You’ve probably heard this news by now. But, it’s Friday and I wrote about this before, so … I feel a sense of obligation to follow-up.
The Florida Supreme Court ruled yesterday that the fact that a judge is Facebook friends with a lawyer appearing before her in a litigated matter is not alone sufficient to justify disqualification of the judge. You can read lots of good articles providing summary treatment of this decision. I’d recommend this one from the folks at Bloomberg/BNA.
The majority certainly got to what I strongly believe is the right result. And, the core of the correctness of that result lies in these six sentences which I have admittedly spliced together from different parts of the majority opinion:
[T]he mere existence of a friendship between a judge and an attorney appearing before the judge, without more, does not reasonably convey to others the impression of an inherently close or intimate relationship. No reasonably prudent person would fear that she could not receive a fair and impartial trial based solely on the fact that a judge and an attorney appearing before the judge are friends of an indeterminate nature. Facebook “friendship” is not—as a categorical matter—the functional equivalent of traditional “friendship.” The establishment of a Facebook “friendship” does not objectively signal the existence of the affection and esteem involved in a traditional “friendship.” Therefore, the mere existence of a Facebook “friendship” between a judge and an attorney appearing before the judge, without more, does not reasonably convey to others the impression of an inherently close or intimate relationship.
I’m writing today about this more to make three points that I feel like have to be said out loud.
- I can’t believe it was a 4-3 decision and that three justices of the Florida Supreme Court were willing to sign their names to the following position: “The bottom line is that because of their indeterminate nature and the real possibility of impropriety, social media friendships between judges and lawyers who appear in the judge’s courtroom should not be permitted.”
- I’m even a bit more amazed that the concurring opinion (“I concur with the majority opinion. However, I write to strongly urge judges
not to participate in Facebook.”) demonstrates a majority of the Court (4 justices) believes that judges simply shouldn’t be on Facebook at all. There are legitimate reasons why maybe all of us should delete Facebook, but the reasons espoused by the dissent and concurrence aren’t among them. - If you are in a band and aren’t actively considering naming it, or changing its existing name to,”Friends of an Indeterminate Nature,” then I don’t really think I can ever understand you.