Judicial court freezes proceedings against former Justice Eakin
The judicial tribunal weighing the fate of former Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice J. Michael Eakin abruptly froze his case Tuesday, a move that experts said suggested the case could end without a trial.
The judicial tribunal weighing the fate of former Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice J. Michael Eakin abruptly froze his case Tuesday, a move that experts said suggested the case could end without a trial.
Last week, the government lawyers who in December brought the misconduct case against Eakin over his exchange of offensive emails asked the Court of Judicial Discipline for permission to drop the most serious charge against him: bringing the Supreme Court "into disrepute."
The lawyers did so two days after Eakin, 67, a Republican who was first elected to the high court in 2001, resigned, becoming the second justice to quit the court because of the Porngate scandal.
His decision came after his earlier attempts to reach a deal that would have allowed him to remain on the bench failed.
The move by the lawyers for the Judicial Conduct Board to drop the most serious charge was widely viewed as an effort to help Eakin keep his $153,000 yearly pension.
Of the four charges the panel lodged against him, the one it has asked to drop was the only one to carry the possible penalty of loss of the pension.
In a two-sentence order filed late Tuesday afternoon, the Court of Judicial Discipline said it was stopping all proceedings "until further order" to consider stipulations of fact filed jointly last week by Eakin and the judicial board.
The order came on the eve of a pretrial hearing scheduled for Wednesday in Harrisburg. It also cast into doubt the scheduled Tuesday start of his ethics trial in Philadelphia.
The freeze was approved by all six members of the Court of Judicial Discipline, not just the three who have been sitting on a designated panel to hear the Eakin case.
In the stipulations filed last week, Eakin agreed with the prosecutors that he sent and received about 120 emails that contained sexually oriented photos and dozens of jokes mocking women, minorities, immigrants, and others. The filing consisted mainly of descriptions of each troubling email.
Among other emails, Eakin exchanged messages that joked about domestic violence and the use of date-rape drugs. One said that African Americans did not want to work and would rather live off welfare.
The judicial court is free to accept or reject the stipulations and to drop the charge that could affect the pension loss.
Bruce Antkowiak, a professor of law at St. Vincent's College in Latrobe, Pa., said he viewed the postponement as a clear sign that a deal was being considered. "That's the only way to construe this," he said.
Given the stipulations and Eakin's resignation, Antkowiak said, "the only thing left is the issue of the pension."
Eakin's lawyer, William Costopoulos, has said that there was no need for the former justice to face a public trial because there was basic agreement to the facts of the case.
Eakin has publicly apologized for the emails, and said they did not reflect his true character or his decisions from the bench.
In their filing, the prosecutors with the Judicial Conduct Board said his resignation had saved "trial costs and expenses," sped up the proceeding against him, and helped to "facilitate judicial economy."
Eakin's emails became public because he exchanged many with a friend who worked as a prosecutor for the Attorney General's Office.
Attorney General Kathleen G. Kane raised an alarm about Eakin's emails and those of other officials after she learned they had passed through government computer servers.
In 2014, another justice on the high court, Seamus P. McCaffery, a Democrat, resigned after a selection of his emails containing pornography was made public.
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Staff writer Craig R. McCoy contributed to this article.