Judge Disqualified From Case Because He's 'Facebook Friends' With The Prosecutor

from the a-facebook-friend-doesn't-always-mean-a-friend dept

Wed, Sep 12th 2012 4:28pm — Mike Masnick

A few years back, we noted an ethics opinion in Florida that stated that judges cannot be Facebook friends with lawyers who may appear before them in court. As we noted at the time, this seemed to go pretty far, as Facebook friends didn't mean "personal" friends, and there are lots of people who use Facebook just to connect with anyone they know. Furthermore, there are plenty of reasons why judges and lawyers might know each other through other paths as well. Either way, because of that opinion, a judge in Florida has been disqualified from a case for being Facebook friends with the prosecutor. The other party in the case sought to disqualify the judge claiming that on his Facebook, his "friends" were "only [his] closest friends and associates, persons whom [he] could not perceive with anything but favor, loyalty and partiality."

Oddly, as Venkat Balasubramani notes in the link above, the ruling to disqualify the judge did not focus on the facts around friendship, but around the claim that it's sort of announced publicly. As Venkat notes:

I'm still struggling to see how this is different from other forms of social interaction between lawyers and judges. Social interaction between judges and lawyers happens all the time and is not a basis for disqualification. I think there may be a bit of Facebook exceptionalism going on here.

Related to this, and at the same link, Eric Goldman points out that if we're weighing two different issues: (1) having a judge that understands Facebook and how social interaction commonly works today and (2) the "small possibility of apparent impropriety" it seems that having judges who understand social networking is a more important goal in today's society.

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: florida, friends, judges, lawyers, social networks
Companies: facebook

19 Comments

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...

Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread

Nigel (profile), 12 Sep 2012 @ 4:35pm

Just think if this happened because they play golf together.

The wheels of justice would come to grinding halt.

N.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Ninja (profile), 13 Sep 2012 @ 4:20am
  
  Re:
  If they were playing golf together a MAFIAA representative would be there and they would be appointed as judge and prosecutor in file sharing cases. Impartial, fair and balanced =)
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Coward, 12 Sep 2012 @ 4:57pm

I don't use Facebook, but isn't friending someone basically adding them to your contacts list? From that perspective, it'd be like disqualifying the judge because the prosecutor knew his phone number.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Anonymous Cowherd, 13 Sep 2012 @ 6:51am
  
  Re:
  Yes, it is basically just a contact list. But it's Facebook's fault for using a word that implies a closer relationship.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - The Groove Tiger (profile), 13 Sep 2012 @ 9:38am
    
    Re: Re:
    Once I attended a conference with one of the original programmers of Twitter. He basically said they changed the whole "friend/unfriend" terminology to the "follow/unfollow" one, because people would angst over "why has person x unfriended me? are we no longer friends? what did I do?", and logically users were more wary of "unfriending" their contacts.
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Coward, 12 Sep 2012 @ 5:18pm

Just another example for the history books of how doing something innocuous (being friends) "on the internet" is totally different, and much more sinister, than doing that thing normally.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Coward, 12 Sep 2012 @ 5:29pm

i have a patent on that. pay up
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
MahaliaShere (profile), 12 Sep 2012 @ 6:08pm

Perhaps someone can explain how this is worse than a RIAA lobbyist becoming a judge.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Joseph, 12 Sep 2012 @ 6:52pm

Status Updates
If the prosecutor were to post something about the case on his Facebook account wouldn't the judge see it?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- pyro, 12 Sep 2012 @ 7:13pm
  
  Re: Status Updates
  Do you think that would ever happen?
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - The eejit (profile), 13 Sep 2012 @ 12:27am
    
    Re: Re: Status Updates
    People are morons in groups, so nothing would surprise me: criminals have been cauight by being friends with a police officer on Facebook.
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
kenichi tanaka, 12 Sep 2012 @ 7:40pm

While I think this issue is kind of ridiculous to be disqualified for, I have to agree with the court who ruled against this judge that it does present a problem for any presiding judge who is 'socially' active on any type of level with any judge that attorney or prosecutor has any type of relationship with.

Not only does it present a problem for that judge but that there would be immediate grounds for a appeal based on the fact that the judge had a "perceived" relationship with an attorney or the prosecutor, whichever the case may be.

This judge should have automatically disqualified himself from hearing the case based on the fact that there might be bias on the judge's behalf. It doesn't matter if the judge didn't exert influence for the facebook "friend", there would be a perceived disadvantage for the opposing attorney.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Coward, 12 Sep 2012 @ 9:25pm

Why wasn't this brought up in the TPB case?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- WysiWyg (profile), 14 Sep 2012 @ 10:35am
  
  Re:
  PLEASE tell me that was a joke!
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
kenichi tanaka, 12 Sep 2012 @ 10:04pm

Because that is in a different country.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Coward, 13 Sep 2012 @ 1:53am

so how long before judges are forced to become 'loners'? are they to be allowed only to communicate with family members and other judges? seems to me to be a bit discriminating really. how long before witnesses are banned because they have the same hobby or name as an accused?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
The eejit (profile), 13 Sep 2012 @ 2:13am

See, here's the thin

This guy has been forcibly recused from a case because he "knew" the prosecutor on the internet. But proven direct links to known lobbying associations is perfectly fine to allow in other cases.

On what planet is that a reational decision?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Mark Harrill (profile), 13 Sep 2012 @ 5:56am

Donations...
So if you can be disqualified as a judge because you are a facebook friend with a lawyer, what do you do about the judges who take campaign contributions from lawyers who appear in their courts? (which is nearly all of them by the way, that's how judges fund their campaigns, other lawyers...)
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
iambinarymind (profile), 13 Sep 2012 @ 12:57pm

Silly....
They both represent the State and are paid via stolen funds (aka the euphemism "taxation").

If this type of conflict of interest really mattered, we wouldn't allow the State to hold a monopoly on the so called "justice system".

I prefer consensual relationships (see "voluntaryism").
[ link to this | view in chronology ]