Florida Supreme Court issues reprimand, fine and suspension of Circuit Judge Barbara Hobbs

Circuit Judge Barbara Hobbs was publicly reprimanded by the Florida Supreme Court for getting involved with her son’s arrest and failing to properly manage her staff.

Issued Wednesday by Chief Justice Carlos Muñiz, the reprimand comes with a $30,000 fine, a 60-day suspension and requires Hobbs, a judge in the Second Judicial Circuit since 2012, to attend an employee management program.

Hobbs is currently assigned to the family division in Leon County.

The state Judicial Qualifications Commission in 2020 charged Hobbs with more than a dozen violations of judicial canons, however, only two were substantiated. The JQC investigates allegations of judicial misconduct.

The panel last year found her guilty of inappropriately "representing" her son while he was being interrogated by the Tallahassee Police Department during an arrest on charges of attempted second-degree murder. She sought preferential treatment, attempting to arrange unmonitored and unrecorded telephonic and video access to her son while he was in jail, after representing herself as her son’s lawyer.

Tracking the case:

• Circuit Judge Hobbs denies allegations of impropriety by Judicial Qualifying Commission

• Judicial ethics panel recommends 60-day unpaid suspension for Tallahassee judge

She was also found guilty of improperly managing her judicial assistant, who the JQC said was allowed to interject herself into Hobbs’ son’s pending cases. She sat at the defense attorney’s table in a hearing for Hobbs’ son and allowed him unsupervised access to non-public areas of the Leon County Courthouse.

“Although these acts of conduct are distinct, they share a common denominator. You allowed personal attachments and loyalty to overcome ethical obligations as a judge. These actions violated the cannons of judicial conduct,” Muñiz said during the reprimand. “When we become judges, we voluntarily accept ethical constraints on our behavior, especially the duty to subordinate our private interests and concerns to our obligations as public servants. I hope that our court will never again encounter you in these unhappy circumstances.”

Muñiz noted that the judicial violations came at a difficult time in Hobbs’ family life and said it was among the reasons she was not removed from the bench.

Circuit Judge Barbara Hobbs reprimand: Read the Supreme Court's opinion here

Hobbs improperly intervened when in 2019 her son, Justin Haynes who was then 31, was taken into custody by Tallahassee police after he reportedly shot at a woman through a closed door. In May, he pleaded guilty to shooting into a building but appointed prosecutors with the Third Judicial Circuit State Attorney’s Office dropped charges of attempted second-degree murder and attempted animal cruelty.

Hobbs was at the heading and referred questions to her attorney, Roosevelt Randolph. He said the hearing marks finality in a chapter she is moving on from.

“This is a chapter in Judge Hobbs’ career that is behind us now,” Randolph said outside the Supreme Court chambers. “We hope she can get back to a full-time which she loves and is trained for, which is being a judge.”

Contact Karl Etters at ketters@tallahassee.com or @KarlEtters on Twitter.

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This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Circuit Judge Hobbs publicly reprimanded by Florida Supreme Court