More on the porn scandal

Philly.com has an article by Chris Brennan about the idiots on the Court, and another article (below, with photo of McCaffery) about one less:

The Harrisburg, Pennsylvania porn circus consuming the state's capitol added a third ring yesterday.
The first ring: Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane last month released a selection of explicit emails sent and received by Governor Corbett's top deputies when he was attorney general.
The second ring: State Supreme Court Justice Ron Castille and Justice Seamus McCaffery continued their long-running feud, swapping accusations this week after Castille disclosed that McCaffery sent and received many of the explicit images.
And the third ring: emails obtained yesterday by the Daily News show that state Supreme Court Justice J. Michael Eakin used a fake name on a Yahoo email account to receive emails with explicitl sexua and racist images in 2010.
McCaffery yesterday released a statement apologizing "for my lapse in judgment" with the explicit emails and lashing out at Castille for "this latest cooked-up controversy". McCaffery said it was part of "a vindictive pattern of attacks by the soon-to-be retired chief justice."
Castille called that an inaccurate and "sad state of affairs." "It's name-calling," Castille said. "That's terrible." Castille said that Kane's agents reviewed the emails and found no "salacious or sexually offensive" material for any other Supreme Court justice.
Castille also said he knew nothing about Eakin's private emails, and noted that receiving porn was different from sending it. "Sending is a problem," he said. "I could email something to you."
Eakin, elected to the court in 2001 and returned for another ten-year term in the 2011 election, did not deny that he uses the Yahoo email account that has a nom de guerre of John Smith. "I'm not going to deny it, but I don't think I should comment at all until I see what we're talking about," Eakin said when asked about the emails. "I'm really not comfortable doing that."
Three emails received at the Yahoo account in 2010 included:
* Prom Night at Camden High School!!; thirteen images of African-Americans who appear to be attending a prom, with captions mocking their clothes, physical appearances, and the presence of police vehicles.
* Send your buddy some titties day!; thirteen images of women who are topless or completely nude. The "send your buddy some titties day" was a regular theme in the Attorney General's Office emails that Kane released.
* Hooters 25th Anniversary; thirty-three images of nude women, apparently pulled from a 2008 spread in Playboy magazine, along with four images of women wearing Hooters uniforms. Those images were received by Federal, state and county email accounts, along with law-firm email accounts and private accounts. 

Eakin was in Philadelphia with Castille recently to dedicate the new Family Court building. Eakin was chosen by his colleagues in early 2013 to become the liaison justice to the courts in Philadelphia, replacing Castille in a position of political power in the local justice system. Castille has reached the mandatory retirement age of seventy and must step down at the end of this year. Justice Thomas Saylor, next in line in Supreme Court seniority, will replace him. Eakin, by seniority, is due to become chief justice in two years. 

"It's really good to see all these judges. You don't write. You don't call. You know, you're allowed. You know, once in a while."

Representative Bob Brady, Democratic Party chairman for Philadelphia, speaking to an audience at the dedication of the new Family Court building at 15th and Arch streets.

Rico says John Smith, now that's original...

It all finally got to be too much for the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, which yesterday suspended Justice Seamus McCaffery (photo). The other justices tried to stay out of McCaffery's long-running feud with Chief Justice Ron Castille, who must step down at the end of this year because he has reached seventy.
The thinking before: ride it out and the state's highest court will settle down once Castille retires.
The thinking now: there is a "compelling and immediate need to protect and preserve the integrity" of the court, three of the seven justices declared in an order.
What turned the tide against the former Philadelphia cop?
A big pile of porn and, more important, a recent claim by Justice J. Michael Eakin that McCaffery had all but extorted him last week in a bid to get Castille to back down.
McCaffery's attorney, Dion Rassias, said yesterday that the suspension "should surprise no one, given Chief Justice Castille's relentless crusade to destroy his career and reputation." Rassias predicted that McCaffery will "expose the malicious intent" and be cleared of wrongdoing.
Castille, in a statement concurring with the suspension, again lashed out in a litany of barbs against McCaffery, suggesting that McCaffery's "blame game" excuses for mounting controversies might be the "pathological symptoms" of a "sociopath" who is unable to accept blame for his own actions. Castille wrote that a "prominent medical journal" defined a sociopath as someone "not caring about others, thinking he or she can do whatever is in that person's own self-interest and having little or no sympathy for others."
Castille disagreed with his three colleagues on one key point: he wants the justices, rather than the state's Judicial Conduct Board, to decide McCaffery's fate.
Only Justice Debra McCloskey Todd dissented, writing that the justices had acted "upon unvetted claims and allegations" including Castille, whom she characterized as "deeply involved in this controversy." The Judicial Conduct Board exists for "precisely" this reason, she said. Eakin and McCaffery did not participate in the decision.
The order suspending McCaffery reflects two years of growing controversy, saying:

* He "may have improperly contacted" a Traffic Court official to discuss a ticket his wife received.
* He allowed his wife "to accept hundreds of thousands of dollars in referral fees" from law firms while she worked for the court.
* He "may have attempted to exert influence over a judicial assignment" in Philadelphia.
* He exchanged "hundreds of sexually explicit emails" with Attorney General's Office staff.
* He "importuned" Eakin to get Castille to back down, or else embarrassing emails from Eakin would be leaked to the news media.

That last item seemed to shift the court against McCaffery.
Eakin filed his own complaint with the Judicial Conduct Board after the Daily News reported that he had received racy and racist emails at a private email account with a fake name. Eakin told the board that McCaffery called him last week before the emails were leaked to say he "was not going down alone".
Castille's statement yesterday said "that sort of threat borders on criminal conduct".
Yesterday's suspension order says that Castille found some of the photos and videos in McCaffery's emails "extremely disturbing."
Castille chose to be far more descriptive, citing one "depicting a naked hundred-year-old woman as the target of a sexually explicit joke, and a video of a woman in sexual congress with a snake."
McCaffery last week apologized for a "lapse in judgment" about the emails, while blaming Castille for the "cooked-up controversy" surrounding them.
"This alleged 'cooked-up controversy' has cost the careers of others and perhaps even several marriages," Castille responded, noting that "those individuals had the decency to resign", while McCaffery still draws a salary.
The explicit emails surfaced as part of a review by Attorney General Kathleen Kane of the handling of the child-sexual-abuse case that sent former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky to prison. Governor Corbett was attorney general during that investigation.
Four of Corbett's former top deputies have resigned from their latest jobs after their emails were exposed by Kane: Department of Environmental Protection Secretary Chris Abruzzo; DEP Chief Counsel Glenn Parno; Board of Probation and Parole member Randy Feathers; and Richard Sheetz Jr., who had returned to the Lancaster County District Attorney's Office.
As that scandal unfolded in the Governor's Office, Castille demanded that Kane turn over any explicit emails exchanged by state justices or judges. Castille said yesterday that McCaffery was right on one claim: "I have been attempting to remove Justice McCaffery from this court," Castille wrote.
McCaffery may now have done to himself what Castille could not accomplish on his own.

Rico says that need to remember that these are (supposedly) grown men, not eight-year-olds...