Rough justice

In suspending Justice Seamus McCaffery on Monday and ordering the state's Judicial Conduct Board to conduct an expedited review of allegations against him, his fellow justices took a necessary first step toward restoring a semblance of dignity to the state's highest court.

Recent events have made it excruciatingly clear that the Supreme Court is in a state of disarray. With Justice J. Michael Eakin stopping just short of accusing McCaffery of blackmail in an expanding controversy over pornographic messages, the court had little choice but to act quickly to address this corrosive scandal.

Amid an increasingly public and bitter feud between the two men, Chief Justice Ronald Castille reported last week that McCaffery used a personal account to send or receive 234 e-mails containing sexually explicit material. The Inquirer has reported that McCaffery sent at least 10 such messages to an agent in the Attorney General's Office who shared them with colleagues.

Eakin revealed last week that he had received pornographic e-mails at a private address and that McCaffery had threatened to expose him if he did not pressure the chief justice to desist. (McCaffery has disputed Eakin's account.)

McCaffery's e-mails were among a trove of misogynistic messages traded among state employees and discovered by Attorney General Kathleen Kane's office during a review of the prosecution of Penn State child predator Jerry Sandusky. So far, three ranking officials in Gov. Corbett's administration have left their jobs over the scandal.

McCaffery's weak "if I offended anyone" apology for his involvement, which saved its strongest words for his nemesis Castille, has not undone the damage his behavior has inflicted on the court. And while a citizen complaint has been filed with the Judicial Conduct Board, it's been more than a year since the board began considering separate allegations that McCaffery asked a Traffic Court official to fix a ticket for his wife. Nor has the board acted on reports that McCaffery's wife, while serving as his chief judicial aide, accepted legal referral fees from firms with cases before the court.

The gravity and accumulation of allegations against the justice require extraordinary measures. So it's appropriate that the high court ordered that McCaffery be suspended, that the Judicial Conduct Board decide whether to file charges against him within 30 days, and that attorney Robert Byer serve as special counsel on the matter. The board should consider all the allegations against McCaffery while maintaining its distance from the acrimony among members of the high court.

The state Code of Judicial Conduct notes that "discriminatory actions and expressions of bias or prejudice by a judge, even outside the judge's official or judicial actions, are likely to appear to a reasonable person to call into question the judge's integrity and impartiality." The explicit e-mails have not only called into question the court's impartiality on gender and sexual matters, but have also raised concerns about the appearance of fraternization between members of the judiciary and those who prosecute cases before them.

The remedy is a quick, careful, and transparent judicial disciplinary process. Nothing less than a restoration of the public's confidence in the courts is at stake.