Lawyer's name runs through email traffic

Flip through the formal misconduct charges against state Supreme Court Justice J. Michael Eakin and you can't help but wonder: Who is Terrence J. McGowan?

McGowan, a Harrisburg lawyer, is cited more than 70 times in the complaint the Judicial Conduct Board filed in December, alleging that Eakin had "detracted from the dignity of his office" through his involvement in the Porngate email scandal.

Thanks primarily to scores of emails sent to him by McGowan, Eakin is awaiting trial before the Court of Judicial Discipline for exchanging emails that included salacious pictures and jokes that demeaned women, minorities, and religious groups.

McGowan, 57, who has a criminal defense practice representing clients on charges ranging from drunken driving to homicide, did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

McGowan is expected to be a witness at Eakin's judicial trial. State judicial prosecutors and Eakin's lawyers both say they plan to call him to the stand.

In the 51-page complaint against Eakin, McGowan's name is mentioned more than twice as often as the names of other key players - including Seamus P. McCaffery, the first justice to be forced off the high court in the scandal.

McGowan's emails provide a glimpse of how the taint extended beyond the Supreme Court to offices throughout his home turf of Dauphin County - with his messages going to at least six federal prosecutors, two county judges, the chief public defender, and the district attorney and his first assistant.

Bruce Ledewitz, a Duquesne University law school professor, said the emails revealed excessively "chummy relationships" among judges, defense attorneys, and prosecutors.

"You only send them and receive them from someone you're close to," Ledewitz said.

Critics worry that the coziness of the private exchanges are eroding public confidence in the justice system.

They say people who feel they were wronged by the private exchanges could clog the system with appeals. Similarly, if it appears that some people got favorable treatment, that can undermine faith in the judiciary.

With Eakin's trial more than a month away, there is no quick end in sight.

The chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania said last week that he would open a review of court cases involving prosecutors who had received questionable emails.

Court records show that McGowan repeatedly sent lewd and racially insensitive emails to some of the prosecutors he was facing when he was a court-appointed attorney in the Middle District, which covers roughly half of the state.

Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen G. Kane made public the emails released so far because the messages were captured on her office's email servers.

Several distinct groups were circulating lewd and otherwise insensitive emails. McGowan appears to be one of the most active participants in a network that included Eakin.

Nothing in the email traffic indicates that McGowan privately discussed his court cases with judges or prosecutors.

An Inquirer review of court records showed that judges who received the racially offensive or sexually oriented messages had ruled on McGowan's cases. And records show that some federal prosecutors got racially offensive emails from McGowan while they were prosecuting black and Latino clients he represented.

"I think half the city of Harrisburg received the emails from him," said Dauphin County District Attorney Edward M. Marsico Jr., who acknowledged that for a period of "a couple years" McGowan sent him such emails before Marsico told him to stop.

"He was very prolific," Marsico said, conceding that he should have put a stop to McGowan's emails much earlier but was reluctant to confront him.

Marsico said he had known McGowan for a quarter of a century, dating to the days when they were on opposing sides in court.

McGowan's email blasts went to at least three Common Pleas Court judges who heard his cases: Dauphin County Judges Bruce F. Bratton and Bernard L. Coates Jr. and Cumberland County Judge M.L. "Skip" Ebert.

Bratton and Ebert did not respond to requests for comment. Coates died last year.

In one instance, in March 2010, McGowan sent an email to a long list of recipients, including Bratton, with an offensive message about Muslim children.

Ebert briefly surfaced in the news last month when The Inquirer reported that he had joined the rest of the Cumberland County bench in asking the Court of Judicial Discipline to clear Eakin.

McGowan sent several federal prosecutors from the Middle District videos or messages that judicial disciplinary officials have labeled offensive or racially insensitive.

In June 2010, McGowan sent three federal prosecutors - Darryl F. Bloom, Bruce D. Brandler, and Joseph J. Terz - a video demeaning to Latinos that contained racial slurs.

At the time, Bloom was prosecuting two Latino men on illegal-immigration charges. McGowan was their court-appointed attorney. Both were convicted.

Middle District Chief Judge Christopher C. Conner said he would conduct a review of emails McGowan had sent to the prosecutors.

"I will look into it," he said.

A U.S. Justice Department spokesman said "a small number of employees" had received emails from McGowan and they had not forwarded them.

He said the officials "were advised on appropriate procedures to follow in the event they receive similar emails in the future." He declined to elaborate.

He would not say whether the office would inform defendants about the emails involving the prosecutors.

McGowan's email communication with the federal prosecutors could spark appeals from people who lost their cases, said Peter F. Vaira, the former U.S. attorney in Philadelphia.

"You're sure as hell going to see guys complaining . . . if it looks like the guys didn't get a fair shake," he said.

Lawrence Fox, a Philadelphia lawyer and supervising lawyer for the Ethics Bureau at Yale Law School, said offensive emails among defense lawyers, prosecutors, and judges could raise the "appearance of impropriety" and trigger a violation of the state's Code of Judicial Conduct.

"A judge can be completely unbiased, but if it looks like he's biased, then the public will not view the courts with the same respect as they should," Fox said.

He said the email scandal has already taken a toll on Pennsylvania's criminal justice system.

"We have to restore the integrity of the courts," Fox said. "If people don't have confidence in the courts, the rule of law is in real jeopardy."

mfazlollah@phillynews.com

215-854-5831

Staff writer Dylan Purcell contributed to this article.