Longtime Allegheny County judge dies at 77

Jeffrey A. Manning presided over several high-profile cases.

In court, whether as a prosecutor or judge, Jeffrey A. Manning controlled the room.

With a commanding presence, deep knowledge of the rules of evidence and a knack for the most minute of details, Manning was known for his brilliant legal acumen, an occasional short temper and a quick wit.

Always impeccably dressed — sometimes with suspenders and matching tie — he was known in the Allegheny County Courthouse, too, for his loyalty and willingness to mentor new attorneys and incoming judges.

With an ego such that he had his judicial staff cut newspaper articles out each time his cases were mentioned so they could be added to his scrapbooks, Manning presided over the most high-profile cases in Pittsburgh for the better part of three decades.

Manning, of Mt. Lebanon, died Monday morning, Aug. 12, 2024. He was 77.

A graduate of Duquesne University law school, and a former state and federal prosecutor, Manning was elected to his first 10-year term as a common pleas court judge in 1989.

He was retained three times — most recently in 2019.

Manning retired in 2021. “The command he had over that courtroom,” said John Rago, who served as Manning’s law clerk for two years and teaches criminal law at Duquesne, “it wasn’t because he was a bully or a hard-ass. He just had an air about him that people knew he was in charge.”

‘He was born to be a lawyer and then a judge’

Patrick Thomassey, a criminal defense attorney, knew Manning from competing against him in high school sports — Manning went to Gateway High School in Monroeville, and Thomassey went to Turtle Creek.

But the two became fast friends when Thomassey took a job as a law student at the Allegheny County District Attorney’s office, where Manning was his boss.

“He taught me a hell of a lot,” Thomassey said.

He remembers watching Manning, who prosecuted homicide cases, prepare for trial.

Manning would read the file, all of the discovery and police reports, and never take a single note, Thomassey said.

Then, when Manning stood up in front of the jury, he remembered every date, every name, every place with ease.

“It never ceased to amaze me,” he said.

Manning continued to have the same encyclopedic knowledge long into his work on the bench.

A reporter might ask if there was precedent for a ruling, and the judge would settle in to spin stories about his prosecution of the case decades earlier.

Thomassey called him a great lawyer and an even better judge.

“He’d look at cases and always make the tough calls,” he said. “He wasn’t afraid to make it and never hesitated.”

During Manning’s time on the bench, he presided over many of the most high-profile cases to go through the Grant Street courthouse.

Among them: the death penalty trial of Richard Baumhammers, convicted of killing six people in a racially motivated, multi-county killing spree; Richard Poplawski, convicted of killing three Pittsburgh police officers in 2009; and the trial of former state Sen. Jane Orie, convicted of using her office staff to fund political work.

Bruce Antkowiak, a law professor at Saint Vincent College, worked with Manning in the U.S. Attorney’s office.

While Manning’s personality was outgoing, Antkowiak said, it became electric when court went into session.

“He tried cases with a passion and ability that few have ever matched but, in all cases, he set an example of trying to make sure that whatever it was, the outcome he achieved was the right one,” Antkowiak said.

Rago agreed, praising Manning for creating the bail modification review process that allows defendants who are held without bail by a district judge to petition common pleas court for release.

“He made a lot of tough calls,” he said. “He was always looking for the better way to get the right result,” Rago said.

Manning served as president judge in Allegheny County from 2013 to 2018. The day his colleagues voted unanimously to confirm him, his staff and Thomassey gathered in his courtroom. As Manning returned from the vote, they lined up to cheer for him while playing “Hail to the Chief.”