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: Law Blog - WSJ.com

CJ Roberts: Pay Freeze Could Damage Fabric of Federal Judiciary

By Dan Slater

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Photo: AP

In her 2008 State of the Judiciary, New York Court of Appeals Chief Judge Judith Kaye, whose 25 year career on the bench ended Wednesday, called the nearly 11-year salary freeze for New York’s judges a “continuing misery.” In an interview, she told the Law Blog: “You can’t freeze the salary and expect that, as the demands get greater on the courts, you’ll continue to draw the people you need to deal with the problems.”

In his 2008 year-end report, Supreme Court Chief Justice — who in 2006 branded the federal judiciary’s pay freeze a “constitutional crisis” — made nearly the same argument. Over at WashWire, WSJ Supreme Court reporter Jess Bravin reports:

. . [T]he chief justice chose to unfurl an artifact of Americana in the service of raising judges’ salaries, a delicate topic amid a recession and rising unemployment. The actual Star-Spangled Banner that flew over Fort McHenry during the British attack in 1814 can now be viewed at the Smithsonian’s newly renovated National Museum of American History, he observed. Yet “the stripes are frayed, the canton is worn, and one of its 15 stars has gone missing,” he wrote. Some of those scars came from “pitched battle” — but others “regrettably, from later neglect.”

In case anyone missed the metaphor (American flag=judicial pay), Roberts then shifted to requesting a raise.

“The Judiciary’s needs cannot be postponed indefinitely without damaging its fabric,” he wrote. “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!”

Federal district judges, notes Bravin, get the same salary as senators and representatives, $169,300. Circuit judges clock in at $179,500, the eight associate justices of the Supreme Court receive $208,100 and Roberts himself earns $217,400.

For more on Roberts’ year-end report, click here for a WaPo report, here for an NYT report and here for an L.A. Times report.