Ride the Lightning

At the beginning of a high-profile trial last year in which a father was accused of keeping his nine-year-old son in a six-foot by eight-foot wooden box, the judge instructed jurors not to discuss the case against defendant David Wieseckel with "anyone." "Again, this is by any means of communication. So no texting, e-mailing, talking person to person or on the phone or on Facebook. Any of that is absolutely forbidden," the judge told jurors.

But Slaughter didn't take her own advice (talk about poor judgment), leading to her removal from the case and a mistrial. The defendant eventual was acquitted of unlawful-restraint-of-a-child charges.

The judge told local media that her Facebook posts about the "Boy in the Box" case and others were unbiased. Here's what she said: "I will always conduct my proceedings in a fair and impartial way. The Commission's opinion appears to unduly restrict transparency and openness in government and in our judiciary. Everything I posted was publicly available information."

The commission didn't agree in its ruling last week:

Judges have a duty to decide every case fairly and impartially. Judicial independence, impartiality, and integrity must be seen in order for the public to have confidence in the legal system. Despite her contention that the information she provided was public information, Judge Slaughter cast reasonable doubt upon her own impartiality and violated her own admonition to jurors by turning to social media to publicly discuss cases pending in her court, giving rise to a legitimate concern that she would not be fair or impartial in the Wieseckel case or in other high-profile cases.

The panel was unhappy with the judge's Facebook post on the first day of testimony in the "Boy in the Box" trial last year. "After we finished Day 1 of the case called the 'Boy in the Box' case, trustees from the jail came in and assembled the actual 6×8 'box' inside the courtroom!" the judge posted.

The box wasn't even introduced as evidence yet, as the panel pointed out. She has also been criticized in the past for posts about a child pornography case she was presiding over.

The rule for judges is pretty darn clear: Don't post about cases you are presiding over. Judge Slaughter, we teach that CLE you are supposed to take – it's called "The Ethical Use of Social Media for Judges." Happy to give a private presentation!