Judicial ethics and Facebook
Last month Florida issued an ethics advisory opinion stating that it would be an ethics violation for a judge to "friend" an attorney on Facebook, as it would create an appearance of impropriety (but the opinion allows that an attorney could become a "fan" of a judge on Facebook. Earlier this year, a North Carolina judge was given a public reprimand for "friending" a lawyer on Facebook - although in that case the allegations were that the judge and lawyer were also discussing an ongoing trial via Facebook.
South Carolina has now issued an ethics advisory opinion of its own, advising that a magistrate judge can be friends with law enforcement on Facebook provided they do not discuss anything related to the judge's employment.
It is probably best policy for any judge to stay away from networking sites such as Facebook, but the argument of the Florida ethics panel that being "friends" on Facebook creates an appearance of impropriety is ridiculous - anyone who uses social media such as Facebook knows that the title "friend" on Facebook carries a quite different meaning than it does in the real world. Ex-parte discussion of pending cases on social media sites or anywhere else is prohibited by its own rule.
It's interesting that the opinions thus far specifically are prohibiting lawyers from being "friends" with a judge, but the S.C. opinion approves the "friending" of law enforcement officers by judges.
