PA Judge Dinged By State Bar For Filthy Ad Campaign

Not exactly a credit to the profession.

(Image via Getty)

Judges, they’re just like us. Which is to say, they are also assholes a lot of the time. Witness one Kevin Brobson, the president judge of Pennsylvania’s Commonwealth Court who is currently running to fill a vacant seat on the state’s Supreme Court.

As reported by the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Pennsylvania Bar Association’s Judicial Campaign Advertising Committee just sent the Republican judge a letter demanding that he retract an ad attacking his Democratic opponent, Superior Court Judge Maria McLaughlin for a 2017 panel decision in which she concurred that a defendant was entitled to withdraw his guilty plea based on ineffective assistance of counsel. (Professing profound remorse, the defendant pleaded guilty to the same charges in 2020 and is now in jail.)

Or, as Judge Brobson put it in his ad, McLaughlin “chose to void the guilty plea of a drunk driver who admitted to killing a pregnant woman and her unborn child.”

Which is a pretty filthy mischaracterization, particularly coming from a member of the judiciary. Hence the letter from the Committee reprimanding Brobson for violating the Judicial Campaign Advertising Guidelines’ edict that “Factual claims regarding the qualifications or performance of candidates or their opponents should not omit or obscure information necessary to prevent misinterpretation or distortion.” According to the Inquirer, which got a copy of the letter, the Committee instructed Brobson to “immediately withdraw” the 30-second spot, which is currently airing in the Philadelphia, Harrisburg, and Scranton markets, or put out a press release clarifying “those portions of the advertisement that the JCAC has found to be in violation of its Guidelines.”

It’s not clear how this letter got out, but Brobson’s campaign has seized on the leak to discredit the Committee’s claims.

“Our campaign and Judge Brobson are gravely concerned that a process designed to sort out disputes between campaigns over advertisements in a confidential setting has been compromised. We respected the process,” campaign manager Tim Craine told the Inquirer. Characterizing the criticism as “picayune,” he huffed that the Committee had “lost any credibility.”

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Craine also purported to be shocked that McLaughlin, a former assistant district attorney, “has repeatedly and falsely referred to herself in the present tense, as ‘the only prosecutor in the race.’ She is not currently a prosecutor. She is a judge.”

Because the best defense is a good offense.

For her part, McLaughlin decried the leak, while castigating her opponent for playing dirty.

“Besides casting a shadow on Judge McLaughlin, this type of politics in judicial elections casts a shadow on our entire judiciary,” her campaign manager Celeste Dee told the Inquirer.

With the retirement of Republican Judge Thomas Saylor, the court will either retain its 5-2 liberal majority, or flip to 6-1. But even though control of the court is not at stake, the race is hotly contested, with $3 million in funding pouring in for Brobson, and $2 million for McLaughlin.

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The election is next Tuesday, November 2. Just one more week and this will all be over. Except for the stink of Judge Brobson’s disgraceful conduct — that will linger for a long while.

Pa. Bar Association criticizes TV ad by GOP candidate for state Supreme Court [Philadelphia Inquirer]


Elizabeth Dye lives in Baltimore where she writes about law and politics.