Law Commons^™

Judged By The (Digital) Company You Keep: Maintaining Judicial Ethics In An Age Of Likes, Shares, And Follows, John Browning

St. Mary's Journal on Legal Malpractice & Ethics

Just like lawyers, judicial use of social media can present ethical pitfalls. And while most scholarly attention has focused on either active social media conduct by judges (such as posting or tweeting) or on social media “friendships” between judges and others, this Article analyses the ethical dimensions of seemingly benign judicial conduct on social media platforms, such as following a third party or “liking,” sharing, or retweeting the online posts of others. Using real-world examples, this Article analyses how even such ostensibly benign conduct can create the appearance of impropriety and undermine public confidence in the integrity and impartiality of …

Judicial Ethics In The Confluence Of National Security And Political Ideology: William Howard Taft And The “Teapot Dome” Oil Scandal As A Case Study For The Post-Trump Era, Joshua E. Kastenberg

St. Mary's Law Journal

Political scandal arose from almost the outset of President Warren G. Harding’s administration. The scandal included corruption in the Veterans’ Administration, in the Alien Property Custodian, but most importantly, in the executive branch’s oversight of the Navy’s ability to supply fuel to itself. The scandal reached the Court in three appeals arising from the transfer of naval petroleum management from the Department of the Navy to the Department of the Interior. Two of the appeals arose from President Coolidge’s decision to rescind oil leases to two companies that had funneled monies to the Secretary of the Interior. A third appeal …

Sufficiently Judicial: The Need For A Universal Ethics Rule On Attorney Behavior In Legislative Impeachment Trials, Joshua E. Kastenberg

St. Mary's Journal on Legal Malpractice & Ethics

In assessing an ethics, rule-based prohibition against New Jersey governmental attorneys representing clients against the state for matters the state had previously assigned to them, the state supreme court noted: “In our representative form of government, it is essential that the conduct of public officials and employees shall hold the respect and confidence of the people.”

In the beginning of 2020, the United States Senate held an impeachment trial to determine whether former President Donald J. Trump had committed offenses forwarded by the House of Representatives. A U.S. Senate trial, much like state senate trials, is both judicial and political …

Judicial Ethics: A New Paradigm For A New Era, Charles G. Geyh

St. Mary's Journal on Legal Malpractice & Ethics

As the preamble to the Model Code of Judicial Conduct indicates, traditional notions of judicial ethics operate within a rule of law paradigm, which posits that the “three I’s” of judicial ethics—independence, impartiality, and integrity—enable judges to uphold the law. In recent decades, however, social science, public opinion, and political commentary suggest that appointed judges abuse their independence by disregarding the law and issuing rulings in accord with their biases and other extralegal impulses, while elected judges disregard the law and issue rulings popular with voters, all of which calls the future of the three I’s and judicial ethics itself …

Electronic Social Media: Friend Or Foe For Judges, M. Sue Kurita

St. Mary's Journal on Legal Malpractice & Ethics

The use of electronic social communication has grown at a phenomenal rate. Facebook, the most popular social networking website, has over 1,968,000,000 users—a number that has exponentially grown since its inception in 2004. The number of judges accessing and using electronic social media (ESM) has also increased. However, unlike the general population, judges must consider constitutional, ethical, technical, and evidentiary implications when they use and access ESM. The First Amendment forbids “abridging the freedom of speech” and protects the expression of personal ideas, positions, and views. However, the American Bar Association’s Model Code of Judicial Conduct and the Texas Code …

Louis Brandeis’S Arc Of Moral Justice, Katherine A. Helm

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Friends Of Justice: Does Social Media Impact The Public Perception Of The Justice System?, Nicola A. Boothe-Perry

Pace Law Review

This article will demonstrate how the unregulated use of social media by participants in the justice system (judges, attorneys and jurors specifically) affects the public perception and subsequently the integrity of our justice system. The article will provide a holistic review of social media use by judges, attorneys and jurors, and demonstrate why their use of social media should be harnessed in a manner to ensure compliance with ethical rules and reduce potential negative effects to the social contract between law and society.

Social media is like a culvert. It catches pictures, novelties, personal profiles, gossip, news, unfiltered opinions, and …

General Semantics, Stare Decisis And Change Through Considerations Of A New Ethics, Irene S. Ross

Journal of the National Association of Administrative Law Judiciary

No abstract provided.

Rambo Litigators: Pitting Aggressive Tactics Against Legal Ethics, Thomas M. Reavley

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Judicial Ethics--Recusal Of Judges--The Need For Reform, Don R. Sensabaugh Jr.

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Study In Perfidy, Allan D. Vestal

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.