It is unclear to me why you have this interest in Buell now, and in particular the interest in the old court case that had nothing to do with his activities as a ghost hunter.
Hi
steenkh,
Your question is complex
and complicated.
Some 'recent' information has become public about some Centre County judges and former District Attorney. I need to describe what I experienced first-hand. This will take many posts, and I hope to complete this by the weekend.
The most recent information, in June/July 2022, involved one of the judges in Ryan Daniel Buell's case;
Judge Pamela A. Ruest. Sarah Rafacz, of Spotlight PA State College,
wrote a story, "Judge agrees to Penn State’s request to seal entire case concerning search warrants involving student victims." That article isn't about Buell's case, but it's about Judge Ruest who sealed an entire case: "At the request of Penn State, a Centre County judge has agreed to seal a case that includes search warrants involving crime victims who attend the university, shielding this information from the public and the press."
Paula Knudsen Burke, a Pennsylvania attorney for the nonprofit Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, filed a motion on behalf of Spotlight PA, and the Centre Daily Times, and WJAC-TV "asking Centre County Court of Common Pleas to unseal the records and allow the news outlets to intervene in the matter."
I stopped posting for a while because of the level of difficulty for many reasons. Thinking about Buell's case and circumstances is triggering and traumatic as it reminds me of another situation involving a case in another jurisdiction (not in Centre County) that played out about the same time, and later, than Buell's criminal case proceeding. It's not just about Buell or his criminal case, but it's about broken systems and people I talked to–people of power and authority– people I talked to and got no where. I told people facts and tried to put things into context... and they did nothing to help. So I have a level of learned helplessness, and a fear that people in power control pretty much everything and can stop things from coming to light. But I'm at a point now that I know I can't stop living my life and making things public.
I've been hesitant to write about Buell's criminal case for a number of reasons.
One big reason is
I don't have surveillance video I asked for. I asked that certain video surveillance files of the Centre County Courthouse recorded on Thursday, May 18, 2017, be saved and archived. Long story short, I spoke with the Custodian of Records for the Pennsylvania Right-to-Know law who was responsible for the Centre County Courthouse video and in a phone call was told if I submitted a request, my request would be denied for
security reasons. The Custodian, a law enforcement officer, needed time to review the surveillance footage to see if what I described was on camera. I never called the law enforcement officer back, and they never called me back. I never submitted a written request; I never submitted a Pennsylvania Right-to-Know request for the video. I regret not doing that. I should've written so there would've been documentation, and, perhaps I would have been given a better answer than being told I'd be denied the footage because of
security reasons. What security reasons?
Friday, May 19, 2017 3:30 PM, I emailed a court administration person and asked that certain video locations recorded between the hours of 8:00 a.m. and 12:00 p.m, in the Courthouse at 102 S Allegheny St, Bellefonte, PA 16823, be saved and archived. I received an email back which to paraphrase, said the Centre County Courthouse Administrator's office doesn't keep the video. The court administration person gave me the name of the law enforcement agency that maintains the video.
My email listed specific camera locations, which included cameras inside Courtroom 2. I sat in a particular place, that while I was visible to cameras, the writing in my notebook wasn't able to be surveilled. I will talk about certain issues I observed first-hand. I need to talk about what happened to me in the courthouse.
Courtroom 2 was where
Judge Pamela A. Ruest was on the morning of May 18, 2017, and where according to the online listing on the Unified Judicial System of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, there was a "Non-Jury Trial" that was "Scheduled" on the Calendar Events to start at 8:30 a.m. Ryan Daniel Buell's criminal case, Docket Number CP-14-CR-0001570-2016, from Originating Docket No: MJ-49101-CR-0000274-2016, OTN: T 839455-1, Date Filed 10/05/2016, Initiation Date: 09/14/2016, Complaint/incident #: SCP201606172, Judge Assigned: Ruest, Pamela A., was to take place.
I paid to stay at a hotel the night before what was to be Buell's non-jury trial before Judge Ruest. But on May 18, 2017, Buell's attorney walked up, unannounced, and had a sidebar with Judge Pamela Ruest. A document was signed and Buell's attorney walked back to where he was sitting. I saw Buell's attorney eyes meet the then-Centre County ADA who was prosecuting Buell's case for the Commonwealth of PA. The ADA smirked as Buell's attorney walked back to his seat. Buell's case was never announced.
After all the cases were presented for the day, and everyone was leaving, I called out to Judge Ruest as she walked back to the door in the Well area.
What happened to Ryan Buell's case, it wasn't called?, I asked.
Long story short: Judge Ruest said she doesn't keep her schedule. This is in contrast to then-President Judge Thomas King Kistler who knew his schedule because I talked to his secretary and she and Judge Kistler knew Ryan Daniel Buell was to have a non-jury trial before Judge Kistler on March 7, 2017, in Courtroom 1, but that never happened. With that in mind, a court administration person in the courtroom 2 on May 18, 2017, said Buell's name was crossed off the list of that day's cases. I went to the Court Administration room across the hall from Courtroom 2 and was told they didn't know anything about Buell's case but so-and-so who was likely still in Courtroom 2 should know. But as I recall, that person was in Courtroom 2 and claimed not to know how/why Buell's non-jury trial didn't happen in front of Judge Ruest on May 18, 2017.
No continuance by Judge Ruest on Centre County's webia website
I'll have to write more about this, this post is getting long. The context is Judge Ruest likely signed a continuance but didn't tell me. And while a Continuance was shown being signed on May 18, 2017 by Judge Pamela Ruest on the on the
Unified Judicial System of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, there was NO LISTING for that continuance when I drove (at a later date) to the Centre County Courthouse to access their online webia system. So I don't have a copy of an alleged continuance allegedly signed on May 18, 2017 by Ruest and Buell's attorney and a then-prosecuting Centre County ADA. The Centre County Prothonotary's Office didn't have the continuance on file when I went to retrieve it.
Buell's attorney would later tell me outside the courtroom 2, outside the eye of surveillance cameras, that
while this is a public space, and yes you could stay, I'm asking you to leave.
A Centre Daily Times reporter witnessed the exchange of Buell's attorney asking me to leave the courthouse, and didn't report on it. The CDT reporter knew who I was, as I had called him before, and emailed him. I gave him information about Buell he didn't have. I emailed the CDT reporter the link to this thread. And the Centre Daily Times reporter did nothing. Nothing.
Source:
Rafacz, Sarah of Spotlight PA State College. "Judge makes public search warrants involving Penn State student crime victims after university had them sealed." spotlightpa.org. July 14, 2022.
(Click for story here) https[colon]//www[dot]spotlightpa.org/statecollege/2022/07/centre-county-court-penn-state-search-warrants/
Posted by Ernie Marsh on Friday, 28 October 2022 at about 2:49 p.m. EDT. My full legal name is Raymond Ernest Marsh. I live in South Park, Pennsylvania, in Allegheny County.
I will be posting more today and this weekend, there's a lot to talk about.
