Judge Eric Roberson Retires, Ending His Misconduct Case

What the Charges Actually Say

JANUARY 2025: THE JUDGE WHO WANTED TO BAN A LITIGANT FROM THE STATE

Presiding over an injunction hearing, Roberson granted the petition and then addressed the respondent: This is scary, there’s something seriously off with you … and it’s a shock there hasn’t been criminal charges for this. Part of me wants to just ban you from ever coming back to our state, and keep your issues up in Virginia. A Florida circuit judge has no power to banish anyone from Florida. That ruling was later reversed on appeal and the matter ordered reassigned to a different judge.

JUNE 2025: THE INJUNCTION HE PROMISED BEFORE IT WAS FILED

A woman petitioned for a stalking injunction. Roberson found she had not proved her allegation, and then asked her from the bench whether she was under treatment for any mental health issues. She said no. He answered that something was seriously off, that he remembered her unusual name from a prior case, and that he was going over that paperwork.

Then he turned to the man she had petitioned against. When the man said the injunction should run the other way, Roberson replied that he did not disagree, and told him: You are free to file an injunction that will be granted, attach these and that will be granted. He told him where to go to file it, down the hallway on the second floor, and told him to go do it. He told the woman she was having delusions she could not prove and that the court would ultimately stop her from filing, and closed by saying he suspected she would be getting an injunction against her soon.

The man filed that same day. Roberson granted it and issued a temporary injunction, exactly as he had said he would before the petition existed. The woman moved to disqualify him, citing his remarks from the earlier hearing and arguing that he had made remarks and issued findings that conveyed bias and undermined Respondent’s credibility without legal or factual support. He denied the motion as moot, because the next hearing was set before a different circuit judge. That judge granted the injunction. Both cases are on appeal.

Note where that quoted language comes from. It is the litigant’s own disqualification motion, not a finding by the Commission, and earlier accounts of this case attributed it to the Commission. The distinction matters: a party said it, a judge denied the motion, and nobody ever ruled on whether it was true.

AUGUST 2025: A FATHER, A DAUGHTER AND A JUDGE WHO RULED SHE WAS TERRIBLE

The third hearing was an injunction petition brought by a father against his adult daughter. Reviewing text messages, Roberson called her an entitled little snot, told her she would listen while he gave judgment to her, and said that if she said another word she was going to jail. He told her father, God bless you for not beating the tar out of her. Because she was spared the rod and good God is she spoiled. Then, to the daughter: You are a terrible human being, and I can look you in the eye and tell you that. And I’m a judge, so that’s a legal judgment, you are a terrible human being. The charging document notes in a footnote that he said this before making any ruling, and that in the same breath he told her she would never go near her father or his business again for the rest of her natural life.

A judge is permitted to find facts and is not permitted to insult people, and in one sentence he collapsed the two and announced it. He returned to it at the end of the hearing, telling her she was a terrible person because, in his words, he had literally ruled it.

The daughter said on the record that her father had slapped her and hit her. Roberson said he knew, and added: He should’ve hit you more. When she said that was domestic violence, he answered that how she treated her father was the domestic violence and that the father had shown commendable restraint in not acting as any rational person would have. Later he told the father, You should’ve put your hands on her more earlier in her life so she wouldn’t act like this now.

Granting a permanent injunction, he observed it was only the third he had issued that year, noted that one of the earlier ones had involved a person who molested a child, and told her that was the company she was in. He set the radius at a mile rather than five hundred feet, and when she pointed out that one of the protected addresses was a house she owned, he said: Oops.

The Eleven Canons, and Why Four of Them Matter Most

The Commission charged eleven provisions.

Seven charges are about conduct. Four, Canons 3B(1), 3B(9), 3B(10) and 3E(1), are about prejudgment and the refusal to step aside afterward.

He Admitted It and Fought the Sanction

Roberson did not dispute the words. When the charges issued his attorney said he acknowledges and is remorseful that his conduct fell below the standard expected of judges and would cooperate fully. What he contested was the consequence. The six-page response, dated July 11 and filed as his Answer on July 13, disputed ten of the eleven canons, which means he conceded one. It asked that the statements be treated as outliers against his larger record, and argued that the incidents described were not indicative of his conduct in the overwhelming majority of the matters he had presided over.

He acknowledged the accuracy of the quotations and specifically denied that he was advocating violence. What the record shows is a judge who said one party should have been hit more and told the other he should have put his hands on her more earlier in her life.

His counsel noted that the Fifth District Court of Appeal had upheld his rulings in two of the cases cited, so the decisions were sound even if the language around them was not. The Fifth District is the right court: Florida’s 2023 appellate redistricting moved the Fourth Judicial Circuit out of the First District and into the Fifth. But the January ruling was reversed and reassigned, and both of the June injunction cases were on appeal when the charges issued. Two affirmances against a reversal and two pending appeals is a mixed record, not a clean one.

That is a coherent defense and a narrow one. It concedes the conduct and litigates only whether the conduct reaches the level that costs a judge the office. Judge Kasper in Case File No. 38 took the same posture in New York, stipulating to the facts and fighting only the sanction. The difference is that Kasper’s case was decided. This one was not.

Two Florida Judges, Same Conduct, Opposite Endings

The useful comparison is inside this series. One week before Roberson left, the Supreme Court of Florida publicly reprimanded Judge J. Layne Smith for intemperate remarks from the bench during a discovery hearing, covered in Case File No. 50. Smith self-reported, apologized publicly, recused from the case and from every remaining case involving those parties, and put procedures in place to keep it from happening again. He got the bottom of the public ladder and he is still a judge.

Roberson admitted the comments, disputed the canons, and retired. He faces no reprimand, no fine, and no finding. Same state, same commission, and the two cases ended seven days apart. The judge who cooperated carries a public sanction on his record. The judge who left carries nothing.

Which outcome is better for the public is a fair question. Roberson is off the bench permanently and Smith is not, so if the goal is removing a judge from cases, the quiet exit accomplished more. If the goal is a record that tells the next litigant what happened and why, the reprimand accomplished more and the retirement accomplished nothing.

Who the Remarks Were Aimed At

Smith’s outburst was aimed at lawyers in a discovery fight, and the Court still called it conduct that fell far below the standard of professionalism Florida judges owe those who appear before them. Roberson’s remarks were aimed at litigants, in injunction proceedings where the people on the receiving end had no professional distance from him and no ability to walk away.

A lawyer insulted from the bench has a bar card, a client to protect, and a transcript. A self-represented party in an injunction hearing has none of that. Two of the three people on the receiving end here were seeking or resisting protective orders, which is to say they had come to a courthouse because they felt unsafe. The third was told from the bench that she should have been hit more.

How It Works in Texas

Most of the eleven map almost word for word. Texas Canon 3B(4) requires a judge to be patient, dignified and courteous to litigants, jurors, witnesses, lawyers and others in an official capacity. Canon 3B(5) requires judicial duties to be performed without bias or prejudice, and Canon 3B(6) carries the sentence Florida folds into its own 3B(5), that a judge shall not by words or conduct manifest bias in performing those duties. Canon 3B(1), 3B(2), 3B(3) and 2A line up with their Florida numbers, and Florida’s 3B(8) on disposing of matters fairly is Texas Canon 3B(9).

Florida’s Canon 1 says a judge shall personally observe high standards of conduct and its Canon 2A says a judge shall act at all times in a manner that promotes public confidence. Texas says should in both places, and Canon 8B(2) of the Texas code provides that should relates to aspirational goals … but not as a binding rule under which a judge may be disciplined. Two of the eleven would not stand alone in Texas. This series has now found the same split in New York, and it is worth knowing before anyone drafts a complaint around the general canons.

The second is structural and larger. Florida charged Canon 3E(1), failing to disqualify where impartiality might reasonably be questioned, including where the judge has made a public statement that appears to commit the judge on a party or an issue. Texas has no such canon. Texas Canon 3E is about fiduciary activities, and recusal in Texas lives in the Rules of Civil Procedure rather than the Code of Judicial Conduct: Canon 3B(1) says only that a judge shall hear and decide matters except those in which disqualification is required or recusal is appropriate, and the grounds are in Rule 18b with the procedure in Rule 18a.

So in Florida, refusing to step aside after prejudging a case is itself a charged ethics violation. In Texas the same refusal is a procedural error you preserve and appeal, and it reaches the State Commission on Judicial Conduct only through Canon 3B(1) and the general obligations in Canon 2A. For a litigant, that means the recusal motion is not just a motion. It is the record on which any later complaint will rest.

Texas also has a formal version of how this case ended. The Texas Commission can close a matter with a voluntary agreement to resign from judicial office in lieu of disciplinary action, and that agreement carries a lifetime bar from serving as a judge in Texas again. Florida reached the same destination by a different road: the Commission told the Court he had agreed not to hold judicial office again, and the Court dismissed. The door is shut either way. The difference is what the public can see. A Texas agreement is a filed, published document that says this judge will not sit again and why the matter ended. In Florida the undertaking is a line in a notice of voluntary dismissal, disposed of by a one-sentence order that recites nothing. A litigant searching his name finds a dismissal. For the full process on this side of the line, see our explainer, Who Polices Texas Judges? The SCJC Explained.

How It Played in the Press

Coverage locked onto one insult. Every account led with the entitled little snot line, and several stopped there. Florida Politics was the only outlet to quote the charging document at length, in June and again in July, and it is the reason the transcripts reached the public at all. Even so, the charge that a judge told a man in open court that an injunction he had not yet filed would be granted, then granted it the same day, appeared nowhere.

The result is that the case was reported as a manners problem. Nine of the eleven canons went unnamed in print. Four of them, the ones about prejudgment and refusing to step aside, were never mentioned at all, and those are the four that reach whether the rulings were sound. Two of the three sets of litigants are still in the appellate courts over exactly that question.

That he agreed never to hold judicial office again appeared in a Daily Business Review story on the dismissal, relayed through the Florida Bar’s daily summary, two weeks after most outlets had stopped following the case.

Where Things Stand Now

Roberson is a former judge as of October 1, 2026, and has agreed not to hold judicial office again. The charges were resolved by his departure rather than by any decision, so there is no finding that he violated any canon and no sanction on his record. The filings call it a retirement; the trade press reported it as a resignation. As of early November 2026 no successor had been named, the circuit’s judicial nominating commission had announced no vacancy for the seat, and the Florida Bar had taken no public disciplinary action against him as a lawyer.

Two of the three sets of litigants are still in the appellate courts, which is the part of this that does not end with him. The rulings stand or fall on their own, and the people who got them are still litigating.

There is also a closed circle. Roberson reached the circuit bench in June 2017 because Governor Rick Scott appointed him to a vacancy created that January, when a judge serving the same three counties resigned amid conduct charges over remarks to and about court staff, which he denied, one day before a Florida House committee was set to take up impeachment. Roberson took that seat and left it nine years later over remarks from the bench. The earlier judge is not named here, because his allegations were never adjudicated.

Sources

PRIMARY SOURCES

• Notice of Formal Charges, Inquiry Concerning a Judge, JQC No. 2026-648 re: The Honorable Eric Roberson, filed June 11, 2026, by General Counsel L. Jon Bielby.
• Supreme Court of Florida docket, No. SC2026-0900, carrying the notice, the audio exhibits, the extension motion, the Answer, the designation of a hearing panel, the case management order, and the October 23, 2026 order of voluntary dismissal. acis.flcourts.gov
• Florida Code of Judicial Conduct, for the text of Canons 1, 2A, 3B(1) through 3B(10) and 3E(1). Florida Code of Judicial Conduct (pdf)
• Fla. Const. art. V, § 12, for the Investigative Panel’s probable cause authority at 12(b) and, at 12(a)(1) and 12(c)(1), the definition of discipline and the Supreme Court’s power to remove or involuntarily retire a judge. flsenate.gov

NEWS COVERAGE

• Florida Politics: Judicial Qualifications Commission probes 4th Circuit Judge Eric Roberson for bench comments to litigants (June 12, 2026), by A.G. Gancarski, the only contemporaneous account to quote the charging document at length. floridapolitics.com
• Florida Politics: Duval County judge isn’t proud of certain comments, but says they don’t merit removal from office (July 13, 2026), on the response. floridapolitics.com
• ABA Journal: Judge regrets ‘entitled little snot’ comment but still fit for the bench, lawyer says (July 16, 2026). abajournal.com
• Action News Jax: ‘Entitled little snot’: Jacksonville judge retires amid misconduct charges (Oct. 13, 2026), reporting the October 1 departure and that no successor had been named. actionnewsjax.com
• The Florida Bar, Daily News Summary (Oct. 14, 2026), summarizing the Daily Business Review of Oct. 13: the Commission dropped the charges and reported that he stepped off the bench agreeing not to hold judicial office again. floridabar.org
• First Coast News: Duval County judge faces misconduct charges over inappropriate, prejudicial remarks made in court. firstcoastnews.com
• Jax Daily Record: Roberson appointed to 4th Judicial Circuit, on the June 2017 appointment by Gov. Rick Scott to the vacancy created that January, and on his May 2015 appointment to the county bench. jaxdailyrecord.com

REFERENCE

• Texas Code of Judicial Conduct, official text as amended through August 22, 2002, for Canons 1, 2A, 3B(1) through 3B(9), 3E and the terminology provision at Canon 8B(2). txcourts.gov (pdf)
• The Florida Bar Journal: Navigating With a New Map, on the 2023 appellate redistricting that moved the Fourth Judicial Circuit from the First District Court of Appeal to the Fifth. floridabar.org
• Case File No. 50, Judge Smith Reprimanded for ‘Shoot All Three of You,’ the Florida demeanor case that ended in a public reprimand. texasdwisite.com
• Case File No. 52, Judge Steven Tureau Resigns Over Unfiled Tax Returns, on resignation as an exit from discipline. texasdwisite.com
• Deandra Grant Law: Who Polices Texas Judges? The SCJC Explained. texasdwisite.com
• Texas State Commission on Judicial Conduct: how to file a complaint against a Texas judge. scjc.texas.gov

• This post summarizes a public charging document of the Florida Judicial Qualifications Commission, the public docket of the Supreme Court of Florida, and contemporaneous news reporting, as of November 2026, and is not legal advice. The charges were never adjudicated: no court or commission entered findings, and no sanction was imposed. Judge Roberson admitted making the quoted comments through counsel while disputing that they violated ten of the eleven canons cited, and specifically denied that he was advocating violence; that denial was never tested. The quotations are his own words as the Commission’s notice transcribes them from audio exhibits. The litigants in all three matters are referred to by role and are named nowhere here, and the individual case numbers are omitted for the same reason; none of them is accused of anything in this file. The party compared from the bench to a person who molested a child was not accused of anything of the kind, and the comparison was the judge’s. The passage quoted from a motion to disqualify is that litigant’s allegation, not a finding by anyone. The earlier judge referenced in the closing section denied the allegations against him, which were likewise never adjudicated.