Mike Eakin, a Republican candidate for state Supreme Court, said his experience as a prosecutor gives him more sensitivity as a judge.

Eakin made a campaign stop at the Mercer County Courthouse Wednesday. He is running against Pittsburgh Democrat Kate Ford Elliott, who has been on the state Superior Court bench for the past dozen years.

"As a former district attorney, I understand the problems and pressures facing police and prosecutors in the pursuit of criminals," said Eakin, a state Superior Court judge for the past six years.

"Police and prosecutors must respect civil liberties, but should not have their hands unduly tied in their efforts to protect the public," Eakin said.

Eakin said he tried hundreds of cases during a dozen years as Cumberland County DA. Most notably, Eakin crusaded against drunken driving.

When he became DA in the early 1980s, Cumberland County averaged about two dozen drunken driving-related traffic fatalities a year, Eakin said. Within three years, and for the rest of stint as DA, fatalities remained in single digits, Eakin said.

He is a past president of the Pennsylvania District Attorneys Association.

The Associated Press has reported that the race between Eakin and Elliott was the first in the country to involve negative campaigning since the Sept. 11 atrocities. The race is hotly contested because Republicans and Democrats are fighting for majority of the bench.

Elliott said negative ads were run against her by the Republican State Committee; Eakin said they were run without his approval. Eakin said he was "personally attacked" by a Democratic state senator from Philadelphia on behalf of Elliott, who spoke after him at an FOP dinner in the city.

Eakin said he could become the first state Supreme Court justice to lace opinions with "Dr. Seuss-level rhymes."

Eakin said he has replaced stuffy legalese with rhymes in several of his decisions while on the Superior Court bench. He said he has been interviewed about his rhyming opinions by media outlets from as far away as England and Australia and was once quoted on the Dr. Laura television talk show. "The law is usually pretty boring," he said. "If it was not inappropriate," he said he would consider rhyming on the state's highest court bench. "I would not rule it out," he said.

Eakin earned a bachelor's degree from Franklin & Marshall College and a law degree from Dickinson School of Law. He was in private practice for about a decade with his father. Eakin is the married father of three sons.

The state Supreme Court is the highest judicial authority in the state. In addition to being the final court of appeals, it hears decisions of the Superior and Commonwealth courts and, in some cases, ones from Courts of Common Pleas. The Supreme Court also may take any case pending before a lower court if it involves an issue of immediate public importance.

There are seven Supreme Court justices. The term is 10 years and the salary is $133,643.