No longer handcuffed, ex-judge mails out apology letters
PITTSBURGH (AP) — A former Pennsylvania Supreme Court justice has finally mailed apology letters to every other judge in the state as part of her criminal sentence for using her state-paid staff to run her political campaigns.
Other judges began receiving Joan Orie Melvin’s letters Thursday which begin with the sentence, “Please allow me to apologize for my conduct.”
The Allegheny County judge who sentenced her had rejected previous letters in which Melvin acknowledged only being found guilty “as a matter of law” telling Melvin, that “isn’t an apology.”
An appeals court overturned a requirement that Melvin write the apologies on a picture of her in handcuffs saying that was designed only to “shame and humiliate her.”
Melvin is also serving three years of house arrest and was fined $55,000.