WILKES-BARRE, Pa. — The state Supreme Court on Friday said it will not exercise its rarely used "King's Bench" powers to decide the legality of Luzerne County's prosecution of four men using evidence collected through what critics have called vigilantism.
The decisions handed down Friday effectively allows four criminal cases to move forward in Luzerne County Court. They are men whose cases, their attorneys say, were founded upon evidence presented by Musa Harris, the self-styled Luzerne County Predator Catcher.
Harris is a YouTuber and social media star who since 2020 moonlighted as a predator catcher by posing as a child online and agreeing to meet with grown men in person for sex. Once Harris shows up, he livestreams the interaction to his social media pages. The videos number in the hundreds.
Prosecutors in Luzerne County have brought more than a dozen cases against those exposed by Harris. The attorneys of four of those men asked the high court earlier this year to exercise rarely used powers to short-circuit the lower courts and decide the legality of his evidence.
The state Supreme Court can consider any case pending in a lower court and some issues that are not pending in court if it is an issue of "immediate public importance." Such a power is used on rare occasion to decide things such as election disputes, judicial misconduct, public employee strikes and questions of legislative powers, according to the Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts.
