Supreme Court won’t reinstate Pennsylvania judge suspended for partisan Facebook posts

The Supreme Court on Monday turned away a former Pennsylvania judge’s challenge to his suspension for making partisan Facebook posts, a dispute that touches on issues of free speech and judicial ethics.

Pennsylvania’s judicial discipline board suspended then-Judge Mark Cohen in 2024 over dozens of posts praising Democrats, including former President Biden and Gov. Josh Shapiro (D), and his advocacy for policies such as raising the minimum wage.

Cohen previously served more than four decades in the Pennsylvania legislature and ran for the judgeship as a Democrat. He casts the Facebook posts as him continuing to express his views on matters of public concern. He argues lower courts used too lenient a First Amendment standard to uphold his suspension.

“This Court’s guidance is sorely needed,” his attorneys wrote in his petition. “If allowed to stand, the Cohen decision will have a chilling effect on judicial speech, invite political interference in the judicial branch, undermine the rule of law, and have the perverse effect of impugning the integrity of the judiciary.”

Cohen also lost his pensions, court filings show.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court applied a balancing test typically used when a government worker argues their employer disciplined them in violation of their free speech rights.

Cohen argues judges are public officials speaking to their constituents, not an ordinary employee.

“This Court should grant the petition because it cleanly presents a question of importance concerning fundamental First Amendment protections for members of the judiciary,” his lawyers at DLA Piper wrote.

Pennsylvania’s Judicial Conduct Board, represented by Stanford Law School’s Supreme Court Litigation Clinic, called Cohen’s posts “partisan cheerleading” and said there is no precedent supporting that judges can do so under their First Amendment rights.

“There is no reason for this Court to review that straightforward application of familiar rules that judges around the country have followed for decades,” they wrote in court filings.