Supreme Court rejects Pennsylvania judge’s appeal over pro-Biden Facebook posts

The Supreme Court has shut down a former Democratic judge’s last bid to reverse his suspension for years of partisan Facebook posts praising Joe Biden, a ruling that also locked in the loss of his pensions.

Former Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas Judge Mark Cohen saw his petition denied without comment on Monday. Cohen, a onetime Democratic state lawmaker who took the bench in 2018, had appealed to the high court in April after Pennsylvania authorities suspended him for dozens of politically charged social media posts made while serving as a judge.

Fox News Digital reported that Cohen kept posting even after warnings to stop. The activity included open cheerleading for Biden’s agenda and personal praise that state officials said destroyed any appearance of neutrality.

Pennsylvania’s highest court concluded the volume and tone of the posts made Cohen look like an advocate for the Democratic Party. That finding ended his judicial career and, according to his own Supreme Court petition, triggered forfeiture of both his judicial pension and earlier public-service pensions.

Posts kept coming after explicit warnings

In November 2021 Cohen promoted Biden’s Build Back Better legislation on Facebook. He wrote that its passage would improve “many, many American lives.”

A year later, on Biden’s birthday, Cohen called him “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 had consistently received from the National Rifle Association during his time in the legislature.

State judicial overseers did not treat the posts as private opinions. Pennsylvania’s Judicial Conduct Board described the social media activity as “partisan cheerleading” and said the suspension was a “straightforward application of familiar rules that judges around the country have followed for decades.”

Cohen’s lawyers cast the discipline as a free-speech violation. One argued the case raised core First Amendment questions about sitting judges.

"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 lawyer added that the dispute gave the Supreme Court “an urgent opportunity” to restore constitutional clarity for judges speaking on public issues. The justices disagreed by simply declining to take the case.

Law firm DLA Piper, which represented Cohen, did not respond to a request for comment the following Wednesday.

Impartiality rules still bind the bench

Judges hold enormous power over ordinary citizens’ lives, property, and liberty. When one turns his public platform into a running Democratic campaign newsletter, public trust erodes. Pennsylvania applied long-standing ethics rules rather than invent a new punishment tailored to Cohen’s politics.

That principle sits in tension with broader fights over the courts. Democrats have repeatedly floated plans to expand the Supreme Court when rulings disappoint them, a threat Tim Scott has warned could follow midterm gains and target the Court’s current majority.

Similar pressure appears in calls to add seats and reshape the bench. House Democrat Jim Clyburn has pushed a 13-justice Court while expressing regret over past support for Justice Clarence Thomas, underscoring how personnel fights remain a live partisan weapon.

Cohen’s failed appeal leaves the underlying ethics standards intact. Sitting judges are not columnists or activists. They are expected to decide cases, not root for one party’s legislative wish list from the bench.

Biden-era appointees draw separate fire on immigration

The same Fox News Digital report carried fresh criticism from DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin about the difficulty of working with Biden-appointed judges as immigration enforcement ramps up. Mullin said those judges are “almost impossible” to deal with while the administration tries to restore order at the border and in the interior.

That frustration fits a larger pattern of courtroom resistance to executive enforcement priorities. The Trump administration has already returned to the Supreme Court multiple times seeking to enforce basic election integrity measures, including limits on mail ballots.

Separate litigation has seen a Trump-appointed judge block a USPS mail-in ballot rule while the high court prepares to weigh related questions. Citizenship checks in voter rolls have likewise drawn Democratic accusations that the system is being “rigged,” even after courts green-lighted the safeguards.

Cohen’s case is not an immigration matter. It is a straightforward ethics enforcement action against a judge who treated Facebook like a campaign booster seat. Yet it arrives while Americans watch courts become another arena for partisan combat rather than neutral umpires.

Pennsylvania’s Judicial Conduct Board told the Supreme Court it had no need to intervene. The board’s view was simple: the rules are old, clear, and applied the same way to judges of every stripe. Cohen’s petition failed to persuade a single justice to disagree in writing.

The practical result is final. A judge who ignored warnings, kept posting party-line praise, and lost his seat will not get the high court to revise the ethics code in his favor. Taxpayers no longer fund his pension either.

Courts work only when the public believes the person in the robe is not quietly campaigning for one side. Cohen’s own posts made that belief impossible to sustain. The Supreme Court correctly left the suspension in place.