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Wise move

3 min read

The state Supreme Court did what government often doesn’t do: It addressed a crisis quickly Monday by suspending one of its own members.

Justice Seamus McCaffery was ordered by his colleagues not to perform any judicial or administrative duties while his role in the so-called “Pornogate” scandal is reviewed by the Judicial Conduct Board.

The action comes on the heels of Chief Justice Ronald Castille’s review of state Attorney General Kathleen Kane’s finding that McCaffery was among dozens of state officials — some now departed from government service — who had sent and/or received pornographic messages, images and videos on state computers.

Castille, after reviewing the emails, said McCaffery had sent or received 234 sexually explicit or pornographic emails.

Saying the scandal had “undermined (the court’s) moral authority,” Castille implored his colleagues on the high court to either suspend McCaffery or turn the matter over to the Judicial Conduct Board.

The justices did both. They had little choice, as a scandal that was both bizarre and embarrassing had gotten even more bizarre and embarrassing in the wake of Castille’s report.

In response to Castille’s pronouncement, McCaffery had issued a statement that, in part, apologized for the messages, which he said went through his personal email account; in part, explained them as byproducts of his military and police background; and, in part, accused Castille of engaging in an “egomaniacal mission” and peddling “a cooked-up controversy” that is part of a “vindictive pattern of attacks.”

But that’s only the beginning.

On Saturday, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported that a third justice, Michael Eakin, “responding to reports that he had received racist and pornographic content on a private email account,” accused McCaffery “of threatening to leak them to the media.”

McCaffery denied the allegation.

In a statement to the Inquirer, McCaffery said he did “try to help (Eakin) prepare himself for the same kind of media onslaught that I have endured, and urged him to talk to his close personal friend, Ronald Castille, to stop the mudslinging that has so tarnished our court.”

Eakin’s characterization of McCaffery’s message was not as an offer of “help.”

In a letter essentially reporting himself to the Judicial Conduct Board, Eakin wrote: “Justice McCaffery told me that I had to cause the chief justice to retract his media statements … and that he needed ‘an answer’ by noon to prevent the release of emails involving my account.”

You may think this all sounds like the sordid plot of a daytime soap opera. Except that it’s much less entertaining than damaging.

As one court expert offered, folks appearing before the court “want to be sure that their cases are heard by qualified, fair, impartial, even-tempered judges with maturity and good judgment.”

To that end, Castille did the right thing by calling on the court to suspend McCaffery.

The situation not only was bizarre and embarrassing, it had grown intolerable.

The credibility of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court was on the line.

Calkins Media

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