Legal News

CJ Roberts?s New Year?s Message: ?The Courts Are Operating Soundly.?

By Ashby Jones

Happy Monday, LBers, and welcome back.

Let’s open the day (typically one of so much mental cobweb clearing) in proper fashion, with a nod to the tradition started by Chief Justice Warren Burger back in 1970 of issuing a year-end state of the federal judiciary.

This year, on New Year’s Eve, just as folks were scooping up their last-minute bottles of Champagne prosecco, Chief Justice Roberts threw us all a bit of a curve-ball by refraining from repeating the call for pay raises for federal judges that he has issued in recent years. Click here for the report; here for a short write-up by the BLT Blog.

Roberts acknowledged the departure in the report, writing that “Many of [the judiciary's] needs remain to be addressed.” But for the thrust of the report, he chose optimism over hand-wringing.

“This year, however” he continued, “when the political branches are faced with so many difficult issues, and when so many of our fellow citizens have been touched by hardship, the public might welcome a year-end report limited to what is essential: The courts are operating soundly, and the nation's dedicated federal judges are conscientiously discharging their duties.”

Last year, Roberts issued an unusually broad and emphatic call for judicial pay raises, writing that “Given the judiciary’s small cost, and its absolutely critical role in protecting the Constitution and rights we enjoy, I must renew the judiciary’s modest petition: Simply provide cost-of-living increases that have been unfairly denied!”

Roberts couldn’t, however, neglect what for so many was the central theme to 2009: the economic downturn. For instance, Roberts noted, bankruptcy filings saw a 35 percent increase in 2009, and, he wrote, “filings of cases involving consumer credit, such as those filed under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, increased 53% (up 2,143 cases), fueled in part by the current economic downturn, particularly in the nation's most populous districts.”

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on January 04, 2010 (boomark / email).