Skip to content
Politics
Link copied to clipboard

In 11th hour bid, Kane seeks reinstatement of her law license

On the eve of a critical Senate hearing on her political future, Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen G. Kane on Monday asked the state Supreme Court to reinstate her law license.

On the eve of a critical Senate hearing on her political future, Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen G. Kane on Monday asked the state Supreme Court to reinstate her law license.

Kane contended that when the high court voted unanimously to temporarily suspend her law license last fall, its opinion was "incurably tainted" by Justice J. Michael Eakin's involvement in the Porngate scandal.

Kane said Eakin was aware that she had access to several dozen emails with pornographic and other offensive content that he sent or received on a personal email account. The emails were captured on state computer servers because a deputy attorney general, using his government email account, took part in the exchanges.

"Justice Eakin's participation was not just a lapse in judgment, but rather was a knowing and deliberate attempt to remove his accuser," Kane contended in court papers filed Monday afternoon.

Kane's lawyer, James F. Mundy, said he hoped to receive a decision in the matter before 1 p.m. Tuesday, when a state Senate committee is to hold its final hearing on whether Kane should be removed from office. However, it is unlikely the high court will move that swiftly.

For several months, the committee has been exploring whether Kane, a Democrat, can continue to function as the state's top law enforcement officer without an active law license. The state constitution requires the attorney general to be a lawyer, and the committee has heard testimony from constitutional experts that most of her duties require her to act as a lawyer.

The high court suspended Kane's law license after she was charged with perjury and other offenses for allegedly leaking confidential grand jury material in a big to embarrass a critic. She has pleaded not guilty.

After its hearing Tuesday, the Senate committee is expected to produce a report to recommend whether the full Senate should vote to remove her. The constitution provides that she and other elected officials may be removed by the governor for "reasonable cause," after a two-thirds vote in the Senate.

"If the Senate were to give the governor power to remove her, the constitution provides no remedy to put her back in there - you can't take it back," Mundy said. "It's called irreparable harm."

Eakin, a Republican from Cumberland County, was temporarily suspended last month by the Court of Judicial Discipline. The three-judge panel found that Eakin's participation in the email scandal had jeopardized the public's trust in the judiciary. A formal trial to determine further discipline, if any, for Eakin is expected early this year.

Last week, three new justices - all Democrats - were sworn in on the state Supreme Court. With Eakin's suspension, Chief Justice Thomas Saylor is only Republican on the Supreme Court.

The porn email scandal first roiled the Supreme Court in late 2014, when Justice Seamus McCaffery suddenly retired after he was linked to hundreds of offensive emails.

Afterward, the court hired an outside lawyer to review all emails sent or received by all justices. The lawyer found Eakin's "unremarkable."

Kane raised the issue of Eakin's emails anew in the fall. She did so after he joined his colleagues on the Supreme Court in unanimously voting to suspend her law license.

Kane made public several dozen Eakin emails, including ones that contained pictures and videos of topless women, and supposed jokes at the expense of gays, lesbians, feminists, and others.

Eakin has apologized for the messages, saying they do not reflect his character.

Kane argued in her emergency petition that Eakin should have recused himself from the vote to suspend her license, and that judicial impartiality is critical to her right to due process.

While Eakin was only one of five justices to vote to suspend Kane's license in September, her lawyers argued that he might have influenced the entire court through his powers of persuasion. "Appellate judges do not operate in silos," they wrote.

Despite Kane's emergency petition, Senate lawyers said Monday that Tuesday's committee hearing would proceed as scheduled.

acouloumbis@phillynews.com

717-787-5934 @AngelasInk