The Supreme Court has refused to revive a former Pennsylvania judge’s career after he was suspended for years of partisan Facebook posts praising Joe Biden and Democratic policies.
The high court on Monday denied without comment the petition from former Philadelphia judge Mark Cohen, leaving in place his suspension for a long run of politically charged social media activity while on the bench.
Fox News Digital reported that Cohen, a former Democratic state lawmaker who joined the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas in 2018, kept posting after warnings to stop. Pennsylvania’s highest court concluded the volume and tone of those posts made him appear as an advocate for the Democratic Party.
That finding ended his bid to cast the discipline as a free-speech case. The Supreme Court’s silent denial closes the door on his First Amendment appeal and locks in the state outcome, including the pension hit his own petition described.
Cohen did not limit himself to one offhand remark. The record described dozens of politically charged Facebook posts while he served as a judge.
In November 2021 he promoted Biden’s Build Back Better legislation and said passage would improve "many, many American lives." A year later, on Biden’s birthday, he called the then-president "an excellent President" and said he looked forward to "many more achievements."
Other posts backed higher minimum wage laws, opposed restrictions on elective abortions, and highlighted the "F" rating he said he had consistently received from the National Rifle Association while in the state legislature. State authorities treated the pattern as more than private opinion.
Pennsylvania’s Judicial Conduct Board argued his social media activity amounted to "partisan cheerleading" and said the suspension was a straightforward application of familiar rules that judges around the country have followed for decades.
Cohen appealed to the Supreme Court in April. His lawyers at DLA Piper framed the case as a constitutional emergency for sitting judges.
At the time of the April appeal, Cohen’s lawyer told Law.com:
"Allowing judges to be disciplined based on the perceived ‘tone’ or ‘volume’ of lawful speech promotes arbitrary enforcement, invites political interference in the judicial branch, and threatens to undermine the rule of law."
The same counsel pressed further:
"This case presents an urgent opportunity for the court to restore constitutional clarity and reestablish the First Amendment’s protection of the rights of sitting judges to speak on matters of public concern."
The Supreme Court was unmoved. It denied the petition without comment, the ordinary signal that the justices saw no need to disturb the lower ruling or revise the ethics line Pennsylvania had drawn.
DLA Piper did not respond Wednesday to a request for comment.
Cohen’s petition stated that the suspension triggered forfeiture of his judicial pension and prior public-service pensions. That consequence stayed in place once the high court refused to take the case.
Judges are not ordinary political actors. They hold power over liberty, property, and the credibility of the courts. When a sitting judge turns a public Facebook page into a running brief for one party’s president and agenda, the public can fairly ask whether the robe still looks neutral.
Pennsylvania’s highest court answered that question by pointing to volume and tone. The Judicial Conduct Board called the same pattern partisan cheerleading and defended the discipline as routine application of long-standing rules. The Supreme Court left both judgments intact.
Cohen’s side cast the enforcement as arbitrary and dangerous to the rule of law. The courts that reviewed the posts disagreed. After warnings, after dozens of messages, and after open praise for Biden’s policies and performance, the system treated him as an advocate first and a neutral judge second.
Voters elect lawmakers to take sides. They expect judges to apply the law without a campaign trail running through their social media. Cohen blurred that line in plain view. The state enforced its rules. The Supreme Court declined to second-guess them.
A black robe is not a campaign button, and the high court just reminded the bench that the public can still tell the difference.
