After Traffic Court Corruption Report Leaked, Justice Removed From Oversight

Now this is how we do it in Philadelphia! You may remember a few months back, a private report documenting widespread corruption and ticket-fixing was leaked to the press, generating plenty of stories and public outrage about how a chosen few people with connections could get away with traffic offenses in the city. Now the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has responded to that broken system … by punishing the justice who commissioned the report. Chief Justice Ronald D. Castille was removed from his post as liason to the Philadelphia court system by a vote of five of his fellow justices. “His colleagues were reportedly outraged that the report was given to The Inquirer and released to the public without their being able to weigh in on deciding whether it should be made public or deemed an internal document,” the Inky reports today. “Castille received copies of the report one day before its contents were detailed in the newspaper.” And, you know, certain protocols must be observed: Giving your colleagues a heads-up about the release of a big corruption report is a nice thing to do. It would be nicer, though, if the state court took as strong an action to fixing Traffic Court as it just did in punishing the whistleblower. But there’s no reason to expect that, is there? It’s the whistleblowers who will be punished.  [Inquirer]