Substitute judge looses job over ‘bias’ MySpace comments
By Ruben Francia
If you happen to have a MySpace or Facebook account you need to be extremely careful what you write about yourself on your profile, because you could loose your job. This is apparently what happened to a substitute judge who was sacked because of controversial remarks on his MySpace social-networking profile.
Jonathan MacArthur, a 34-year-old criminal defense attorney, who had been appointed as a substitute judge with the North Las Vegas Justice Court, has been sacked because of harsh comments aimed at prosecutors on his MySpace page.
According to news.com, MacArthur wrote on his MySpace profile that his interests included “Breaking my foot off in a prosecutor’s a**…and improving my ability to break my foot off in a prosecutor’s a**.” That line showed bias, District Attorney David Roger said.
“He has displayed a bias against prosecutors. Therefore, I do not feel the state of Nevada would get a fair shake by him,” Roger told Las Vegas Sun.
The issue was brought to North Las Vegas Justice Court Administrator Terri March, which later decided not to use MacArthur’s services any longer.
“A judge’s job is to be unbiased in all matters, and on that MySpace page, it appears he definitely has a bias against prosecutors. The comments were inappropriate and unbecoming of a pro tem,” March added.
In defense, MacArthur clarified the comments by saying that it referred to his work not as a judge but as a criminal defense attorney.
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March 7th, 2008
If I have this job….
August 5th, 2008
Seriously? “Loose”, in this case, is supposed to only have one “o”.
Do you not have editors?