Top state court refuses agreed discipline, says judge should lose $11.5K in pay for Facebook post
Campaigning for judicial election is ringing up substantial legal ethics costs for a Florida judge who won a seat on the bench in 2012.
Seminole County Judge Debra Krause had already agreed with the Judicial Qualifications Commission that she should pay a $25,000 fine and be publicly reprimanded to resolve ethical breaches during her election campaign in 2012. But on Wednesday, the Florida Supreme Court rejected an agreement between Krause and the JQC that would have imposed no additional penalty on the judge for a 2014 Facebook post that implied the winning candidate in her husband’s election campaign for a seat on the bench had lied, reports the Orlando Sentinel.
Instead, the supreme court ruled (PDF), Krause should be suspended without pay for one month, losing about $11,500 in income, for the most recent ethics breach involving the Facebook post.
The ruling is not a final resolution of the ethics case and allows Krause and the JQC to renegotiate if the judge chooses not to accept the one-month suspension.
Related coverage:
Orlando Sentinel: “Seminole County Judge Debra Krause faces new ethics charge”
