A recent decision of the Eighth Circuit and a pending prosecution by the Minnesota Board on Judicial Standards (BJS) encourage judges to speak more in some instances and less in others.
The Eighth Circuit case, Wersal v. Sexton (courtesy of Minnesota Lawyer’s blog), struck down several restrictions on candidates for judicial office, as set forth in Canon 4 of the Code of Judicial Conduct. The court rejected clauses that prevented judicial candidates from endorsing or opposing other candidates for public office and directly soliciting campaign contributions from non-lawyers, whether for the judicial candidate’s own campaign or some other candidate’s campaign.The clear theme of the opinion is that few, if any, restrictions on the political speech of judicial candidates will ever pass constitutional muster.