Former Pa. Supreme Court justice disbarred

PITTSBURGH (AP) — Former Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice Joan Orie Melvin has agreed to be disbarred as a result of her conviction on campaign corruption charges, which also led to her resignation from office.

Melvin submitted the resignation of her law license on Dec. 9. That resignation was accepted Thursday by the Supreme Court, but not announced until today.

In her resignation, Melvin acknowledged she is the subject of a complaint pending before the Disciplinary Board of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. That stemmed from her 2013 conviction on charges that she had her state-paid Superior Court staff work on her political campaigns on state time when she ran for the Supreme Court in 2003 and 2009.

Melvin recently ended her appeals, challenging a sentence requiring her to send pictures of herself in handcuffs to other state judges.