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Wed column ping.

http://bostonherald.com/print/1062181831

Howie Carr: Another case of poor judgment
Wednesday, January 9, 2013
DTI
This is exactly why we need to elect our judges in the commonwealth: so that the anonymous black-robed layabouts who scuttled Judge Shannon Frison’s promotion to the Superior Court should be forced to step out of the shadows and stop whispering their base canards.

Let them answer to the electorate as to why they can’t be bothered filling in for a Marine major during her occasional military duties with the Reserves. Did they really sink her because she doesn’t “reciprocate” and cover for them, as if her service to the United States is somehow comparable to these judges’ desire to, say, grab an early tee time, or take a slide to the Pheasant Lane Mall for some tax-free shopping.

These judges are supposed to tell us what laws to obey, and yet they don’t mind flouting the federal statutes prohibiting discrimination against members of the military.

Can you imagine that at least one hack judge took time out of his, ahem, busy day, to call up Councilor Marilyn Petitto Devaney and gripe about having to pick up the slack when BMC District Court Judge Frison gets called to duty.

Here’s what Frison told the Governor’s Council last month when she was nominated: “My service is a personal choice based upon my commitment to defend the United States.”

Oh, how that must have frosted the Beautiful People to read that. How dare she! She’s not a “team player,” the jurist(s) told Devaney. What team are these greedy, bloated judges on, the al-Qaeda team?

Shame on Gov. Deval Patrick too, for letting himself get pushed around by these bust-out lawyers who scraped together enough cash from their failed practices to grease the palms of the right pols so they could get early retirement at $130,000 a year.

I’ll bet they told Devaney and the other councilors and Deval’s coat holders how “overworked” they are. Save that Vaseline for the Globe, boyos. Do you realize that a state judge gets 30 “working” days’ vacation? That’s six weeks.

They also can claim 20 sick days — four more weeks off. Five “educational” days and five “personal” days — an additional two weeks off. Plus 15 federal state and county holidays — three more weeks.

That’s a total of 15 weeks a year off. But they couldn’t chip in and help out a fellow judge when she’s called up.

My bet is that now that the story is out, Frison will be right back on the Superior Court list. As for the hack judges who tried to croak her, they should be reassigned to the boondocks … maybe to the Halls of Montezuma, or the shores of Tripoli. Wonder what the case loads are out there.