With Melvin's resignation, what now for the Pa. high court? And when?

HARRISBURG - Who will fill the seventh seat on Pennsylvania's highest court, and when? What role will politics play?

Within hours of Monday's resignation by a state Supreme Court justice facing criminal sentencing, those questions swirled through legal and political circles from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia.

The resignation by Justice Joan Orie Melvin, who is to be sentenced May 7 for illegal use of state staff and resources for her campaigns, sparked calls for swift action on a successor, along with rumors about who might get the nod.

Gov. Corbett said he would nominate someone "as soon as practical" after Melvin's effective resignation date, May 1.

But Chief Justice Ronald D. Castille hinted that his court might take matters into its own hands by naming a semiretired senior judge to fill the post until a new justice is elected in 2015.

Castille, a Republican, noted that anyone Corbett nominated would need a two-thirds vote of the state Senate for confirmation - so the Republican governor would have to reach across the aisle.

"The Democrats might want something for their support," Castille told reporters here after a lunchtime speech. "That is typical of politics."

Castille said he was concerned about getting the court back to its full compliment. "A 3-3 decision by our court is kind of meaningless," he said. Such outcomes "are bad for us, they are bad for everybody."

There is precedent for the justices' having a senior judge fill in temporarily - that is what happened before Justice Rolf Larsen's 1994 impeachment. But Bruce Ledewitz, a law professor at Duquesne University who has studied the high court, said there should be no confusion: The state constitution gives the governor the authority to fill the vacancy.

Ledewitz also said nothing prevented Corbett from acting swiftly to name an interim justice who agreed not to seek a full 10-year term in 2015.

"There is a certain kind of person who can fit the bill," said Ledewitz, "because a two-thirds vote in the Senate is a very high hurdle. . . . And that means it's got to be someone who can't run, somebody older who will run into mandatory retirement, somebody who is respected, and somebody who is not controversial. The kind of consensus required by the process doesn't have to take a long time."

Even so, 34 votes are needed for confirmation; the GOP has 27 seats in the 50-member Senate. And the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee said Democrats had already made a pact not to support any nominee they considered overly partisan or too closely tied to Corbett.

"There is no reason a Democrat can't be nominated or a Republican that is moderate," Sen. Daylin Leach (D., Montgomery) told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. He said the appointee should not "have a history of pushing the governor's agenda. There is nothing dishonorable about that, but we don't want it in a Supreme Court justice."

The Post-Gazette said names already being mentioned as possible appointees to the vacancy included Michael Krancer, who just last week announced he was leaving the post of environmental secretary in Corbett's cabinet; Stephen Aichele, who is Corbett's chief of staff; and Philadelphia lawyer William R. Sasso.

Melvin, who had been suspended from her judicial duties since August and was convicted Feb. 21, said in a letter to Corbett that she was resigning "with deep regret and a broken heart. . . . I am deeply saddened that I am not able to fulfill my commission."

As Corbett noted, her resignation "will save taxpayers the time and expense of impeachment proceedings" in the General Assembly. Legislators had already started that ball rolling in the event that Melvin, who has long contended that the charges against her grew out of a political vendetta by a local prosecutor, did not step down.

An Allegheny County jury found Melvin guilty last month of using judicial staff, as well as the staffers of another sister, former State Sen. Jane Orie, to work on the justice's campaigns in 2003 and 2009 for the Supreme Court. Melvin, 56, was found guilty on six of seven counts against her, including conspiracy, theft of services, and misapplication of government funds. Her sister was convicted a year ago on similar charges.

Once Melvin's resignation takes effect, Corbett will have 90 days to name an interim justice to fill her seat. Though judges are required to be "unswayed" by partisan interests, people in politics invariably point out that the court is now split 3-3 between Republicans and Democrats; Melvin is a Republican.

Her exit comes at a time when several major cases are pending before the court - including legal challenges to a Marcellus Shale law's impact on local zoning, the GOP-led legislative reapportionment, and the controversial voter-identification law that Corbett signed in 2012.

Since the vacancy will occur within 10 months of the next judicial election, in November, the governor is tasked with finding a temporary replacement. An interim justice would serve until January 2016, following the next judicial election in November 2015.

Castille called Melvin's resignation "a sad day" for the court.

The chancellor of the Philadelphia Bar Association, Kathleen D. Wilkinson, issued a statement Monday urging Corbett and the state Senate to confirm a replacement "as soon as possible, so that the state Supreme Court can be restored to its full complement of seven justices to ensure unfettered access to justice for the citizens of Pennsylvania."

On that point, at least, everyone agreed - even Melvin. Her letter of resignation said, "The citizens of Pennsylvania deserve a fully staffed Supreme Court."

Ledewitz, who has sparred with Castille in the past, echoed the chief justice's concerns about the impact of 3-3 split decisions. Such outcomes undermine the justices' role as "a court of last resort" by simply reaffirming a lower court's ruling, while not settling key legal questions, the law professor said.

"And that is their job," he said. "This period of a crippled court has been terrible."

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Tim McNulty of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette contributed to this article.