The Holder plagiarism case: from 1998 to 2009

In 2005, the Florida state Judicial Qualifications Commission cleared Hillsborough Circuit Judge Gregory Holder of plagiarism charges. The issue was one of judicial fitness in view of a charge that Holder, an Air Force reservist in 1998, copied portions of a research paper by a fellow reservist, E. David Hoard, and submitting it for a course at MacDill Air Force Base in 1998. There were suggestions that the plagiarism charge was pretextual, to muddy the waters as to whistle-blowing actions by Holder, which impacted other circuit judges.

The evidentiary issue is captured in a quote from Holder's attorney: "Not one witness has sat on the witness stand and told you that the purported Holder paper was the one that was received by the Air Force in 1998,"

The Holder matter recently came up in the news: The Florida Supreme Court has ordered the state to reimburse $70,000 to Hillsborough Circuit Judge Gregory Holder for his expenses in successfully defending himself against plagiarism charges.