Pa. High Court to Weigh Whether a Felon Can Be a Judge
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court hears arguments today on whether a municipal court judge should be removed from office because of her guilty plea 24 years ago to using a fake Social Security number to obtain a credit card.
The Philadelphia District Attorney claims that Deborah Griffin cannot be a judge under a statute that reads: “No person convicted of embezzlement … bribery, perjury or other infamous crime shall be eligible for office.”
Supporters point to Griffin’s success story, in which she rose from a childhood spent in a Harlem housing project, the Philadelphia Inquirer reports. She is a single mother raising an autistic child.
Griffin did not disclose the guilty plea on her 1988 bar application. She was suspended from law practice for two years because of the failure but reinstated in 1997, without opposition from the disciplinary board of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. She became an elected judge in 2001.
The disciplinary board said in its 1992 recommendation (PDF) to the court that, at the time of the offense, Griffin “was married to an abusive drug user who encouraged [her] to participate in the scheme.” She said she had denied on her bar application that she was convicted of a crime because she believed her record had been expunged.
