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| Judge Barbara Hobbs (Photo: Leon County 2nd Judicial Circuit website)(WCTV) |
By WCTV Staff
TALLAHASSEE, Fla (WCTV) - Circuit Judge Barbara Hobbs will be reprimanded by the Florida Supreme Court later this month for her conduct after her son’s 2019 arrest.
The court’s docket shows Hobbs will be formally reprimanded at 9 a.m. August 31, 2022.
In May 2022, the Florida Supreme Court suspended Judge Hobbs for 60 days without pay and ordered her to pay a fine of $30,000.
The Second Circuit Court Administrator says Judge Hobbs has already completed that suspension.
The case has been pending since the Judicial Qualifications Commission issued a notice of formal charges in April 2020.
The misconduct allegations focused mainly on Judge Hobbs’ actions following her son’s 2019 arrest for a shooting at his home.
Florida Supreme Court documents say Hobbs arrived at the Tallahassee Police Department the night of his arrest, told officers she was acting as his lawyer and sat in on the police interview.
The Florida Supreme Court further disciplined Hobbs for failing to properly supervise her Judicial Assistant who sat at counsel table at two of the son’s court hearings and later gave him her security badge, allowing him to access “restricted areas of the courthouse while serious criminal charges were pending against him.”
“Although we are not unsympathetic to Judge Hobbs’s family situation, her violations of the Code of Judicial Conduct demonstrate a failure of judgment and a lack of appropriate boundaries between her judicial office and her personal life that cannot be tolerated in members of our judiciary,” the Supreme Court said in its May 19, 2022 decision.
Hobbs was elected to the Second Circuit bench in November 2012 and has been a member of the Florida Bar for 40 years.
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