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 ...
Well, if you can resist the siren song of the judicial supremacists, you'll be a rare bird indeed.
We're talking about the Federal judiciary and comments by the Chief Justice. If you think that such positions are not "elite" then you must also think a plumber could do brain surgery.
Judges must be lawyers, who have postgraduate training and are by definition elite. So were the Founding Fathers. The idea that just anybody can interpret Constitutional Law at the highest level is laughable. There is work in this world that does require advanced education. Sorry if that plain fact upsets your applecart.
It seems the biggest problem is when people aren't bound by precedent. When do you overturn precedent? Plessy? Brown? Kelo?
It seems that many judges are not bound by precedent and many others simply pick the precedent that benefits them.
But please tell me what great intellectual powers it takes to memorize a bunch of court cases.
Well said, but ......(here comes the butt), it takes funds to educate the kind of Judges we want and that ain't cheap. It's not like he is going to live high on the hog after he pays his two children's college tuition.
I'm saying the guy deserves 3% for their expenses so they can have the kind of schooling that the nation required of him. We owe him that much.
Now if we want to stop having an Ivy league education be a requirement.....
OK, don't get me stared on that.
Then amend the Constitution, which called for a supreme court.
These people are out of touch with reality."
Not their reality.
Their reality is they're better than the masses and deserve more.
I'm sorry, but whining about poverty when you make well into six figures smacks of elitism.
Pah-lease. By that standards, anybody with a Master's degree in mathematics should be a demigod.
Nonsense. First of all, the job does not exist only in the government sector (the dictionary is our friend). Second of all, those jobs which do exist only in one narrow sector of the economy are still subject to market competition with other jobs that require similar skills (and thus compete for the same people).
Well, then perhaps the salaries of deans and law professors at top schools, should be sliced in half.
$165,000 per year is a lot of money for a single salary. Most Americans can only dream of earning that much. I understand Justice Roberts point that current salaries are not attracting the best for the judiciary, but he will receive little understanding and sympathy from most Americans.
Now, concerning the high cost of living in San Francisco, move the 9th to rural Utah.
Go back and see what Roberts is comparing the salaries to ~ working attorneys ~ certainly the judiciary can reign in the lawyers by refusing the more highly paid of them entry into their courts.
The problem with free market is only everyone who embraces it wants to own it.
"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."
Sounds like blackmail to me.
Sheesh. The word "supreme" means "the top court." Not supreme over the other two CO-EQUAL branches of government. Your formulation is dishonest and grossly inaccurate.
It's so simple: Tax the lawyers to pay for judges' salaries.
In L98Fieroworld:
President: I want you to be a judge.
Nominee: Sorry, I make three times as much in private practice.
President: Tough; you're drafted.
In the real world:
President: I want you to be a judge.
Nominee: Sorry, I make three times as much in private practice.
President: Crap! OK, who's number thirty-seven on my list...?
In many major metro areas, you'd be hard-pressed to make the payments on an 80% mortgage on a modest 3 bedroom house in a safe neighborhood with $60,000/year.
If the mother isn't willing to homeschool, she could easily make another 100k in such a place.
LOL, good one and heartily agreed, from a former "at will" employee of the judiciary!
Works perfectly, if you want a bench full of egomaniacs. I, for one, don't.
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