Justice under fire
Courtesy of Justice Seamus McCaffery, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has become a laughingstock anew, a comedian’s punchline.
As McCaffery accuses Chief Justice Ronald Castille of improperly targeting him over sexually explicit e-mail that McCaffery received and forwarded on his court computer, he asserts hypocrisy while it is he who is the hypocrite.
McCaffery, a former Philadelphia police officer, asserts that coarse language and crude jokes were part and parcel of his former job. I do not doubt it, but that type of comportment is something that a Supreme Court Justice must shed long before ascending to the bench. The public has every right to believe that it is electing individuals of dignity, integrity, and character to such lofty positions. If McCaffery was not willing to behave like a gentleman and to adhere to reasonable policy, he could and should have remained a Philadelphia police officer.
State employees are told repeatedly that their employer e-mail carries no expectation of privacy, that it may be reviewed, and that disciplinary action up to and including termination of employment may ensue for its misuse.
Apparently the high and exalted Justices of the State Supreme Court are not required to adhere to the same standards that are expected of a rank and file clerk. Perhaps all state employees should now be held only to the McCaffery standard: that one may lash out against their accusers when they are caught violating a policy, say that they are sorry, that they had a lapse in judgment, and then be permitted to go on with their careers.
Is it any wonder that there is citizen apathy, if not contempt for the charlatans whom we elect to high office?
Oren M. Spiegler
Upper Saint Clair