Judges Can't "Friend" Lawyers in Florida

Hugh Pickens writes "The NY Times reports that Florida's Judicial Ethics Advisory Committee has found in a recent opinion that judges and lawyers can no longer be Facebook friends. The committee says that when judges 'friend' lawyers who may appear before them, it creates the appearance of a conflict of interest, since it 'reasonably conveys to others the impression that these lawyer "friends" are in a special position to influence the judge.' Stephen Gillers, a legal ethics expert at New York University, says the Florida rule goes too far. 'In my view, they are being hypersensitive because in the case of a truly close friendship between a judge and a lawyer involved in a case, the other side can simply seek to disqualify the judge. Judges do not "drop out of society when they become judges," Gillers says. "The people who were their friends before they went on the bench remained their friends, and many of them were lawyers." Still, legal sycophants can take heart: lawyers can declare themselves Facebook "fans" of judges, the committee says, "as long as the judge or committee controlling the site cannot accept or reject the lawyer's listing of himself or herself on the site."'"

Disconnect from society

[thickdiick]

They really are disconnected from society. Same with the police. If you've ever ready about or spoken to someone in a police academy, you will know that they encourage recruits to only hang out with other law enforcement officers, to only play in their sports leagues, et cetera; it indoctrinates a "us" vs "the public" mentality that follows the officer for the rest of their life. I don't know if that translates to the situation of the judges, but one can presume that an individual given such immense power, a sizeable paycheque, and so little accountability as a judge soon enough develops little connection to "everyone else."

Re:It's common sense

[Geoffrey.landis]

Hence the provisions in your legal system to disqualify a judge based on a potential conflict of interest,

Right. And, because this is a legal system, there need to be defined standards of what is a potential conflict of interest.

...worse off is the fact that a social networking site is the basis to decide if a conflict of interest exists..

It is not the basis for making the decision. It is a basis.

who has friends on there facebook list they barely know? I'm sure more than a few of you.

The law is that judges should not have a conflict of interest, or an appearance of a conflict of interest.

This is good. I don't want judges to have conflicts of interest, and I don't want them to even have appearances of conflict of interest. Judges should be disinterested.

Sample size of one

[jeko]

Congratulations. You have seen the system work the way it is supposed to ... once.

I asked a cop for directions once, and while he was rude to me, he didn't physically assault me, so I believe all these reports of tasers are false.

Tonight as I look out my window I see neither stars nor moon, so obviously all this talk of "space" is nonsense. After all, I've never been there, so it can't possibly be real.

Just because you haven't personally seen the train wrecks doesn't mean there haven't been any.