The Philadelphia District Attorney's office called former Neurosurgery professor Tracy McIntosh's petition to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court "frivolous" and "legally irrelevant" in its reply to McIntosh's request to the court to block his resentencing.
The brief, filed last week, outlines the prosecution's opposition to McIntosh's attempt to halt resentencing in connection with a 2002 sexual assault.
McIntosh's petition asks the court to mandate that Rayford Means - the Philadelphia Common Pleas judge who gave McIntosh an initial lenient house-arrest sentence - to state on the record his reasons for that sentence.
The brief from the District Attorney's office claims that Means' reasons for the sentence are "now irrelevant," and that, contrary to McIntosh's claims, "the order for resentencing imposes no duty to offer further explanations for the vacated sentence."
McIntosh's lawyers claim that the sentence was the result of a December 2004 backroom deal that stated McIntosh would not receive prison time in exchange for his plea, an agreement the prosecution denies took place.
The Supreme Court must now decide whether to hear the case, a prospect prosecutor Richard DeSipio has said is unlikely.
Joel Trigiani, McIntosh's lawyer, did not return a phone call for comment yesterday.
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