Published: November 05, 2009 11:30 am      

Long declining DA post

EBENSBURG — When District Attorney Patrick Kiniry is sworn into office Jan. 4 as a Cambria County judge, his first assistant – as stipulated by law – automatically fills the the vacancy.

Sounds simple, but not this time.

Heath Long, a part-time prosecutor who is Kiniry’s first assistant, is not interested in becoming the full-time district attorney – at least anytime soon.

Long, 43, married with a young family, has been an assistant district attorney since 1996 and was appointed Kiniry’s first assistant when Kiniry stepped into the vacant office at that time.

Kiniry now will be looking at who to appoint as his new first assistant – either from his staff of assistant prosecutors or another lawyer. He said he will make a decision within the next week.

“I’ve talked with Heath – who is part time as first assistant – and he said that being district attorney is not something on his career path. He enjoys being in private practice,” Kiniry said.

But Long, whose father, Gerard, was a district attorney before becoming a county judge, left open the door to seeking the office in the future.

“I love serving in the district attorney’s office, and I hope to continue there. I have expanded my private practice into several states, and it’d be unfair to my clients and partners to leave at this time,” Long said.

He is a partner in the Ebensburg law firm of Pawlowski, Bilonick & Long.

Several years ago, state lawmakers made all district attorneys full time to avoid any conflicts of interest with their private practices and to handle increasing criminal caseloads in the counties.

The district attorney’s staff includes three full-time assistants: Chief Deputy David Kaltenbaugh and Thomas Leiden and Kelly Callihan. There also are eight part-time assistants: Tamara Bernstein, Gary Jubas, Michael Carbonara, Gary Costlow, Forrest Fordham, Eric Hochfeld, Wayne Langerholc and Long.

Kiniry said that he would be looking for a lawyer who “has experience in the courtroom, not only in trials but also in negotiating and presenting guilty pleas. The persons also need to have organizational skills and administrative skills because you spend a lot of time in personnel matters and handling questions of police departments and victims.”

In addition, the new first assistant “needs to have elect-ability,” a reference to the new district attorney running for a full term in 2011, Kiniry said.

“I want the person who succeeds me to follow the policies, procedures and changes I’ve made in the past four years,” he said.

Kiniry, who had been first assistant, was sworn in as the county’s top prosecutor in late December 2005 when then-District Attorney David Tulowitzki took office as a county judge. Kiniry then was elected to a four-year term as district attorney in 2007.

The new district attorney will be sworn into office Jan. 4 along with Kiniry and will have to run in 2011 for a term in office.