O.C. judge admonished for disparaging Facebook comment about prosecutor in heated election
It never pays to make impetuous comments on social media — at least not when you’re a judge.
That’s the lesson Orange County Superior Court Judge Jeff Ferguson learned this week when he was publicly admonished by the Commission on Judicial Performance for posting a disparaging comment on Facebook about a prosecutor who was running for judicial office.
The admonition stemmed from a heated, 2016 judicial contest between Orange County Superior Court Judge Scott Steiner — who was running for reelection — and Karen Schatzle, a senior deputy district attorney for the county.
Ferguson was backing Steiner, who was censured in 2014 for having sex with two women in his chambers.
According to the commission, which investigates judicial misconduct, Schatzle posted a comment on the North Orange County Bar Assn. Facebook page on April 26, 2016, saying, “Scott Steiner uses his office for sex and yet so many aren’t concerned, crazy politics!”
In response, Ferguson went to Facebook and claimed: “Karen Shatzle [sic] has sex with defense lawyer whike [sic] shw [sic] is DA on his cases and nobody cares. Interesting politics.”
Schatzle responded to the comment by writing: “I’m sure the Judicial Commission of Performance [sic] would love to know about your blogging!”
Ferguson deleted the accusation, but not before the damage was done.
The commission ruled that Ferguson’s comment violated ethics rules and that he had acted with “reckless disregard for the truth.”
Ferguson, they said, could not produce any factual support for his claim.
“The judge’s post was not only potentially injurious to the candidate, but also undermined public respect for the judiciary and the integrity of the electoral process,” the commission wrote.
According to the commission’s ruling, Ferguson, who has been an Orange County judge since January 2015, provided a declaration from an attorney who claimed to have knowledge of the relationship but did not show evidence that Schatzle and the defense attorney were, at the same time, opposing each other in court.
Schatzle, who lost the race, and the defense attorney denied the allegations, according to the commission.
According to the commission, Ferguson later acknowledged “he was wrong to write the post, recognized that it fell outside the bounds of professionalism and the decorum expected of a bench officer, and apologized for his conduct.”
Ferguson’s attorney Paul Meyer said his client’s “quick, late-night retort was posted for only a few minutes before he voluntarily removed it.”
“Judge Ferguson again apologizes for his thoughtless comment,” the attorney said.
In a separate matter, the commission also ruled that Ferguson had violated an additional ethics rule when he failed to disclose he was friends with three criminal defense attorneys on Facebook.
Ferguson has unfriended the attorneys.
Twitter: VeronicaRochaLA
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