DISTRICT ATTORNEY

Parks Miller triumphs

Challenger easily defeats Madeira

Mike Joseph

State College attorney Stacy Parks Miller swept to victory in the Centre County district attorney race Tuesday, capturing nearly two thirds of the vote to unseat incumbent Michael Madeira.

CDT/Michelle Bixby

Stacy Parks Miller celebrates her win with Kelli Hoover, left, and Cheryl Bohn, center, after the District Attorney results were announced Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2009. CDT/Michelle Bixby

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Parks Miller, who won all but four of the county’s 89 precincts, said the victory margin was greater than anticipated, especially because she was challenging an incumbent.

“We never expected this,” she said at 10:30 p.m. Tuesday, long after the trend in the voting was clear. “It tells me that basically the community felt the same way I did. My message resonated with them.”

Parks Miller, 40, a Democrat and Ferguson Township resident, got 16,349 votes to 8,902 cast for Madeira in an election that saw 26 percent of eligible voters head to the polls. The position pays $161,000 a year.

Madeira, the first incumbent Centre County district attorney to be voted out of office in recent history, said in an e-mail late Tuesday:

“I called Stacy and left her a message to congratulate her on her win and to assure her that I will work with her to ensure a smooth transition in the next two months. While I am disappointed, I look forward to continuing to serve Centre County as a private citizen in whatever capacity will help to make us a safer place to live, work, and raise our families.”

The Parks Miller victory was foreshadowed early, with the first precinct to report, Spring Township East, before 9 p.m. That precinct went 64 percent for the Republican Supreme Court candidate and 36 percent for the Democrat, but 60 percent for the Democrat Parks Miller and 40 percent for the Republican Madeira.

During the campaign, while Parks Miller emphasized the need for change in the District Attorney’s Office, Madeira stressed the county’s record of safety during his four years.

“That wasn’t what was on people’s minds,” said Parks Miller. “I’m already thinking about next year and the DA’s office and keeping my promises to the voters.”

Tuesday’s result means that the office — which has a $1.5 million budget and seven assistant prosecutors — will undergo its second transition since 2005 following the 20-year career of top prosecutor Ray Gricar.

Before he vanished on April 15, 2005, Gricar announced he would not seek re-election to a sixth term that year. Both the Republican and Democratic parties held competitive primary elections in May, and Madeira won the November election.

Parks Miller was an assistant district attorney in Clearfield County from 1996 to 2001, and first assistant from 1998 to 2001, winning 23 of 29 adult trials. In 2001, she moved to Centre County to join the office of Miller Kistler & Campbell, specializing in criminal law.

She defeated two Democrats in the spring primary election with 58 percent of the vote, and waged a blunt attack against the Republican incumbent, saying his office was making too many mistakes.

One voter with whom that message resonated is Harris Township resident Carol English, a retired social worker. English, 63, was a registered Republican her entire voting life until she switched to the Democratic Party last year to support President Obama in the primary election.

English said Tuesday she voted for Parks Miller and cited two incidents in the past four years that helped sway her:

•Former assistant district attorney Lance Marshall, who is being investigated by the state Attorney General’s Office following allegations that he had inappropriate contact with a victim of domestic violence in a case he was assigned to prosecute.

•The failure by the Madeira’s office to turn over possible evidence of the mystery man known as “Sweet” to the defense team of accused killer Andrew Rogers, resulting in a judge’s decision to grant Rogers a new trial.

“I thought, that doesn’t sound good to me,” English said. “When you have a good leader at the top, that kind of stuff doesn’t happen.”

Mike Joseph can be reached at 235-3910. Sara Ganim contributed to this story.