LACKAWANNA COUNTY, Pa. — President Biden has announced another round of federal judicial nominees, including one from our area.
Judge Karoline Mehalchick is a candidate for the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania. Mehalchick is currently the Chief Magistrate Judge on the U.S. District Court for the Middle District, where she has served since 2013.
Judge Mehalchick works out of the federal courthouse in Scranton.
Mehalchick was a partner at Oliver, Price & Rhodes from 2008 to 2013 and was an associate at the firm from 2002 to 2007.
Judge Mehalchick served as a law clerk for Judge Trish Corbett on the Lackawanna County Court of Common Pleas from 2001 to 2002.
She received her J.D. from Tulane Law School in 2001 and her B.A. from Pennsylvania State University in 1998.
In 2019, Mehalchick threw out the child endangerment conviction of former Penn State President Graham Spanier.
The ruling came one day before Spanier was due to start serving a two-month prison sentence. Spanier was tried and convicted of child endangerment in 2017. Mehalchick said Spanier was improperly charged under a 2007 law for allegedly failing to report child sex abuse by former football coach Jerry Sandusky.
An appeals court reinstated the conviction and jail sentence in 2020.
This is Biden’s 35h round of nominees for federal judicial positions, bringing the number of announced federal judicial nominees to 176.
In May, Judge Julia Munley was named to the United States District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania. Munley served as a judge on the Court of Common Pleas of Lackawanna County.