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 ...
Did you find that in an emanation or a penumbra?
Hildy said, "the ones we REALLY want), won't take the pay cut." In other words, our choices of candidates are too limited. That explains a lot. Add that to the brutality of the press scrutiny and I'm sure a lot of good family men will chicken out.
I'll second that motion! (And without a snicker!)
;*) Glad you made through the New Years Eve celebrations.
Ok. What private sector Supreme Court Justice salary are we comparing to?
Given the class-envy evident on this thread, is that really what most people want?
It's class envy to take the position that $200k is sufficient. What is it to say that those making $40k should give more to the one making $200K? Don't forget that judges rarely have to contend with little things like traffic tickets and government red tape. Our district judges wife was just convicted of embezzling $600,000 from her employer. She had to pay it back and do 100 hours community service. That perk has got to be worth something.
I'd say "most certainly."
Freedom isn't free and our freedom will soon be nonexistent if We The People don't take our power back. If they get our guns, that becomes exponentially more difficult.
Does that mean Roberts is incompetent? Since he is so poverty-stricken, is he therefore bribable?
Okay, so Clarence Thomas, Anton Scalia and Wm. Reinquist are or were ambulance chasing scumbags.....
Last I checked, we were able to hire these guys at the current payscale.
It is to the sort of people planning to embezzle money. To the rest of us, it's probably not worth so much.
He was able to hire a law clerk and two secretaries to help him do his work. He could have hired two law clerks and a secretary, but he chose to have one law clerk and have a very well paid staff.
No one told him what to do, or when to do it, with the exception of some oral arguments and conferences to decide cases. He started his day when he felt it was appropriate and left when he felt it was appropriate. He did not eat lunch, but worked straight through powered by coffee and pipe tobacco. He typed on a manual typewriter.
He had his job for a 12 year term, and could not be fired before the end of that term. Federal judges have it even better, in that they cannot be fired except by impeachment and conviction, and in one of the rare cases that that has happened in 200 years, the judge got himself elected to Congress and nearly got appointed by Speaker Pelosi to head a key intelligence committee.
The State Supreme Court's decisions on questions of purely state law could not be overturned. That is, if the legislature says X, the court could interpret it as Y. If the legislature went back and said "We really meant X," the court could go back and say "No. It has to be Y. We really don't care what you write into your petty laws. We are the last word on state law."
Did you get that last part. This means that in a lot of the cases the court heard, it simply could not be overturned by anyone for any reason at all. That is a whole lot of power. If there were federal legal or Constitutional issues involved, a federal court could get involved.
Actually, I'm for paying those in public service decently. But I think four or five times what the average person makes qualifies as more than decent. Most of the federal judicary are in locales where that kind of money puts them in the top earning brackets, and allows them to live very, very comfortably. And it's not like they're Congresscritters, who have to maintain two homes and incessantly travel back and forth to DC.
. Perhaps you are not particularly concerned about the Constitution and the Original Intent of the Framers to make the judiciary independent?
The framers intended the Federal Government including the judiciary to be limited by the Constitution. It hasn't worked.
Bribes are just one of the perks.
"No offense, but this is just a stupid line of reasoning. Private industry employs people with the same skills as those held by judges."
that's kind of moving the old goal posts, don't you think? Now it's "skills". That is not what the poster said. Judges do NOT compete in the free market. Sure, they share some skills with the private sector, so what?
"With your reasoning, the competetive wage for any type of employment that does not exist in the private sector is zero."
No, no, no. There is NO competitive wage for judges. That is my whole point. There is no "market" to guage salaries by.
Let's say, for the sake of argument, judicial salaries were based on private lawyer salaries. The average lawyer salary is 95K in this country.
Judgeships are unique government positions. They are STILL civil servants.
A good read for you:
http://volokh.com/posts/chain_1147458945.shtml
And lest we forget that judges get something that is worth a lot of money: tenure. And not like academic tenure where the profs actually have to show up in the classroom almost every day. A geriatric 80+ judge, whose clerks do all of his work anyway, still gets that big fat salary.
"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. "
Nonsense. I never alluded to anything like that and you know it.
"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...?"
That's like saying people join the military because they have no other options to make money. Sounds familiar.
Here is reality:
President: I'd like you to be a judge.
Nominee: It would be an honor to serve this nation as a judge, Mr. President.
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