Post by Logan on Jan 24, 2016 21:56:40 GMT -6
A report that two more Pennsylvania Supreme Court justices were no strangers to the state's sprawling electronic profanity exchange shows why the high court has been widely urged to order an independent investigation of the scandal - and why it hasn't done so.
Given Attorney General Kathleen Kane's propensity to disclose the emails selectively to maximize distraction from her own travails, only an independent investigation can determine the true extent of the official traffic in pornographic and bigoted emails. Such an investigation would no doubt show that many judges and prosecutors haven't had anything to do with such communications. But it would also reveal that many have.
Over the past year, the high court and judicial disciplinary officials have reluctantly roused themselves to effectively expel one justice, Seamus P. McCaffery, and suspend another, J. Michael Eakin, both of whom sent and received offensive emails. But the Inquirer reported this week that two sitting justices, Max Baer and Kevin Dougherty, who was sworn in this month, also received such emails.
Of course, distinctions have to be made between incidental recipients and avid distributors. But that information has been similarly obscured by the Supreme Court's failure to bring about an independent investigation.
Continued at www.philly.com/philly/opinion/20160122_Crisis_of_credibility.html .
Given Attorney General Kathleen Kane's propensity to disclose the emails selectively to maximize distraction from her own travails, only an independent investigation can determine the true extent of the official traffic in pornographic and bigoted emails. Such an investigation would no doubt show that many judges and prosecutors haven't had anything to do with such communications. But it would also reveal that many have.
Over the past year, the high court and judicial disciplinary officials have reluctantly roused themselves to effectively expel one justice, Seamus P. McCaffery, and suspend another, J. Michael Eakin, both of whom sent and received offensive emails. But the Inquirer reported this week that two sitting justices, Max Baer and Kevin Dougherty, who was sworn in this month, also received such emails.
Of course, distinctions have to be made between incidental recipients and avid distributors. But that information has been similarly obscured by the Supreme Court's failure to bring about an independent investigation.
Continued at www.philly.com/philly/opinion/20160122_Crisis_of_credibility.html .