“Can a trial happen when nobody knows it’s a trial? I don’t know,” said Dean Daniel Filler in an article published by The Philadelphia Inquirer on August 5, 2021.

The article was about the “trial” of Robert Redanauer, who was a detective with the Philadelphia Police Department until his termination.

In April 2021, Redanauer was arrested after he had allegedly threatened a teenage boy and his 23-year-old brother while in their mother’s home on December 27, 2020. Redanauer reportedly threatened to shoot the 23-year-old son, while pointing a gun at him and stumbling around naked inside the woman’s bedroom.

The court hearing, which took place on July 15, 2021, was initially noted as a preliminary hearing. However, at the end of the proceedings, Redanauer’s attorney argued that due to a technicality the proceeding was not a preliminary hearing but a trial. The judge agreed and ruled that Redanauer was not guilty.

Commenting further on the case, Filler said that the outcome could negatively impact the general public’s perception about the court system. “A lot of people might ask if this had been a poor, Black, unemployed man, first of all, would he have gotten the same [legal] representation?” Filler asked. “Second of all, would the judge have been willing to so rapidly reach this conclusion?”