| Notes |
Stewart J. Greenleaf, senior counsel, has represented the 12th Senatorial District in the Pennsylvania Senate since 1978. He was a member of the House of Representatives from 1977 to 1978, serving on the House Labor Relations and Judiciary Committees as well as the Subcommittee on Crime and Corrections. He also served as an Upper Moreland Township Commissioner, as an Assistant District Attorney and Chief of the Appeals Division for the Montgomery County District Attorney’s Office and as an Assistant Public Defender in Bucks County . He is a member of the Bar Associations of Pennsylvania and Montgomery County.
He is chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and a member of the Senate committees on Appropriations, Banking and Insurance and Consumer Protection and Professional Licensure. In addition, he has served on the Pennsylvania Commission on Sentencing, the Task Force on Death Penalty Litigation in Pennsylvania and the Statewide Steering Committee on Court Automation. He currently serves as chairman of the Joint State Government Commission’s Task Force on Decedents’ Estates Laws, the Task Force on Domestic Relations Law and the Task Force on Adoption Law. As a member of the Commission on Judicial Reform, he participated in development of recommendations to improve the process of judicial selection and was prime sponsor of constitutional amendment legislation to revise the state’s system of judicial discipline. He serves on the State/Federal Assembly of the Law and Justice Committee, the National Conference of State Legislatures Criminal Justice Committee, and the Criminal Justice Task Force of the American Legislature Exchange Council. He is a board member of the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority. He was chairman of the Senate Impeachment Committee during the 1994 impeachment trial of former Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice Rolf Larsen. He has also served on the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency Board.
Mr. Greenleaf is the author of Pennsylvania Megan’s Law, the Grandparent Custody Law, the Rails to Trials Act, the Health Club Consumer Protection Act, the Puppy Lemon Law, the “No Means No” rape law, the Amusement Ride Inspection Act, the Missing Children Act, and the Divorce Code Reform Act and the Divorce Mediation Act. He was also prime sponsor of a law that extends the period of legal recourse for abused children, the constitutional amendment allowing for the option of electronic testimony for child victims and witnesses, the law requiring tougher penalties for cruelty to domestic animals and the law allowing extended sentences when baseball bats are used in violent criminal acts.
As chairman of the Judiciary Committee, he conducted hearings on the corrections system in Pennsylvania and achieved passage of legislation to reduce overcrowding in county jails through intermediate punishment programs. He is also sponsor of state sentencing reform legislation. He also conducted hearings on the state’s system of probation and parole and enacted public safety reforms in the Pennsylvania Board of Probation and Parole and in the Interstate Compact, which deals with interstate parole arrangement. Mr. Greenleaf is also a member of the Environmental Resources and Energy Committee.
In addition to his interest in criminal justice and judicial issues, Mr. Greenleaf sponsored numerous consumer protection initiatives relating to telemarketing controls, octane level testing, the travel industry and the expansion of the Lemon Law to leased vehicles. His resolution created the Joint State Government Commission on Adoption Law to address adoption issues. He is a sponsor of environmental legislation, including bills on recycling and natural resource conservation, and rails to trails. He also is the sponsor of legislation to improve public access to government records.
Mr. Greenleaf has prime sponsored 115 Bills that were signed into law. These laws ranged from defending our children (i.e., Child Witness Testimony) to protecting consumers from “lemon” motor vehicles, to enhancing the beauty of Pennsylvania via a “Rails to Trails” law to law enforcement initiatives such as “Megan’s Law.” Mr. Greenleaf’s laws also included public health matters like ” DES ” education to establishing a Bill of Rights Day in Pennsylvania to transportation matters such as permitting emergency vehicles unobstructed access to the turnpike.
In terms of resolutions, Mr. Greenleaf prime sponsored 68 that were eventually adopted by the full Senate. These resolutions ranged from stopping the slaughter of infant harp seals to performing a prison population study to establishing Police Officers Memorial Day to public health awareness issues like prostate cancer.
He has also served as a Solicitor for Upper Moreland Zoning Hearing Board and served as alternative solicitor to Montgomery Township Zoning Hearing Board, and Solicitor to a cooperative housing associations and other business corporations. He has appeared as counsel in over 400 cases in the Pennsylvania Appellate Courts, United States Supreme Court, Federal District Courts, and Courts of Appeals.
The recipient of a number of honors, Mr. Greenleaf has been presented the Montgomery Bar Association’s Outstanding Service Award; the Pennsylvania Legal Services Outstanding Leadership Award; the Fraternal Order of Police Award; the Matty Muir Award from the Victim Services Center of Montgomery County; the Montgomery County Association for Retarded Citizens President’s Award; the Conservation Legislator of the Year Award by the Pennsylvania Wildlife Federation; the National Federation of Independent Business’ Guardian of Small Business Award and the Humane Society of the United States Mid-Atlantic Region Humanitarian Award. He was selected Man of the Year by the Willow Grove Chamber of Commerce and the Ukrainian Educational and Cultural Center . He was chosen for the Pennsylvania Trial Lawyers Association 1992 Annual Award in recognition of his “efforts and resolve in protecting the rights of Pennsylvanians under civil law.”
He has also received the B’nai B’rith Humanitarian Award, the North Penn Korean Association Community Award, the Boy Scouts of America Community Service Award, the Caroline Earle White Award of the Women’s SPCA, the Korean Senior Citizens Service Award, the Deputy Sheriffs Association Distinguished Public Service Award, and the Pennsylvania Legislative Animal Network Humane Award.
In the Spring of 2002, he received the Vince Fitzpatrick Humanitarian Award from the Montgomery County Association for Retarded Citizens for his legislative work on residential placements for retarded citizens whose aging parents can no longer care for their adult children at home. The award was also given in recognition of the his prime sponsorship of the Standby Guardianship Law, which helps seriously ill parents ensure uninterrupted care for their dependent children.
Mr. Greenleaf graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1961 and the University of Toledo Law School in 1966. He also served as a Law Clerk to Judge Frederick Groshens, President Judge of the Pennsylvania Court of Common Pleas of Montgomery County. He is admitted to practice before the United States Supreme Court, United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, Pennsylvania Supreme Court, 3 rd Federal Circuit Court, Eastern District, Superior, Commonwealth Courts, the Commission for Justice Initiatives in Pennsylvania, the Pennsylvania Bar Association’s Task Force on Student Loan Forgiveness and Repayment Assistance, and the State Council for Interstate Adult Offender Supervision. |