Plugging tirelessly toward high court

He's been a biker, a Philly police officer, a lawyer, the Eagles Court judge, a Marine, an Air Force colonel, and an appellate judge. And now, Seamus P. McCaffery wants more than anything to be a justice on Pennsylvania's highest court.

With just seven days until next Tuesday's election, McCaffery, a Democrat from Northeast Philadelphia, hopes voters will see him as a candidate who has worked his way up through life and the law - and will add a populist touch to the oldest appellate court in the nation.

"I am the personification of the American dream," McCaffery, 57, who is a state Superior Court judge, told the party faithful at the 55th Democratic Ward meeting in Mayfair on Thursday night.

McCaffery is an Irish immigrant who worked his way through college and law school at night during his 20 years on the police force. His campaign has raised $1.9 million - more than any other candidate in an election that has already broken fund-raising records in a Pennsylvania high court race.

He has received significant contributions from organized labor and, like most judicial candidates, from lawyers, too. And he hopes those supporters will be joined at the polls by veterans and even fellow motorcyclists he has met at picnics, parades and pot-luck dinners in the state's 67 counties.

"My image - my profile - it sells across political lines," said McCaffery, who said he expected Republicans and independents who couldn't vote for him in the primary would support him on Election Day.

McCaffery is one of four candidates running for two seats on the state Supreme Court. The others are Debra Todd, a Democrat from Butler County who is also on the state Superior Court, and Republicans Michael Krancer, a lawyer from Montgomery County who is former chief judge of the state Environmental Hearing Board, and Maureen Lally-Green, a Superior Court judge from Butler County.

In legal circles, McCaffery is regarded as more streetwise hobnobber with a knack for campaigning than nose-in-the-law-books scholar. He is generally considered pro-law enforcement in criminal cases and pro-plaintiff in civil cases. Judges and lawyers who are familiar with him expect that he would be intensely interested in the administrative aspects of the court, such as looking after the patronage-rich Philadelphia court system.

Many think that he would bring the same populism seen on the campaign trail to the high court - and would be a very visible justice.

"It's interesting that he's running for judge," said Lynn Marks, executive director of Pennsylvanians for Modern Courts, a reform group that advocates appointing justices rather than electing them. "It seems like he's a natural for mayor or D.A. or maybe governor."

In rating McCaffery "recommended," the Pennsylvania Bar Association said he "has the requisite legal ability and skills necessary to serve as a Supreme Court justice."

McCaffery wondered why he was not given the more generous "highly recommended" rating that went to Todd and Lally-Green.

"The frustrating thing is that some people . . . don't see the serious jurist," he said.

Gregarious and ebullient, the bald and strapping McCaffery is a commanding figure on the campaign trail. He assured the party workers in Mayfair that he was always going to be a Philadelphian, because his wife had bought a grave for him in the city. "I was a little concerned about that," he said, drawing laughter from the audience. "That was actually a birthday present."

Ward leader Robert Dellavella said McCaffery had the ability to "reach out to the common man," along with an engaging personality. "He's not one of these blue-blooded, on-high judges," Dellavella said. "It's Seamus - it's not Your Honor."

Jack Hanna, who chairs the southwest caucus of the state Democratic Party, said McCaffery would likely play well in many parts of the state. "He's your atypical Philadelphia candidate from the perspective of a Western Pennsylvanian," said Hanna, of Indiana County.

McCaffery said he needs a big local vote.

"I need to roll up huge numbers in eastern Pennsylvania - huge numbers - to win this election," he told the 55th Ward workers, who greeted him with a standing ovation.

His campaign is managed by his wife, Lise Rapaport, who was his $47,261-a-year judicial secretary until she went on leave in January without pay or benefits, according to the Administrative Office of Courts.

McCaffery said he didn't know whether Rapaport, a lawyer, would rejoin him at work if he wins.

McCaffery's road to the bench went through the streets of Philadelphia. As a police officer, he said, he thought judges just didn't understand the plight of victims.

"I saw victims of crime on the street become victims in the courtroom," he said.

It took him 11 years of night school, but McCaffery got his undergraduate degree from La Salle University and his law degree from Temple University.

And then, after five years in private law practice, McCaffery found himself yearning to move up the ladder in the legal field. He was elected to Philadelphia Municipal Court, where he became known as the Eagles Court judge who presided at Veterans Stadium on Sundays, meting out justice to unruly fans.

"Eagles Court propelled my name recognition through the roof," McCaffery said last week, sitting in his spectacular chambers - which were once the office of the chief executive officer of Penn Mutual Insurance Co.

The 17th-floor office features a stunning mahogany desk that is part of the $11,000 worth of furniture he said was bought on eBay. McCaffery said the furnishings were bought with state money from the court's office-furnishing budget.

The chambers may not project a commoner's touch, but McCaffery said his years of working his way up the legal system had prepared him well for a seat on the high court.

"I am the most experienced candidate," McCaffery said.

He said average people relate to him. "The people feel I came up the same exact way they came up," said McCaffery, who said no one had ever asked him for favorable treatment.

"They ask for a level playing field and fairness," he said. "I don't think that's so onerous."

But it has been a long campaign.

McCaffery said some mornings, when he walks past his Harley on the way out for a day of campaigning, the motorcycle seems to be "calling me" to go out for a ride.

But he knows better - so it's back out for another day of stumping. He said: "I am driven to do what I need to do to be elected."