The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has suspended Justice Seamus McCaffery over the allegations rising from the widening porn email scandal gripping Harrisburg. In the Order by the seven remaining justices, the case will be forwarded to the Judicial Conduct Board to determine if formal misconduct charges should be filed against Justice McCaffery. 
Justice McCaffery has been involved in a recent war of words with Chief Justice Ronald Castille. Castille released the following statement regarding McCaffery’s suspension.
“In my two decades of experience on this court, no other justice . . . has done as much to bring the Supreme Court into disrepute,” Chief Justice Ronald D. Castille wrote in a statement released with the order. “No other justice has failed to live up to the high ethical demands required of a justice of this court or has been the constant focus of ethical lapses to the degree of Justice McCaffery.”
Justice McCaffery responded.
“Today’s action against Justice McCaffery should surprise no one, given Chief Justice Castille’s relentless crusade to destroy his career and reputation. We will continue in our efforts to expose the malicious intent behind this effort to take down Justice McCaffery. We are confident that he will be cleared of any wrongdoing and returned to the bench soon.”
It will be interesting to watch how this continues to develop. McCaffery has said int he past that he would not go down alone and would take another Justice with him. Now its a wait and see. The Justice that seems centered around McCaffery’s comments could be Justice Michael Eakin.
McCaffery and Justice J. Michael Eakin abstained from Monday’s vote. Eakin last week accused McCaffery of threatening to leak to reporters pornographic and racially tinged e-mails that Eakin had received, allegedly telling Eakin he “was not going down alone.”
This is the latest in a series of mishaps by the Commonwealth’s highest Court. The most recent involved former Justice Joan Melvin Orie, who was forced to resign after being convicted by a jury on public corruption charges, mainly charges stemming from using her Superior Court office in her campaign for the Supreme Court.
