The United States Supreme Court refused on Monday, October 5, to hear the appeal of Mark B. Cohen, a former Philadelphia judge who was suspended without pay for using his public Facebook page to praise Democrats and knock Republicans while he sat on the bench.
The reason for the punishment is simple. Pennsylvania’s rules bar sitting judges from politicking, and Cohen’s page named him as a judge and showed him in his robes. He called Joe Biden “an excellent president,” cheered on Josh Shapiro, the Democratic governor of Pennsylvania, and backed Larry Krasner, the Democratic district attorney of Philadelphia.
Story Highlights
- The Supreme Court turned away Mark B. Cohen’s appeal without comment, so his suspension stands.
- Cohen’s Facebook page named him as a sitting judge and showed him in his robes.
- His posts praised Joe Biden, Gov. Josh Shapiro and District Attorney Larry Krasner and criticized Republicans.
- Cohen admitted writing the posts and argued the First Amendment protected them.
What The Supreme Court Did And Why It Matters
The justices denied Cohen’s petition in a list of orders and gave no reason. When the Supreme Court declines to hear a case, the lower court’s ruling stands. Here that ruling came from the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, which upheld the suspension in January 2026. A refusal to hear a case is not a ruling on who was right, and it sets no rule for other states. For Cohen, it is the end of the road.
Cohen’s lawyers had told the justices their “guidance is sorely needed” on how far a state may go in limiting what a judge says. Cohen admitted he wrote the posts. He argued they were his own views on public issues, protected by the First Amendment, and that judges should be free to speak on matters that are not before them in court. The Judicial Conduct Board of Pennsylvania, the state agency that investigates complaints against judges and brings charges, called the posts “partisan cheerleading.”
Supreme Court Rejects Radical Far-Left PA Judge Mark B. Cohen(D-Hack) Appeal After He Was Suspended For Hyper-Partisan Pro-Biden Facebook Posts https://t.co/r71jZQl1qw
— 🌹ValkoorDragonHunter🌹 (@ValkoorH) October 6, 2026
How Pennsylvania Reached The Suspension
Cohen is a Democrat who served more than 40 years in the Pennsylvania House before he won a seat in 2018 on the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas, the county’s main trial court. He heard family cases. The Judicial Conduct Board looked into his Facebook page after it received complaints, then charged him over dozens of posts.
Besides praising Biden, Shapiro and Krasner, the posts criticized Republicans, among them Kevin McCarthy, who was then Speaker of the U.S. House. They took shots at the National Rifle Association and called for more domestic spending and less military spending. Asked about the complaints, Cohen blamed “conservative people who want judges to be scared of their own shadow.”
After a trial, the Pennsylvania Court of Judicial Discipline, the state court that decides charges against judges, suspended Cohen without pay on October 7, 2024, through the end of his term. State law forced him off the bench on December 31, 2024, in any case, when he reached the mandatory retirement age of 75.
What Pennsylvania’s Top Court Said
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court upheld the suspension in an opinion by Justice Kevin Dougherty. The court said that unless a judge is running to keep his seat, his right to free speech must be weighed against the courts’ interest in protecting the independence, integrity and impartiality of the judiciary.
“Here, we hold the Commonwealth’s interests in preserving the judiciary’s reputation for impartiality outweighed Judge Cohen’s interests, as a sitting judge who was not a candidate for judicial office, in publicly advocating for the Democratic Party on Facebook and espousing his partisan political views,” Dougherty wrote.
The opinion added that when a sitting judge “adopts the persona of a political party spokesperson and abuses the prestige of his office to advance that party’s interests, he detracts from the reputation of the entire judiciary.”
Why Conservatives Should Care About Neutral Courts
Every American deserves a judge who does not carry a party banner into court. When a judge publicly cheers one party and attacks the other, people who come before him have reason to wonder whether his rulings come from the law or from team spirit. Cohen sat in family court, where judges decide matters as personal as custody of children.
Free speech is precious, but the robe comes with limits. A private citizen may say what he likes about politics. A sitting judge holds a public trust, and that is why conduct rules bar judges from partisan advocacy. Cohen was free to hold his views. Using a public page that named him as a judge to promote one party crossed the line, Pennsylvania’s courts held.
The lesson cuts both ways. Rules like these protect everyone only when they are enforced the same way whether a judge’s posts boost the left or the right. In this case, a judge who campaigned from the bench for Democrats was held to the rule, and the highest court in the land let that stand.
Sources:
thegatewaypundit.com, thehill.com, pacourts.us, inquirer.com
