Five candidates are vying for their party’s nomination for two vacancies on the Pennsylvania Superior Court.
Republican candidates are Maria Battista and Harry F. Smail Jr. Both will continue to the November general election.
REPUBLICANS
Battista is a native of Clarion County who has served as an assistant district attorney and as an administrative hearing officer. She has over 15 years of legal experience in civil, criminal and administrative law. She and Smail have been nominated and endorsed by the Pennsylvania GOP to run in the primary.
Smail has been a Westmoreland County Court of Common Pleas judge for more than eight years, having been appointed by Gov. Tom Corbett in 2014 and unanimously confirmed by the Senate.
DEMOCRATS
The Democratic candidates are Pat Dugan, Timika Lane and Jill Beck. Only two will continue to the general election.
Dugan has served 15 years on the Philadelphia Municipal Court. He was appointed to the bench in 2007 by Gov. Ed Rendell. Dugan was elected President Judge in 2019. He was appointed by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to the Judicial Ethics Advisory Board.
Dugan served in the U.S. Army and Army Reserve as an enlisted airborne infantryman, civil affairs soldier, and JAG Officer. After his first tour of honorable service he returned home to Philadelphia and used his GI Benefits to work his way through Rutgers Law School. Dugan left his law practice and returned to service after a 14-year break to serve alongside the Iraqi Coalition Provisional Authority as an Army Political Administration Officer then as a JAG officer.
As a Superior Court Judge, he would continue his work and bring his empathy and knowledge to the second highest court in the Commonwealth.
“With the growth of extremism in our country, we need judges that will be unflinching in protecting our rights as Pennsylvanians,” he said. “I’m running for Judge of Pennsylvania Superior Court because I believe that our courts must remain fair, transparent and deliver justice for everyone. I raised my right hand to defend and uphold the Constitution of the United States of America and the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania both as a soldier and as a jurist. These oaths guide my life and there is no end date to either.”
Lane was elected to the Court of the Common Pleas in 2013 after a career as a teacher and then a lawyer. She was first assigned to the Major Trials program in the Criminal Division. Lane is now assigned to the Complex Litigation jury trial program in the Civil Division.
Born and raised in West Philadelphia to a Philadelphia Police detective mother and Marine Corps father, she learned the value of hard work and public service. She passed these values on to her daughter Tori, a student at Howard University where Lane obtained her B.A.
After college, she taught social studies to middle school students in Prince George’s County, Maryland. She then pursued a career in law and received a Juris Doctor degree from Rutgers-Camden School of Law in New Jersey in 2002. She served as a law clerk in the Court of Common Pleas and then practiced family law, served as a Certified Child Advocate and a major trial attorney.
Lane became the Chief Legal Counsel for a State Senator and Executive Director for the Pennsylvania State Senate State Government Committee. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court appointed her to the County Adult Probation and Parole Advisory Committee (CAPPAC) where she serves as Co-Chair. Governor Tom Wolf appointed her as a Commissioner to the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency. She also serves with the Pennsylvania Bar Association and Chair-Elect for the Clifford Scott Green Chapter of the National Judicial Council.
Beck was raised in Pittsburgh, obtained her undergraduate degree from The George Washington University, and graduated at the top of her class from Duquesne University School of Law.
She worked for the nonprofit organization KidsVoice, and then served as a law clerk for 10 years under the Honorable Christine Donohue on the Superior Court and the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.
In the fall of 2019 she became a civil litigator at Blank Rome. In addition to her litigation and appellate practice, she continued to help the underserved in Pennsylvania’s legal system, representing members of the LGBTQ+ community, veterans, and victims of domestic violence, wage theft, and gun violence resulting from illegal firearm sales; assisting those experiencing housing insecurity; supporting low-income criminal defendants seeking to secure the same constitutional protections as those with means; providing guidance for low-income civil litigants who represent themselves in court; and volunteering to aid in voter protection efforts.
She further served two terms on the board of the Allegheny County Bar Foundation, the charitable arm of the Allegheny County Bar Association.
Jill currently resides with her husband, two children, and rescue dog in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh, where she is an active volunteer in her children’s classrooms and in her community. She is running for the Pennsylvania Superior Court to ensure that justice in Pennsylvania truly is for all.
She was “Highly Recommended” by the Pennsylvania Bar Association to be a Superior Court Judge.
