Penn. Supreme Court Justice Suspended With Pay For Sending Employees Pornographic E-Mails

Pennsylvania Supreme Court
Justice Seamus McCaffery was suspended with pay by the Supreme
Court for sending unwanted sexually explicit e-mails and
pornographic images to  employees at the Attorney General’s
office, and then trying to coerce another justice into backing him,
saying he wasn’t “going down alone.”

The court didn’t suspend McCaffery with pay because the Judicial
Conduct Board hasn’t filed formal charges, a reason cited in the
dissent. The Express Times
reports:

Entering a dissenting opinion, Justice Debra McCloskey Todd
said, in part: “No independent investigative body has made any
findings regarding merits or credibility, and, unlike the
suspension of Justice Joan Orie Melvin, no criminal proceedings
have been instituted.” Orie Melvin and her sister, Janine Orie,
were found guilty last year of using court and legislative staffers
to help Orie Melvin get elected, a violation of campaign laws.

The conduct board lacks the resources and manpower for the
“enormous effort” of the investigation ordered into McCaffery’s
conduct, [Chief Justice Ronald] Castille wrote.

“The most recent misconduct of Justice McCaffery — forwarding
sexually explicit pornographic emails to employees of the Attorney
General’s Office (and, in one instance, an email depicting a naked
100-year-old woman as the target of a sexually explicit joke and a
video of a woman in sexual congress with a snake that is clearly
obscene and may violate the Crimes Code Section on Obscenity) — has
caused the Supreme Court to be held up to public ridicule,”
Castille wrote. “This conduct deserves the immediate action as
implemented by this court today.”

Among the images sent by McCaffery, according to The
Times, one of the images showed a woman having sex with a
snake that could be illegal.

h/t Irish