Howie’s Sunday Herald column
Judges earn contempt, not salary hikes
By Howie Carr | Sunday, March 2, 2008 | http://www.bostonherald.com
Judge Richard Moses, the perverts’ pal, needs a pay raise.
Believe it or not, the greed-crazed limousine liberals of the Mass. Judges Conference are rattling their tin cups yet again. They are lobbying to jack up their base salary to $162,000, an increase from the current $129,694 a year that trial judges get. A 25 percent pay raise is bad enough, and even more outrageous is that down the road it would add more than two grand a month extra to their already bloated pensions.
You think it’s easy cutting loose Level 3 child molesters and bathroom stalkers and man-rapists day after day after day? It’s a tough job - just ask Corey Saunders, David Flavell and Kenneth Stone. They’d tell you, Judge Moses is doing a hell of a job.
The shrill timing of these black-robed knaves is a little off, what with Judge Moses, a former ACLU employee and contributor to Barney Frank and George Rogers, on an apparent one-man crusade to release every skinner and Peeping Tom who comes to his courtroom.
It’s a great job, being a judge. All you have to do is scrape up a few grand, send it to the right politicians, and pretty soon you, too, can be screaming at prosecutors to shut up while you’re blowing wet kisses from the bench to whatever tattooed diddler or flasher is appearing in front of you.
And now one of those traditional “blue-ribbon panels” is considering whether to recommend higher salaries for state judges. What suspense. Whatever will they decide to do? When was the last time a “blue-ribbon panel” recommended anything other than a pay raise, or a toll hike?
This bunch of blue-ribbons held their final hearing in Worcester last month, the day after the primary. I had no idea such a panel existed until I stumbled across a story in the Worcester paper. The reporter dryly noted that despite the allegedly “public” nature of the hearing, “members of the public were not in attendance last night.”
The Mass. Judges Conference somehow heard about the hearing, though. Isn’t that the same crew of payroll Charlies who were once scheming to railroad through yet another pay hike, and after the secret confab broke up, one of the hack jurists, a crony of a felon named Tommy Taxes, got bagged for OUI out on Route 128?
“Several testifying last night,” the paper reported, “said the $160,000 starting salary for rookie lawyers at larger Boston law firms is higher than the highest-paid judge’s salary.” There’s a simple solution to that alleged problem. The judges who consider themselves underpaid should apply to become “rookie lawyers.”
The arrogance of these pompous layabout judges is astounding. In addition to the obscene pay hikes, some of them are demanding Taj Mahal courthouses. They want marble palaces, they want the registries of deeds evicted, they want . . . private bathrooms.
Who do they think they are, Mayor David Cohen of Newton? The difference is, Cohen will someday have to answer to the voters for his white elephant $200 million and counting high school.
A suck-up lawyer from Fitchburg said: “Salary is a major stumbling block. I’ve heard them say, ‘I have two kids in college’ and ‘My wife is no longer working. I can’t afford to do that.’ ”
I repeat: If they can’t “afford” to take jobs that pay $129,694 for 37 weeks of work a year, then they should quit. They can go back to starving to death in private practice, chasing ambulances, joining the Kiwanis Club and printing up business cards that say “Reasonable doubt at a reasonable price.” I’ll bet we could find some “rookie lawyer” who’d be willing to try to scrape by on $129,694 a year.
The judges figure they have a pay raise coming this year because the district attorneys just got a hike, up to around $148,000. Is it possible the Legislature wanted to give more money to the people trying to keep the sex offenders behind bars, like the prosecutors, rather than to the black-robed scum who keep cutting the monsters loose to rape again and again.
“It is unfair,” the lawyer added, “the manner in which we pay them. We live in a society that is unfair to a lot of people but it’s horrible to disregard the public interest.”
But releasing rapists and buying judgeships with contributions - that’s in the public interest?
And now the judges howl for still more dough. They should run a public-relations campaign. And I have just the poster boy for them.
Judge Moses, come on down!
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/opinion/columnists/view.bg?articleid=1077137
LOL! I've worked for some big law firms -- the rookie lawyers who want to keep their jobs are frequently working from about 8:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. or so (and not infrequently all night!), including Saturdays and/or Sundays! Ever wonder why so many lawyers want to be judges??? And so few judges want to go back to being lawyers???
Is it my imagination or has Howie had even more columns skewering the MA judiciary since his recent up close and personal experience with the court system? ;-)
Howie nails it again! He knows the workings of this state in and out, the guy is amazing with the knowledge he possesses. If you haven’t read his book, it’s a MUST read, all the fine details about corruption in MA. No wonder Whitey et al wanted to fill a basketball with C4 explosives.....! Rock on Howie!