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Judge Faces Ethics Charges After Mouthing Off About Mass Shooter Case

The judge took to Facebook with commentary.

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Last week, the Georgia Judicial Qualifications Commission filed a complaint with the Georgia Supreme Court over Facebook comments made by Judge David Cannon.

The incident revolves around comments made by police Captain Jay Baker about accused Atlanta-area spa shooter Robert Aaron Long. If you recall, after Long was arrested, Baker said Long was “pretty much fed up and kind of at the end of his rope. Yesterday was a really bad day for him, and this is what he did.” Which… yikes. And the backlash to those comments was pretty swift.

But Cannon took umbrage to the flack given to Baker. As reported by ABA Journal, he posted a copy of the transcript of Baker’s comments, with commentary of his own:

“I believe he was summarizing what he was told by the investigators that interviewed the accused from the accused perspective,” Cannon wrote. “And Jay was not saying from Jay’s perspective that the accused had a bad day. Feel free to disagree, but read the transcript first!”

When someone commented that Baker should not have made the statement, Cannon responded.

“As a judge I don’t like them tainting the jury pool about a confession that may or may not be admissible depending on the circumstances,” he said. “So I’d rather them just say ‘we caught him.’”

Cannon told the commission that thought he wasn’t assigned the Long case, it was possible that he’d be asked to sign warrants in the case.

Cannon’s attorney, Lester Tate, made the following comment on the charge:

“Judge Cannon did not surrender his First Amendment rights when he became a judge,” Tate said. “What they’re trying to do here is stitch together other provisions from the code of judicial conduct to infringe upon a judge’s free speech rights. I don’t think they can do that.”

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Long has pleaded guilty to murder in four of the killings, and received four life without parole sentences. He faces charges in an additional four deaths.

Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of The Jabot podcast, and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter (@Kathryn1).

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