Judges Wary of the Ethics Pitfalls of Facebook, Twitter
As judges dabble with social network tools, the possibility of ethics violations is a growing concern among the community of jurists.
While most judges agree that the judiciary should be familiar with websites like Facebook and Twitter, particularly in light of one recent juror’s comments about a pending case online, fewer than seven percent of respondents to a recent survey of state and federal judges use social media sites for official purposes, reports the National Law Journal.
Of the 40 percent of respondents that said they use social media, state judges are much more likely to communicate with the public or connect with family members than their federal counterparts, according to the Conference of Court Public Information Officers, which conducted the survey.
While some courts have embraced the social media trend—the Tennessee Supreme Court has 900 Twitter followers—many state judicial ethics bodies have adopted rules to govern what actions judges can take online. And, nearly half of the survey’s respondents disagreed that it is possible for jurists to interact with voters online without violating ethics canons, the NLJ reports.
