Justice argues against suspension in court email scandal

The Court of Judicial Discipline has suspended Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice Michael Eakin with pay until further notice.

A three-judge panel of the Court of Judicial Discipline suspended Eakin on Tuesday, calling his emails insensitive and inappropriate regarding gender, race, sexual orientation and ethnicity.

The order noted that Eakin used government computers to send and receive the emails, and sent some to government email accounts.

Eakin was accused of misconduct earlier this month.

The emails came to light when Pennsylvania’s Not-So-Much-An-Attorney General Kathleen Kane released the emails gathered as part of a probe into why the AG’s office sat on its hands in the face of mounting Jerry Sandusky allegations.

The suspension creates a temporary vacancy on the state’s highest court.

“They did not bother me”, said Lynn Zembrower, who’s worked for Eakin for 32 years.

“Perhaps my demeanor was ‘one of the boys, ‘” he told the court. Maybe if we’re lucky this affair might bring out the free speech fundies branding Kane as a traitor to the Constitution for daring to suggest that free speech is something other than the right to be a dick at all times.

The suspension follows a hearing on Monday in Scranton by the Judicial Conduct Board. Not that those are necessarily equivalent, but that’s how stupid the “I was in a “Be an Asshole to People Zone” excuse comes across.

Board lawyer Frank Puskas told the court there’s a public perception that Eakin “may harbor vices that were previously hidden”, which he said did not pass the smell test.

The Philadelphia Inquirer has reported that Eakin also exchanged a series of emails that contained racy comments about two of the justice’s female staffers. In his testimony, Judge Eakin admitted sending and receiving the offending emails.

As the Judicial Conduct Board was completing its investigation of him, Eakin attempted to appoint a new member to the Court of Judicial Discipline, the newspaper reported. She said one of the participants in the email exchange, Jeffery Baxter, a prosecutor at the attorney general’s office and a friend of Eakin’s, had sent her flowers after news broke of the mails in which the two joked about inviting the two women on the golf trip and sleeping with them.

Judge Eakin either read or exchanged emails with lewd references with others. “Clearly, these emails, which address judicial employees, are extremely inappropriate and offensive”.