Facebook and Twitter logos. Photo Credit: Mike Scarcella/ ALM

The U.S. Supreme Court should wait before wading into questions about how judges are using social media, the U.S. Department of Justice told the justices in a case that puts a spotlight on a California federal judge's Twitter account.

The timber company Sierra Pacific Industries Inc. is trying to undo a $122 million settlement in part based on the argument that the trial judge's Twitter activity—”following” prosecutors and tweeting a news story link about one of his rulings—created an appearance of bias.

U.S. Solicitor General Noel Francisco this week urged the justices not to grant review in the case Sierra Pacific Industries v. United States. Francisco said there was no error in the judge's allegedly following the public Twitter account of a U.S. Attorney's Office.

U.S. Solicitor General Noel Francisco. Credit: Diego M. Radzinschi/ The National Law Journal

“[T]he U.S. Attorney's Office's public tweets are 'news items released to the general public, intended for wide distribution to an anonymous public audience,'” Francisco wrote. “A district court's 'following' such an account does not generate an appearance of bias any more than watching the office's press conferences on television or reading about the office's activities in the newspaper.”