Legal Ethics, Technology

Judge Busted For Litany Of Inappropriate Facebook Posts

Another day, another judge with a social media problem.

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The hot new trend this holiday season appears to be judges getting in hot water for airing their grievances on social media. First, Judge Shubb takes flack for Tweeting about one of his cases, and now a judge is reamed by the Minnesota Board of Judicial Standards for a pile of intemperate Facebook posts. His only defense? He didn’t know that anyone outside his friends and family could see what he was writing. Even for a judge with senior status that’s leaning a bit too much on the “doddering old man” schtick.

Judge Edward W. Bearse (whose Facebook account is now private…) served Minnesota’s Tenth Judicial District for 23 years before retiring and taking senior status, hearing cases statewide. Unfortunately, this Chatty Cathy decided to let the Interwebs know all about his cases mid-trial.

Some things I guess will never change. I just love doing the stress of jury trials. In a Felony trial now State prosecuting a pimp. Cases are always difficult because the women (as in this case also) will not cooperate. We will see what the 12 citizens in the jury box do.

Some people thought publicly declaring the defendant “a pimp” was a tad prejudicial — imagine that?!? — and the conviction was vacated. At this point, most folks would start wondering if there’s anything else troublesome in their Facebook history and just confine themselves to inviting unsuspecting saps to play CandyCrush Saga. Judge Bearse is not most folks. After a lawyer suffered a panic attack:

Now we are in chaos because defendant has to hire a new lawyer who will most likely want to start over and a very vulnerable woman will have to spend another day on the witness stand…. I was so angry that on the way home I stopped to see our District Administrator and told him, “Michael, you are going to have to just listen to me bitch for awhile.” … [W]e know the new lawyer (probably quite justifiably) will be asking for another continuance. Terrible day!!!

Unsurprisingly, a post like this caught someone’s eye. In this case a fellow judge who highlighted it as a potential “legal issue,” prompting Judge Bearse to remove the post and recuse himself. At this point, Judge Bearse obviously deleted his Facebook account entirely. Just kidding. There’s more!

In two instances, Judge Bearse made negative remarks in Facebook posts concerning criminal defendants with lengthy histories of bench warrants, in one instance commenting, “We deal w/a lot of geniuses!” Other comments included “What a zoo!” (referring to Hennepin County District Court on a particular day); and “Just awful his son turned out to be such a Klunk.” (referring to a case in which the son was charged with felon in possession of a shotgun).

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The problem with Judge Bearse’s excuse is that none of this is Kosher even when limited to friends and family. He believed his posts were visible to around 80 people. The Duggars don’t even count 80 people as close family, meaning that even if Judge Bearse did understand how to work “The Facebooks,” he still broadcast ethically troubling messages beyond the tight-knit “safe space” of the dinner table and chambers.

But the biggest shame in this story is that it will most likely scare judges off of social media rather than promoting better practices. As Lat’s argued before — judges should have a public social media presence, within proper limits, to promote transparency and accessibility. It’s too easy to overreact and throw judicial heads into the sand, but social media isn’t going anywhere — judges need to get their act together and learn to do it right.

Or keep providing us with amusing stories. Either way.

(Check out the whole opinion on the next page…)

Earlier: A Federal Judge And His Twitter Account: A Cautionary Tale
Judges On Twitter: Is This A Problem?

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