Posted on 01/01/2007 7:26:14 AM PST by indcons
Pay for federal judges is so inadequate that it threatens to undermine the judiciary's independence, Chief Justice John Roberts says in a year-end report critical of Congress.
Issuing an eight-page message devoted exclusively to salaries, Roberts says the 678 full-time U.S. District Court judges, the backbone of the federal judiciary, are paid about half that of deans and senior law professors at top schools.
In the 1950s, 65 percent of U.S. District Court judges came from the practicing bar and 35 percent came from the public sector. Today the situation is reversed, Roberts said, with 60 percent from the public sector and less than 40 percent from private practice.
Federal district court judges are paid $165,200 annually; appeals court judges make $175,100; associate justices of the Supreme Court earn $203,000; the chief justice gets $212,100.
Thirty-eight judges have left the federal bench in the past six years and 17 in the past two years.
The issue of pay, says Roberts, "has now reached the level of a constitutional crisis."
"Inadequate compensation directly threatens the viability of life tenure, and if tenure in office is made uncertain, the strength and independence judges need to uphold the rule of law - even when it is unpopular to do so - will be seriously eroded," Roberts wrote.
(Excerpt) Read more at seattlepi.nwsource.com ...
WTF was that from? The Sexual Politics of Meat? ;-)
Cheers!
You say it goes down the further you go out. That probably doesn't include the nicer burbs.
Or from idealists and ideologues.
Cheers!
Soldiers put their life on the line for a lot less $ then these pampered elite receive for sitting in splendor.
Maybe from somewhere where they know how to read plain English.
You got that right. I don't want the bank tellers reading my checks the way the SCOTUS "reads" the US Constitution.
Sniff...sniff...small sob...choking...sniffle...SOB!
How can those poor men and women endure such bitter poverty??
I agree that money is not the sole motivator. It was not for my dad. However, he might have left if his salary had been cut in half.
Good morning, FRiend.
Roberts is wrong on this (and Scalia as well if he has talked about it)
1) a federal judge who has reached the age of 65 and served at least 15 years can retire at full pay - anybody know any law firms that are that generous?
2) no amount of money can compensate for the power and prestige of judges..not that most of them are deserving.
3) salaries for the federal judiciary are set by Congress (God help us)
http://www.ncsconline.org/WC/Publications/KIS_JudComJudSal010106Pub.pdf
They do. That's the problem. Then they're replaced largely by much less competent people, who don't have the ability to earn more than these salaries elsewhere.
We don't need to make key government positions pay like Fortune 500 CEO jobs, but we shouldn't expect these positions to be routinely filled by people working for a tiny fraction of what they could earn elsewhere. "You get what you pay for" holds true in the arena of public sector jobs just like with anything else.
As Federal employees, judges' pay scales must be available somewhere: the best I could find in a quick search was here
Cheers!
In that case let's go for a decrease.
(snicker..)
(Hi ya )
The trouble isn't that judges are paid too little. It's rather that other lawyers are paid too much, thanks to their cartel's power over the legal system and thanks to the always-increasing and mind-numbing complexity of the law.
Judges just need to learn how to live on what they make.
Maybe if they took a pay cut they'd have a better appreciation for how difficult their rulings make life for average citizens.
Maybe if their protection was eliminated they would better understand how leniency on criminals affects normal people.
No,actually,they don't.Opt out being cleaner than opt-in,they just decided to make raises automatic,the burden in now on those who feel there should be no raise.
According to the stats they are not resigning in any greater proportion than in other govt sectors.
As for the ones that do: we are better off without them. (like Robertson)
In many areas of the country, an experienced plumbing contractor who has built up a business and has several junior plumbers working for him, is making more money than the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Some of these plumbers would no doubt be better federal judges than some of the current ones (the Ninth Circus comes to mind), but why would they want to drop 4 years (or 8 years in the case of the many plumbers who have only a high school education) out of their earning years, and spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on getting a law school education, so that they can resume work at a job where they'd earn LESS than they currently do?
And right in time for the Carter inflation years, eh?
...and I bet he didn't get intellectual propery rights, either.
NO cheers, unfortunately.
It is called "public service" for a reason.
I'm sure President Bush could make a hell of a lot more money running some company into the ground than he's making in his current job. Just about *every* soldier could immediately double their income by becoming a Blackrock mercenary.
But they believe their duties are more important than remuneration.
You are correct. But here's my problem with this...judges, as well as politicians..beg, borrow and steal to get elected and judges GROVEL to get appointed. They do know the salary up front. But this is why we get the kinds of people we do. Really great minds, who can make double or triple that in the private sector, and who don't crave the power (the ones we REALLY want), won't take the pay cut.
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