.
He also plans to have retired Judge Leonard Zito serve as his chief of staff and wants to slate former county custody master Lisa Tresslar to head court appeals.
Early in the primary campaign, Baratta argued there was a conflict of interest with one of Houck’s full-time prosecutors maintaining a private law practice and improperly representing a defendant in court while working for the district attorney.
Baratta said he would set an ethics policy for the office, where early in his career he worked as an assistant district attorney under then-DA John Morganelli.
“If a [full-time] DA wants to work weekends or nights researching and writing, as long as it’s not their client … I think that’s OK,” Baratta said. “But I am not going to have anybody going before the courts representing people [privately].”
Northampton County voters will be asked next spring to decide to limit the district attorney to four, four-year terms. Baratta, who turned 67 on Nov. 1, said he wouldn’t serve that long, but he would campaign again in four years “if I feel like I’m making the difference, and I have the energy.”
“Everything I want to do might not be done in four years,” he said, sounding like a hall of fame basketball coach who is never truly satisfied with his role in molding a team on the floor.
Baratta’s game plan
Baratta hopes to quickly take up several issues once he’s sworn in.
Child advocacy center: Baratta wants to establish no later than June a child advocacy center with one of the two area hospital networks (he declined to say which) and in conjunction with the county Children, Youth and Families division.
He said a center needs hospital interaction, with doctors making diagnoses and medically supporting families. But he said it also needs child case workers and forensic investigators to deal with the complex issues that arise over abuse allegations.
The move would follow a critical report several months ago by Lehigh County Controller Mark Pinsley calling out child advocacy centers on behalf of parents who say the centers fail to seek enough parental input in children’s medical decisions. Though the report did not name it, Lehigh Valley Health Network’s John Van Brakle Child Advocacy Center is the only child protection unit in the region.
“Our center will not be aligned with [Lehigh County’s],” Baratta said. “We will have our own people and our own protocols.”
Cash bail: Baratta, who said during the campaign that setting cash bail on defendants for low-level crimes was unfair, will set policy governing his staff on when to allow impoverished defendants to be free pending court action, instead of being imprisoned for failing to post bond.
“If this is a public safety issue, or a real serious crime — murder rape, burglaries — then I’m not going to oppose cash bail,” he said. “It has a place. But it doesn’t have a place making people who are poor stay in jail to encourage them to plead guilty so they can get out and go home [for minor offenses].”
Welsh said cash bail is among the issues that the Justice Institute examines in the local court system, and he hopes Baratta will avail himself of its research on the matter — both to support such reform initiatives and to track the progress of the initiatives.
Treatment initiative: Baratta intends to establish a “law enforcement treatment initiative” to connect individuals suffering from substance abuse disorders with help outside court or jail. The program began while Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro was attorney general, Baratta said.
“This is an opportunity for law enforcement to divert people into treatment,” he said, adding he has met with a representative of the attorney general’s office. “They want to divert people from out of the system to get them healthy again. I’m willing to give that a try.”