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Tuesday, August 29, 2006
Courts - Suit filed seeking to enjoin Florida’s canons that require judges to recuse themselves from cases involving issues that they responded to in questionnaire
Ed Feigenbaum has posted this new item in Indiana Daily Insight:
Represented by Indiana Republican National Committeeman James Bopp, Jr. of Terre Haute, the Florida Family Policy Council filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida in Tallahassee Monday seeking to enjoin Florida’s canons that require judges to recuse themselves from cases involving issues that they responded to in a questionnaire asking their views on legal and political issues.The suit was brought against members of the Florida Judicial Qualifications Commission and Chief Bar Counsel for the Florida Bar – entities charged with disciplining judges and lawyers who violate the judicial canons of Florida and the state’s Rules of Professional Conduct.
According to Bopp, lead counsel for the plaintiffs, the Florida recusal requirement “is contrary to the U.S. Supreme Court’s holding, which clearly stated that judicial candidates have a right to respond to surveys like this and that voters have a right to hear what they have to say.”
Bopp, who successfully argued the case challenging the Minnesota judicial rule struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court in Republican Party of Minnesota v. White, 536 U.S. 765 (2002), says that the recusal requirement was being interpreted to suppress the same sort of free speech that Minnesota had tried to punish.
The Florida Family Policy Council has asked for a preliminary injunction so that judicial candidates may respond to the questionnaire without fear of recusal should they hear the same issues as judges. The Council hopes to resend and publish judicial candidates’ questionnaire responses before the November 2006 general election.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on August 29, 2006 07:42 AM
Posted to Courts in general