This week, Judge Mark Cohen’s long, checkered judicial career came to an ignoble end. The Supreme Court denied his petition for certiorari to challenge the 2024 ruling by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court that he was properly suspended over a litany of partisan social media posts while a sitting judge.

Cohen is a former Democratic politician who ran unsuccessfully for Congress, but served for many years in the state House until defeated in 2016.

In 2018, Cohen successfully ran for the Court of Common Pleas. After receiving a “Not Recommended” rating from the Philadelphia Bar Association, he barely won the seat with the second-lowest vote total among the victors.

During this time on the bench, Cohen continued to maintain his political public persona with social media posts that many found injudicious and unethical. In October 2024, the Pennsylvania Court of Judicial Discipline took the rare step of ejecting him from the bench and suspending him without pay over his Facebook posts.

These posts included attacks on Republican policies and praise for Democrats such as Joe Biden, Josh Shapiro and John Fetterman. He also spoke out in favor of a variety of Democratic policies and union positions as well as commenting on issues ranging from abortion to gun control.

In one posting on September 22, 2022, Judge Cohen supported Philadelphia District Attorney Krasner, who has since been referred by a judge to the U.S. Attorney for possible criminal conduct:

“Philly DA Krasner, in a switch of tactics, now demands to testify before P[A] House Committee seeking evidence of wrongdoing to begin impeachment proceedings. Good move!” . . .

The irony for critics is obvious, since they have criticized Cohen as a Krasneresque judge who failed to observe proper lines of conduct.

On November 18, 2021, Judge Cohen attacked the Speaker of the House of Representatives: “Good night, Kevin McCarthy. Good night moon. No matter how long Kevin talks, we’ll have House passage of Build Back Better soon.”

His superiors on the Court warned him that such postings violated judicial standards, but Cohen continued to post under the name he was formerly referred to by his fellow judges.

After being suspended in 2024, the suspension was upheld this year by the highest court in the Commonwealth. In his concurrence, Justice David Wecht wrote:

“In an age of ubiquitous social media and heightened acrimony, it is imperative that jurists remain mindful and careful. They must avoid the type of partisan punditry and running online commentary on politics that poured forth continually from the keyboard of the judge involved in today’s case. People are free to do this sort of thing, but judges are people with an asterisk. A person who chooses to become a judge must park some portion of his or her First Amendment rights at the courthouse curb for the duration in which that judge is serving on the bench.”

In my book, The Indispensable Right, I discuss how judges in the early Republic were much like Cohen, openly partisan and using their office to herald the accomplishments of one party while denouncing the other. One of the most significant factors in creating our modern judiciary was adopting judicial ethics rules against such partisan statements and conduct. For critics, Judge Cohen appears to have waged a one-judge war to reinstate the “good old days” of partisan jurists.