Deal seen in the works for embattled Justice Eakin

Embattled Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice J. Michael Eakin faces a hastily called hearing Thursday that experts say points to a likely deal on charges that he violated judicial ethics rules through his involvement in the pornographic emails scandal.

The potentially critical hearing before the full Court of Judicial Discipline comes as the state Judicial Conduct Board, the court's investigatory arm, made public documents that raised further questions about its first attempt to investigate Eakin.

Attorney General Kathleen G. Kane said in a statement late Wednesday that those documents proved her contention that the board had given Eakin a pass.

Eakin's lawyer, William Costopoulos, would not discuss Thursday's hearing in Pittsburgh except to call it "a major step."

But in court documents he filed jointly this week with the Judicial Conduct Board, the two sides said they had reached agreement on unspecified aspects of the case that "could lead to a resolution."

"You don't hurriedly schedule a hearing unless there's a deal - of course there's a deal," Duquesne University law professor Bruce Ledewitz, an expert on the state Supreme Court, said Wednesday.

The conduct board filed ethics charges against Eakin last year, accusing him of "conduct so extreme that it brought the judicial office into disrepute."

Eakin did so, the board alleges, by exchanging with friends emails with images of unclothed women and jokes that demeaned women, minorities, and others.

Last year, the board was widely criticized for its initial review of Eakin in 2014, which cleared him of any wrongdoing, praised him for his cooperation, and called his emails only "mildly pornographic."

The clearance letter came from the board's top lawyer, Robert Graci, whom the Daily News later reported had been a campaign operative for Eakin and was a friend of his. After the Daily News story broke, Graci removed himself from the case.

Last month, the Court of Judicial Discipline demanded that the board answer harsh questions about that 2014 probe. In a response made public this week, the board:

- Admitted it did not require Eakin to testify under oath and kept no transcripts of his three interviews. Lawyer Samuel Stretton, an expert on judicial discipline in Pennsylvania, said this was a departure from routine practice by the board.

- Refused to say whether Graci or Eakin had disclosed their political and social ties in 2014. It dismissed the question as irrelevant.

- Revealed that Eakin did not provide investigators with any emails, saying he had not kept any.

- Contended that Kane, who found Eakin's troubling emails on government computers, gave the board an incomplete set of his messages.

Kane has said that the board ignored her when she told it she had more messages to share.

Ledewitz expressed similar sentiments.

"It shows that, as Attorney General Kane has charged, Eakin was handled with kid gloves," Ledewitz said.

Kane, in her statement, was even more pointed.

"It is time for the JCB [Judicial Conduct Board] to admit what the citizens of the commonwealth now all know: We have two systems of justice in Pennsylvania," she said.

"One for the haves like Justice Eakin, where disciplinary investigations become nothing more than a whitewash designed to sweep hate-filled emails under the rug, and one for the rest of us - the have-nots."

Eakin, 67, a Republican who has served on the court since 2002, has apologized for the messages, saying they do not reflect his character.

The Court of Judicial Discipline, which normally consists of eight judges and lay people appointed by the governor and the Supreme Court, and meets throughout the state, could clear him or impose punishment ranging from an admonishment to an order removing him from the Supreme Court and stripping him of his pension.

The conduct board launched a second inquiry into the justice's emails last fall under pressure from Kane, who asserted that the first had been grossly inadequate.

Eakin's emails became public as part of the unfolding Porngate scandal that has led to the resignations of a number of high-ranking officials, including former Supreme Court Justice Seamus McCaffery.

McCaffery suddenly retired in 2014 and kept his pension under a widely criticized deal under which the conduct board dropped an investigation of him.

Ledewitz said he hoped that any negotiated settlement with Eakin also contained a full appraisal of his conduct.

"I hope that the Judicial Conduct Board is not trying to sweep this under the rug as they did with Seamus McCaffery," he said.

The emails in question were discovered by Kane, whose office found the messages while conducting an unrelated review.

They were captured on the attorney general's computer servers because the office for years had served as the hub for the exchange of pornography and other offensive content among judges, defense lawyers, prosecutors, and other law enforcement officials.

acouloumbis@phillynews.com717-787-5934@AngelasInk