Judicial Discipline Reforms Proposed In PA

After two of the state’s Supreme Court justices resigned in the wake of a lewd email scandal, Pennsylvania State Sen. Judy Schwank has proposed changes to the system used to discipline judges. Schwank’s bill would remove the Supreme Court’s ability to appoint members to the Judicial Conduct Board and the Court of Judicial Discipline, and increase the number of non-lawyers on each panel. The exchange of homophobic, misogynistic, and sexually explicit emails led both J. Michael Eakin and Seamus McCaffery to resign from Pennsylvania’s highest court, and the scandal has embroiled the state Attorney General, Kathleen Kane, as well. “The email conduct plus the direction the court has taken with regard to judicial discipline shows that it’s a legal fiction to consider them less fallible to failure and equally blind to their own prejudices and mistakes,” Schwank said. “If you’re a woman, a minority (or) LGBT, these emails reveal just how so many people charged with protecting you and your interests view you and talk about you in private.”