Supreme Court Chief Justice Roberts Opts Not to Ask Congress to Raise Judicial Salaries
Fair Courts E-lert
Bibliographic Info:
Author: Robert Barnes
Source: Washington Post
Date: 1/1/2010
Robert Barnes at the Washington Post writes that, in his annual, year-end report on the state of the federal judiciary, Chief Justice John Roberts “abandoned the decades-old practice of . . . call[ing] for bigger salaries [for federal judges],” which has “become standard for the Year-End Report on the Federal Judiciary.” Federal judges have long complained that their salaries, which have failed to rise to account for cost of living increases, are especially inadequate given swelling caseloads, a reality that has also been true for state judges. The New York Times reports that in New York “the unusual confrontation between the judiciary and the other branches of government shows the depth of [judges’] concerns over the salary issue. Because of the intense emotions on the question, some judges around the state have previously disqualified themselves from handling some cases by legislators’ law firms, saying they could not be impartial.” On December 28, the New York Commission on Judicial Conduct censured a county court judge for “openly declaring in mass e-mail messages to other judges that refusing to handle certain kinds of cases was a ‘tactic’ and ‘a weapon’ that could help pry a pay increase out of ‘those clowns’ in Albany.” The New York Law Journal reports that the Commission on Judicial Conduct “warned judges that recusal in such cases based solely on judges’ frustration with the continuing pay impasse in the Legislature is a violation of judicial canons and subjected the judges to potential sanctions.”
See also William Glaberson, Judge is Censured for Efforts to Secure a Pay Raise, New York Times, December 28, 2009; Joel Stashenko, Judge Who Promoted Recusal as ‘Weapon’ Over Pay Shot Himself in the Foot, New York Law Journal, January 4, 2009.