Pennsylvania justice is suspended for 'insensitive and inappropriate' emails in interim order
Justice J. Michael Eakin. Image from the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.
Pennsylvania’s Court of Judicial Discipline has issued an interim order suspending Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice J. Michael Eakin for “insensitive and inappropriate” emails.
Eakin, a Republican, will receive pay and benefits during the suspension, which remains in effect pending an ethics trial, the Philadelphia Inquirer reports. How Appealing links to the order (PDF) and additional coverage.
As a result of the suspension, only four justices remain on the court, which is supposed to have seven justices. Another justice involved in the so-called “Porngate” scandal, a Democrat, announced his retirement last year amid revelations about his emails. Three new justices will be sworn in next month, giving the court a Democratic majority.
A day before imposing the suspension, the Court of Judicial Discipline held a hearing in which Eakin’s emails were entered into the record. “The emails demonstrate that Justice Eakin participated in a pattern of not only receiving emails which were insensitive and inappropriate toward matters involving gender, race, sexual orientation and ethnicity, but also sending and forwarding a number of such emails,” the order said.
“Even though these emails were not intended to be published to the general public, they have by now become infamous and the subject of numerous newspaper articles.”
Of particular concern, the order said, are two email exchanges commenting “on the physical attributes of female employees in [Eakin’s] office as well as sexually suggestive observations. Clearly these emails, which address judicial employees, are extremely inappropriate and offensive.”
The order said Eakin should have a lower expectation of privacy because he used government equipment to engage in email exchanges with other government employees.
Eakin apologized on Monday for the emails, which were sent from his private account. Attorney General Kathleen Kane publicized the emails after finding them on government servers.
The order said the interim suspension was justified by the need to protect the judiciary from disrepute, but it was also needed as a precaution. “There should be no doubt that this court is deeply and profoundly troubled by even a remote possibility that the patently discriminatory and offensive views and attitudes expressed in the emails underlying this case may have impacted Justice Eakin’s judicial work.”
Eakin introduced evidence at the hearing that his judicial opinions are free from bias, according to the order. “No party has yet argued to the court that such improper bias exists,” the order said, “and any evidence of such, if any, may be presented at the trial on the merits.”
