Judge Allows Persky Recall Effort to Move Forward SAN JOSE -- An appointed judge on Monday lifted a temporary restraining order that had blocked supporters of a recall campaign to oust Santa Clara Superior Court Judge Aaron Persky from collecting signatures, giving them a shot at recalling him in elections next June. Kay Tsenin, a retired San Francisco Superior Court judge, said at the end of an hour-long hearing that the recall campaign could begin collecting signatures and would regain any of the 160 days they lost to gather them as a result of the TRO that was issued earlier this month. The ruling prompted a dozen campaign supporters in the courtroom, including Stanford Law School professor Michele Dauber, to erupt into applause. As she rose to leave the court, Tsenin said: “It’s not about that, ladies and gentlemen. It’s about the law.” Had Tsenin not lifted the restraining order, the recall campaign would have run the risk of missing the tight deadlines spelled out in the Elections Code to put the recall on the June 2018 ballot during county elections. If they had been blocked past Sept. 1, the campaign would have had to set its sights on elections the following November. The recall campaign’s lawyer, Fredric Woocher of Strumwasser & Woocher in Los Angeles, argued the TRO was an unjustified “prior restraint” of their First Amendment rights. Recall supporters have pursued Persky's removal from the bench since June 2016, when he found himself at the center of a nationwide uproar for sentencing Stanford University student Brock Turner to just six months in jail for sexually assaulting an unconscious woman. Since then, critics have accused the judge, appointed by Gov. Gray Davis in 2003, of handing down lenient sentences against men accused of assaulting women. The recall campaign formally launched at the end of June with a filing to the Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters. The Recorder Watch Your Mouth, Your Honor: Lessons for Judges on Social Media Judges across the country are getting more comfortable using social media — sometimes a little too comfortable. Maintaining a public presence online can be a great thing for judges who want to build trust with the community, legal technology experts said. But as more jurists dive into the world of social networking, court-watchers are seeing a growing number of ethically questionable posts. Some judicial behavior once ruled unacceptable is starting to be OK. A Florida appellate decision last week found a judge may add an attorney as a Facebook friend, marking a break with previous ethics guidance that made Florida one of the country's most conservative jurisdictions for judges' social media use. "The court was very wise and basically said, 'Technology is changing. Everybody's on social media,'" said Nicole Black, a Rochester, New York, attorney and legal technology evangelist at software company MyCase. She added judges need to ensure they appear impartial, especially on cases before them. Knowing how to draw the line can be tricky. Legal groups are stepping up to offer new guidance for judges wondering how best to use social media, including reports from the National Center for State Courts, which will make judicial social media use the central topic of its annual National College on Judicial Conduct and Ethics in October. The American Bar Association this year published "Legal Ethics and Social Media: A Practitioner's Handbook," authored by University of Miami law professor Jan Jacobowitz and Dallas attorney John Browning of Passman & Jones. "Initially, the judiciary and many lawyers as well just decided they were going to stay away from social media, that that was the safest approach," Jacobowitz said. "Now, social media's ubiquitous. It's pervaded the whole practice of law, so more and more people are trying to participate in it before they totally understand it and then they're getting in trouble." .