PA State Supreme Court Justice McCaffery suspended in email porn scandal
Source: Pittsburgh Tribune Review
HARRISBURG – The Pennsylvania Supreme Court on Monday suspended Justice Seamus McCaffery with pay for sending and receiving 234 emails containing pornographic photographs or videos.
After apologizing last week for a “lapse in judgment,” McCaffery, 64, blamed Chief Justice Ronald Castille for the disclosure of emails from 2008 and 2009, saying it was “a vindictive pattern of attacks.” Castille, 70, had demanded the emails from the attorney general's office after the attorney general this month released sexually explicit emails circulated among former prosecutors.
Neither McCaffery nor Castille could be reached. The justices have had a long running feud. Castille, the former Philadelphia District Attorney and a Republican, faces mandatory retirement by Dec. 31.
McCaffery is “hereby relieved (of duty) on an interim” basis, the court's order said. The matter is under investigation by the Judicial Conduct Board, Chief Counsel Robert Graci told citizen activist Gene Stilp, who filed a complaint.
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This Justice has already admitted to sending/receiving, on a state computer, during his work day, over 200 emails & videos, described by the court as "extremely disturbing". I disagree with Justice Todd's statement that suspension with full pay violates due process. The Fifth Amendment says to the federal government that no one shall be "deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law." As long as McCaffery is not imprisoned and gets his salary & employment benefits, no due process question arises. In Mathews v. Eldridge, the U.S. Supreme Court said three factors had to be analyzed:
"First, the private interest that will be affected by the official action; second, the risk of an erroneous deprivation of such interest through the procedures used, and the probable value, if any, of additional or substitute procedural safeguards; and finally, the Government's interest, including the function involved and the fiscal and administrative burdens that the additional or substitute procedural requirement would entail."
As to the 3rd factor, the function involved, we're looking at a governmental interest in the court's ability to dispense full and fair justice, free of prejudices. McCaffery's self-admitted penchant for hard core porn, which demeans and degrades women, can be strongly argued to consciously or subconsciously affect his interpretation of the facts of a case, and his evaluation of parties, witnesses & testimony in a case. His sharing said porn, repeatedly, including in ex parte communications with attorneys who come before the state supreme court, casts an ugly shadow over the court's proceedings and provides grounds for appeal therefrom.
Hard core porn is to women as racism is to blacks. If the Justice had sent and received hundreds of racist emails and videos, that would provide grounds for appeal to any black parties who had come into his court. Employers have a legal right to suspend an employee pending investigation, and this is often seen in the field of law enforcement, i.e., suspension on full pay can be used when an employee needs to be removed from the workplace to avoid prejudicing an investigation This is used not as a punishment, but in the employer's best interest. For example, a police officer who shoots a person while on duty will be given a suspension with pay during the investigation, not to punish, but to enable the department to carry out its investigation, as well as to avoid inflaming the public if said officer is allowed to continue working in a community.
234 actions over a 2 year period? A review by the attorney general's office found McCaffery's emails contained more than 700 unique sexually explicit images and 60 unique video files, according to a statement last week by Castille.
Hardly a "lapse in judgement" as McCaffery weakly claims.
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