In June, former Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas Judge Joseph A. Jaffe, who was sentenced to 27 months in prison in 2003 and disbarred in 2004 for attempting to extort a lawyer who appeared before him, petitioned to have his law license reinstated, only to withdraw the petition earlier this month in the face of strong opposition from both the state Office of Disciplinary Counsel and at least one current member of the judiciary.
The Pennsylvania bar has a long history of readmitting lawyers and judges who have paid a penalty for their indiscretions, but at a time when a sitting Pennsylvania Supreme Court justice is suspended from the bench while she awaits a criminal trial and the state is still reeling in the aftermath of the “kids-for-cash” judicial scandal in Luzerne County, is the legal community less willing to forgive than it has been in the past?
