Federal Judges Might (Finally) Get Pay Bump

Hi folks, SFL still muckin' around in here.

This is an issue near and dear to Judge Fay's heart, as we all know:

House members voted Wednesday for a $410 billion spending plan to keep the federal government running through September, and the plan includes a cost-of-living adjustment for the federal judiciary for the 2009 calendar year. According to the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, the proposal would give judges a 2.8 percent increase retroactive to January.

Though it wouldn't bring judges close to the salaries of their friends in private practice or in deanships at top law schools, it would end their status as the only federal employees who did not get a cost-of-living adjustment this year. They have gone without such an increase in seven of the last 14 years, and Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. has made the issue a priority.

The spending plan now heads to the Senate, which has been less receptive to arguments for higher judicial pay and could amend the plan. In October, senators removed plans for the judiciary's 2009 cost-of-living adjustment from auto-bailout legislation passed by the House.

Even though I tweaked the Judge's speech on this at the recent Bench & Bar conference, in all seriousness it is a no-brainer and is long long long overdue.

Federal judges to get COLA if...

...the auto industry is bailed out. Thanks to a helpful comment, I see from the WSJ law blog that:

So this $14 billion bailout bill currently making its way through the halls of Congress stands mostly to benefit the U.S. auto industry. But it also, oddly, stands to benefit federal district judges.
Here’s why: The bill attaches an annual cost-of-living adjustment — or COLA — for federal judges, which, when implemented, will bring them in line with members of Congress, who get a $5,000 boost at the start of the year. District judges and members of Congress make $169,300. Here’s the AP story. Click here, here and here for other LB posts on the topic of judicial pay, which has been raging for years.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., insisted that the judicial pay raise go into the bill. The Senate passed the judicial pay measure as a separate bill in November, but the House never acted. As a result, Reid has taken the unusual step of linking the obscure but important judicial pay issue to the unpopular auto bailout.
There is concern among many policymakers that judges are not paid enough relative to the importance of their offices, and in six of the past 13 years, judges have been denied their pay raise as lawmakers opted not to take their own COLA.

Monday morning...

Wanna know why our justice system is totally screwed up -- look here. That's the Herald article explaining that Lyglenson Lemorin , the only Liberty City 7 defendant who was acquitted, has just been ordered deported. So to review -- the other defendants are out on bond waiting for their third trial, while Lemorin -- WHO WAS FOUND NOT GUILTY -- is stuck in an immigration jail waiting to be deported because an immigration judge found that he did the same things for which a jury said no.

Here is the Herald article:

A year after being acquitted on terrorism conspiracy charges in the Liberty City 7 case, a Haitian-born Miami man has been ordered deported by an immigration judge.
Lyglenson Lemorin won acquittal on criminal charges last December after persuading a federal jury that he was only marginally involved in the so-called Liberty City 7, a band of devotees of an inner-city religious group the government contends conspired to blow up the Sears Tower in Chicago and Miami's FBI building in 2006.
Lemorin fled with his family to Atlanta to get away from the group's leaders.
But Kenneth Hurwitz, an immigration judge at the Krome Avenue detention center who conducted a weeklong removal hearing in August, concluded in a 135-page ruling received by Lemorin's attorneys Friday that the Haitian native, a legal U.S. resident, did provide ''material support'' to a group he knew had plans for attacks.
The standard of proof is lower in immigration court, which is not a fully independent tribunal but part of the U.S. Department of Justice.
The material support Hurwitz cites: Lemorin's work for group leader Narseal Batiste's stucco business. His ruling concedes Lemorin did not participate in the main activities the group undertook in furthering alleged plans for attacks -- including surveillance photos and videos of potential targets or the alleged ''kidnapping'' of a pair of government informants who infiltrated the group.
But Hurwitz said Lemorin's knowledge of the surveillance, along with his pledging a contested ''oath'' to al Qaeda administered by one of the informants, was sufficient to classify him as a terrorist supporter, even though the judge concluded Lemorin was ''technically'' not a member or supporter of al Qaeda.
Lemorin testified he did not understand the oath and believed Batiste was, in the judge's words, ''talking crap'' about attacks to draw money from the FBI informants.
But, Hurwitz wrote, ``It does not matter if he believed that the organization was not going to commit terrorist acts. The court also does not believe that he did not understand what he was doing when he took an oath to support an organization that has forcibly opposed the United States.''
It's unlikely that Lemorin -- who has been held in immigration detention since his acquittal -- will be deported anytime soon.
His Atlanta attorney, Charles Kuck, said he will argue to Hurwitz that Lemorin should be allowed to remain in the United States because he could be tortured or mistreated if returned to Haiti. Kuck said he will appeal Hurwitz's decision if necessary.
That could take months. In the meantime, he expects Lemorin, who is being held in rural Georgia, to remain in detention and separated from his children and his ill wife, who are in Miami.
Four of Lemorin's co-defendants are free on bond following two mistrials. Batiste and the other five defendants are set for a third trial in January.

Someone explain to me how this is just.

In related news, Joel DeFabio was a finalist for most effective criminal justice lawyer in 2008 for his representation of Lemorin in the criminal trial. The most effective lawyers were Stephen Carlton, John Kastrenakes and Antonia Barnes for their prosecution of Palm Beach politicians. Other finalists were: Richard Lubin, Michael Metz, Douglas Hartman & Bruce Reinhart (for their successful health care fraud defense); and Ken Swartz, Marc Seitles & Steve Amster (for their successul drug trafficking and money laundering defense). Congrats to all of the winners and finalists for great results, especially my office-mate Marc, but how doesn't DeFabio win this one hands down? The other winners & finalists are here.

And finally while we are on the Review, John Pacenti covers Judge Peter Fay's speech from the Bench & Bar conference. He covers the portion dealing with judicial pay and Fay explains that district judges should get a raise from $169,000 to $342,000. I agree that $169K is way too low. First year associates in New York make more. So dear readers -- what are your thoughts? How much should district judges be making?