Re: PLC Blogging April 21 2007
John Micek has a round up of yesterday’s festivities at Capitol Ideas.
This morning’s breakfast meeting was a judicial candidates forum. Supreme Court Justice Saylor was on the panel as well as candidates Judge Mike Krancer and Judge Maureen Lally-Green.
All gave brief remarks and were followed up by a round of questions.
Former PMA president Jim Panyard asked a great one out of the gate…. it was regarding the Duquesne Law School professor and frequent court critic Bruce Ledewitz and what boils down to a threat by Justice Ron Castille on the professor.
The professor accussed the court of being “even more corrupt than the Legislature” and swindling the state over the payraise issue.
Justice Castille responded by saying
they are charges that an attorney cannot make against the Supreme Court and its members without subjecting that attorney to possible sanctions by the Disciplinary Board. The charges appear to me to be clear violations of the Rules of Professional Conduct and therefore worthy of the Board’s attention.
In response, Justice Saylor, Judges Lally-Green and Krancer all responded basically that freedom of speech works in both directions… but none were willing to directly address the accusation or threat of disciplinary retribution… and circled around it terribly… in his follow up Panyard addressed the question again, noting that no answer was given.
A disappointing response especially from Judge Michael Krancer who said that as a litigator he had been subject to judicial imperiousness and joined the bench specifically as a result of that.
I would hate to think their answers were due to their understanding of the possible sanctions of the Disciplinary Board. It sounds like a terrible way to force people to be nice to the court.
It’s supposed to be airing on PCN, I will do my best to get a copy of the text of their responses.
Candidates Darnell Jones and Paul Panepinto though scheduled were not able to attend. My understanding is that Judge Panepinto had a familial emergency over night.
For the record, Harrisburg Patriot-News’ reporter Brett Lieberman is not as tall as I imagined he’d be. 
Next up is a speech by former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich.
Update: More on the answers from John Micek.
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