A second Pennsylvania Supreme Court justice quits the bench on Tuesday. The resignation came after a widening scandal over raunchy and otherwise offensive emails that he and others exchanged with friends and lawyers.
According to ABC NEWS, Justice Michael Eakin's ruling to retire marks the latest knock-on effect since the controversial state Attorney General Kathleen Kane started releasing hundreds of emails in 2014 to the media and ethics agencies. The Attorney General has since been accused of perjury and other charges. But Kane claimed that they were trumped up a she took on the old boys' club of Pennsylvania judiciary and law enforcement.
The Supreme Court justice's lawyer, Bill Costopoulos, stated during a news conference that an ethics trial on the allegations related to the emails, which had been set to begin in two weeks, would not pursue. The lawyer said that Eakin would agree to the accusations, leaving "nothing left to try."
"This is the only process I know of in America where you can be charged with sending emails to friends that were inappropriate and face the death penalty," Costopoulos stated. He added, "I just don't think that's right."
Yahoo! News noted that Justice Seamus McCaffery, who is a Democrat, suddenly quitted in his service in 2014 after being suspended by the Supreme Court for his role in swapping emails. At that moment, Eakin was not included in the scandal.
The swapping of explicit and pornographic emails by the state prosecutors was unveiled as part of Kane's internal review of how the office handled the enquiry into Jerry Sanudsky, which is the former Penn State assistant coach. He is now serving the rest of his years in prison after he was convicted in 2012 of 45 counts of child sexual abuse, as reported by the Telegram.
Kane reignited the probe by releasing more exchanges in September. When the Democrat Attorney General turned over the new series of emails in September, it was just a week after Eakin voted with four other justices to postpone her law license. She argued that the emails could defy the rules that ask the judges to act in a way that advocates public confidence and ban them from appearing to undermine their independence, integrity, and impartiality.
Meanwhile, Eakin's resignation leaves the seven-member Supreme Court with five Democrats, one Republican, and one vacancy. A new replacement would be nominated by Democratic Governor Tom Wold and requires two-thirds confirmation by the Republican-controlled Senate.
