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HARRISBURG — On May 20, Democrats and Republicans will choose their parties’ candidates for a vacancy on Commonwealth Court and on Superior Court. The winners will compete in the November general election.
Pennsylvania’s two intermediate appellate courts have the power to affirm or reverse decisions made in lower courts. Their rulings can be appealed to the state Supreme Court, Pennsylvania’s court of last resort.
Each court serves a distinct role within the commonwealth’s legal system.
Commonwealth Court presides over civil actions brought by and against the Pennsylvania state government and hears appeals primarily in cases involving state departments and local governments. Superior Court handles criminal, family, and civil cases that are appealed by county Courts of Common Pleas.
The person who wins the open seat on Commonwealth Court could help shape Pennsylvania’s laws on everything from elections to firearms, while the candidate who wins a seat on Superior Court could help decide the outcomes of high-profile criminal cases.
Judges on both courts also are often top candidates to fill openings on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.
Not all voters will be able to participate in the upcoming judicial primaries. Pennsylvania is one of nine states that has closed primaries, which prevent third-party and unaffiliated voters from participating in partisan elections. (Unaffiliated and third-party voters can, however, vote on ballot questions, other referenda, and special elections during a primary.)
Pennsylvania is one of a handful of states that elect judges in partisan contests, meaning candidates run under the banner of a political party, collect endorsements, and raise money.
There are a few key differences between a judicial election and other political elections in the commonwealth, however. Prospective judges can’t directly ask for donations, though their campaign committees can. They also can’t make promises that they’ll rule in certain ways.
Because judicial elections tend to have relatively low voter turnout, and because judges have less direct contact with the public than local representatives, party endorsements can be a powerful determinant of who wins a judicial primary.
Ratings from the Pennsylvania Bar Association can similarly be important. The bar ranks candidates as “highly recommended,” “recommended,” or “not recommended” based on their judicial records and interviews with a judicial evaluation commission.
Spotlight PA has noted these rankings, as well as other key details, in its profiles of the candidates:
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Commonwealth Court
The nine-member Commonwealth Court is the first stop for many high-profile cases.
Notable recent rulings include a 2023 opinion that found the state’s education funding system violated the rights of parents and students in poorer school districts, and a 2024 decision that mail ballots shouldn’t be rejected for missing dates (the state Supreme Court later overturned that decision).
In March 2025, the court decided a lawsuit brought by Spotlight PA, ruling that emails and other communications between Pennsylvania lawmakers and the lobbyists who try to influence them can remain hidden from the public.
Judges serve initial 10-year terms, then face a nonpartisan retention vote, which usually succeeds.
There is one seat open on Commonwealth Court this year. The Democratic party has one candidate running, and the Republican party has two.
The court currently has five judges who were elected as Republicans and three elected as Democrats. This election will fill the seat of Ellen Ceisler, who was elected as a Democrat and retired in January.
The mandatory retirement age for Pennsylvania’s judges is 75.
Democratic candidate: Stella Tsai
Tsai has served as a judge on Philadelphia’s Court of Common Pleas since 2016. She was first appointed, then elected to a 10-year term the following year. In her campaign materials, she says that she has worked across the city’s criminal, civil, orphans’ court, and family court divisions.
From 2000 to 2003, Tsai worked as chair of administrative law in Philadelphia’s law department, managing child welfare and social services attorneys.
After that, she left the city for a period and became a business litigation partner at the firm Archer & Greiner. Her profile on the website for the University of Pennsylvania’s Carey Law School, where she is an alumnus and an adjunct professor, notes that she concentrated on “regulatory compliance, land use, and ethics” during her time at the firm.
Tsai says on her campaign website that she has “volunteered to safeguard voting rights, immigrant rights, and civil rights.” She previously served as president of the Asian Pacific American Bar Association of Pennsylvania and in various official capacities with the Pennsylvania Bar Association.
The state Democratic Committee has endorsed Tsai’s candidacy.
The Pennsylvania Bar Association rated her as “highly recommended,” saying she has “a long and diverse legal career” with extensive trial experience in state and federal courts, and that she is respected among fellow judges and considered “enthusiastic, hard-working and fair.”
Read Tsai’s answers to the PBA questionnaire here.
Republican candidate: Matthew Wolford
Wolford is a solo practitioner based in Erie and specializes in environmental law, though he has also worked in state government in the past.
On his campaign website, he describes his practice as focusing partially on “defending clients against government enforcement actions and helping clients work through complex regulatory challenges,” and partly on “fighting for private property rights,” which includes taking on disputes over zoning and easements and with homeowners’ associations.
Before starting his practice, Wolford was an attorney for the state Department of Environmental Protection, and before that was a deputy state attorney general, supervising the environmental crimes section regional field office in Meadville. He also worked as a special prosecutor for the attorney general’s office and the U.S. attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania.
Wolford is endorsed by the Pennsylvania Republican Party.
The Pennsylvania Bar Association noted in its assessment of Wolford that his other professional activities include a longtime adjunct professorship at Erie’s Gannon University, and he is “active in the bar association and community organizations.”
The PBA rated Wolford as “highly recommended,” noting that he has been “litigating all aspects of environmental law,” both civilly and criminally and at trial and appellate levels, for almost four decades.
Wolford is “highly regarded for his work ethic, preparation, common sense, fairness, integrity, prompt and efficient performance and legal expertise in the environmental area,” the association wrote.
Read Wolford’s answers to the PBA questionnaire here.
Republican candidate: Joshua Prince
Prince, who is based in Berks County, runs a law firm that specializes in gun-related litigation.
He has sued the city of Harrisburg to block the enforcement of old gun laws, and sued the state and federal governments to block bans on bump stocks and partial firearm frames that lack identifying information, which opponents have labeled “ghost guns.”
Prince unsuccessfully ran for Commonwealth Court in 2023. Then, as now, he was endorsed by a handful of conservative GOP lawmakers, county sheriffs, and gun rights groups, including Firearms Owners Against Crime.
In 2023, Prince attended a Susquehanna County Republicans event and posed for a group photo that included Frank Scavo, a former Republican legislative candidate who was sentenced to 60 days in prison for participating in the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.
Prince told Spotlight PA at the time that he wasn’t aware of Scavo’s background when the photo was taken.
Prince said in early February that he was dropping out of the race when he failed to secure the GOP endorsement. However, nine days later, he reaffirmed his candidacy, writing on his campaign website that the endorsement process had been “anything but fair, just, and equitable.”
Prince is not recommended by the state bar association because he did not participate in its review process. The last time Prince ran for Commonwealth Court, the PBA found he “lacks the depth and breadth of experience and preparation necessary to take on the commanding role of judge on the Commonwealth Court.”
That year, Prince told Spotlight PA in an email that he disagreed with his PBA rating and pointed to the success of candidates who didn’t have the group’s blessing.
Read Prince’s 2023 answers to the PBA questionnaire here. Prince answered a candidate questionnaire for the website Ballotpedia this year, and you can read his answers here.
Superior Court
The 15-member Superior Court handles criminal and civil cases that don’t involve the government.
As in the Commonwealth Court elections, Democratic primary voters will have just one candidate they can vote for. Republicans will choose between two candidates.
The panel’s main role is to review lower courts’ verdicts. Notable recent decisions include a 2019 opinion tossing out rapper Meek Mills’s conviction on drug and gun charges. Judges serve initial 10-year terms, then face nonpartisan retention votes, which usually succeed.
One seat on Superior Court has been open since Judge Daniel McCaffery was elected as a Democrat to the state Supreme Court in 2023.
The court currently has eight judges elected as Democrats and six Republicans. Its president judge, Democrat Anne Lazarus, was selected through a vote by members of the court and serves a five-year term in that role.
Democratic candidate: Brandon P. Neuman
Neuman, of Washington County, has served as a judge on the county’s Court of Common Pleas since 2018. He was a member of the state House of Representatives from 2011 to 2017.
As a judge, Neuman primarily presides over civil court and a veteran’s specialty court, according to his campaign website, and has also presided over criminal and family law cases.
Last year, Neuman handed down a notable ruling that ordered Washington County to notify voters if their mail ballots have errors that would keep them from being counted, so that those voters would be able to cast provisional ballots.
During his time in the legislature one of Neuman’s biggest accomplishments was a successful 2015 law that sped up the processing of rape kits, which was aimed at addressing a major backlog Pennsylvania had at the time.
Before his time in Harrisburg, Neuman was a trial lawyer and handled “complex civil litigation and representing victims who have been neglected or abused in nursing homes,” his campaign website says.
Neuman is “highly recommended” by the Pennsylvania Bar Association, which said his “opinions demonstrate knowledge of substantive and procedural legal issues and the ability to provide good factual backgrounds and well-developed legal arguments.” The association added that Neuman’s colleagues believe he has high integrity, a good judicial temperament, and “treats all individuals fairly,” among other positive attributes.
You can read Neuman’s answers to the PBA questionnaire here.
Republican candidates: Maria Battista
A Clarion County resident, Battista previously served as assistant general counsel for the Pennsylvania Departments of Health and State under former Govs. Tom Corbett, a Republican, and Tom Wolf, a Democrat.
She also was a prosecutor in Franklin and Venango Counties, and was a contract specialist for the Department of Defense.
Battista ran unsuccessfully for Superior Court in 2023. She is currently president at Judge Government Services, a consulting firm.
She was endorsed by the state Republican Party during her last bid for a judgeship, but this time was beaten out by Ann Marie Wheatcraft, a Common Pleas judge.
The Pennsylvania Bar Association did not recommend Battista because she did not participate in its rating process.
Republican candidate: Ann Marie Wheatcraft
Wheatcraft is based in Chester County and has served since 2012 on the county’s Court of Common Pleas. She became the court’s president judge at the beginning of this year after being selected by her colleagues on the bench.
During her time as a Common Pleas judge, Wheatcraft has supervised the county’s treatment courts for drug, recovery, mental health, and veterans’ cases. The Pennsylvania Bar Association noted in its review of Wheatcraft’s record that she was involved in those courts’ creation and development.
As supervisor, she met regularly with people in recovery to track their progress and try to help them exit the justice system without criminal records.
The PBA also noted that Wheatcraft worked to introduce “comfort dogs” in Chester County courtrooms, teaches newly elected judges, and serves on several nonprofit boards and statewide committees, including the Pennsylvania Association of Trial Court Professionals.
Before joining the bench in Chester County, Wheatcraft was an assistant district attorney in Chester County. In its endorsement, the Chester County GOP said she had prosecuted “some of Chester County’s most violent crimes including armed robbery, rape, and first-degree murder.”
Wheatcraft is also endorsed by the Pennsylvania Republican Party.
The PBA “highly recommended” Wheatcraft for the bench, calling her an “an experienced jurist known for her high degree of professionalism, good judicial temperament, excellent character, and undisputed integrity,” and noting that she has presided over hundreds of criminal and civil cases, and jury and bench trials.
Read Wheatcraft’s answers to the PBA questionnaire here.
Spotlight PA’s Stephen Caruso and Kate Huangpu contributed reporting for this guide.
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