State Supreme Court judge suspended
J. Michael Eakin, an associate justice of the state Supreme Court, was suspended last week due to his participation in a sexist, racist and anti-LGBT email ring.
On Dec. 22, the state’s Court of Judicial Discipline indefinitely suspended Eakin, but he’ll continue to receive his salary and medical benefits. His annual salary is $203,409.
Eakin sent and/or received numerous emails mocking the LGBT community, among other groups. During a Dec. 21 hearing in Easton, Eakin apologized for participating in the email scandal. He said the offensive emails had no impact on his judicial work.
But in its Dec. 22 ruling, the CJD said emails exchanged by Eakin were “insensitive and inappropriate towards matters involving gender, race, sexual orientation and ethnicity.”
The CJD added: “This court is deeply and profoundly troubled by even a remote possibility that the patently discriminatory and offensive views and attitudes expressed in the emails underlying this case may have impacted Justice Eakin’s judicial work.”
A pre-trial conference is scheduled for 1:30 p.m. Jan. 21 in the Commonwealth Court Courtroom at the Judicial Center in Harrisburg. The public is permitted to attend.
Court proceeding set in sex-offense case
Montgomery County Common Pleas Judge Gail A. Weilheimer will preside over a pre-trial conference in the case of a Center City musician charged with multiple sex offenses.
Charles L. Cohen was arrested Sept. 28 after traveling to a shopping complex in Upper Providence Township, where he allegedly intended to meet a 14-year-old boy for oral sex. Instead, Cohen was arrested by law-enforcement authorities engaged in a sting operation.
Cohen, 70, is charged with unlawful contact with a minor, criminal attempt of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse with a child and criminal use of a communication facility. But Cohen’s attorneys insist he’s innocent of all charges.
A pre-trial conference is set for 9 a.m. Feb. 9 in Courtroom 3 of the Montgomery County Court House in Norristown.
Cohen posted $100,000 cash bail on Oct. 28, and has been free since then.
Records subpoenaed in benefits dispute
An attorney for a gay man who seeks the death benefits of his deceased partner recently issued a subpoena for records that may help his client’s case.
Joseph A. Hallman seeks about $450,000 in death benefits allegedly left to him by his deceased partner, Stephen T. Gallagher.
Barry F. Penn, an attorney for Hallman, recently subpoenaed records from ADP, a company that helps administer the University of Pennsylvania’s employee-benefits program. Gallagher worked at the university as a computer specialist prior to his death in 2011.
Penn said the information yielded from the subpoena may bolster Hallman’s case for Gallagher’s death benefits.
Hallman and Gallagher were domestic partners for about four years, before parting ways in 2009. Gallagher’s mother, Joann P. Gallagher, contends that she’s entitled to her son’s death benefits.
In 2014, Orphans’ Court Judge John W. Herron ruled against Hallman, stating that he failed to prove he was the designated beneficiary for Gallagher’s life-insurance policies.
As a result, the proceeds should go to Joann Gallagher as the default beneficiary, according to Herron’s ruling.
But Hallman appealed in state Superior Court, and in July the court remanded the case back to Philadelphia Orphans’ Court for further consideration.
Penn said he expects to receive ADP’s records within the next few weeks.
No decision on SEPTA dispute
There was no word this week on whether the state Supreme Court will review a lower-court ruling exempting SEPTA from the city’s LGBT-inclusive antibias rules.
SEPTA is the region’s mass-transit system, serving more than 650,000 riders daily in Philadelphia, four surrounding counties and parts of New Jersey and Delaware.
In August, the state Commonwealth Court issued a controversial ruling, allowing SEPTA to avoid compliance with the city’s Fair Practices Ordinance.
The court noted that SEPTA is a state agency, and the state’s antibias law isn’t LGBT-inclusive.
In September, city officials asked the state Supreme Court to overturn the Commonwealth Court’s ruling.
If SEPTA is exempted from local anti-bias rules, many LGBT riders and employees of SEPTA will lose important antibias protections, according to the city.
A request by the ACLU of Pennsylvania and Mazzoni Center to file statements in support of the city’s position is also pending before the state’s top court.
— Timothy Cwiek