Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court is set to hear arguments in Philadelphia on Tuesday over whether the chief lawyer for Penn State when the Jerry Sandusky scandal broke should face public censure.
The state’s lawyer disciplinary board recommended that punishment in March for Cynthia Baldwin, who is a former state Supreme Court justice. The board did not recommend that her license be suspended or taken.
The board has leveled several claims against Baldwin regarding her conduct as investigators ramped up their probe of Sandusky. Sandusky, Penn State’s former defensive football coach, is serving a state prison sentence on a 45-count child sexual abuse conviction in 2012.
The board said Baldwin had a conflict of interest because she represented both the university and three of its top administrators during a grand jury investigation into Sandusky’s conduct.
In an August filing, Samuel Napoli, an Office of Disciplinary Counsel lawyer arguing the case against Baldwin, said she had “betrayed her clients” by testifying before a grand jury about their communications. She’s also accused of having engaged in conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice, according to Napoli, because her allegedly improper testimony to the grand jury led to the dismissal of some of the criminal charges faced by former Penn State President Graham Spanier, former Vice President Gary Schultz and former Athletic Director Tim Curley.
A board hearing panel that considered the case before the full board took it up had recommended the case against Baldwin be dismissed. The lawyer disciplinary proceedings are administrative, not criminal, and the board indicated it felt a license suspension was not warranted.
Baldwin’s lawyer, Charles DeMonaco, said in a brief last month that the justices should side with the hearing committee, not the full board, and conclude she did not violate the rules of professional conduct for lawyers.
“It is nearly impossible to gauge what is in the best interest of a client or to provide sound legal advice when the client lies about his or her situation and the underlying facts,” DeMonaco said.
Baldwin accompanied Curley, Schultz and Spanier to grand jury appearances in 2011, before Sandusky was charged with child molestation.
Schultz and Curley pleaded guilty to misdemeanor child endangerment on the eve of trial in 2017 for their response to a 2001 complaint about Sandusky showering with a boy and served brief jail terms. Spanier was convicted of child endangerment, but that charge was recently thrown out by a federal judge, a decision under appeal by state prosecutors.
