New York’s Chief Judge Judith Kaye has abandoned her previous threat of a lawsuit against the legislative and executive branches for the failure to grant even a cost-of-living pay raise over the last nine years.

In a letter to the judiciary over the past holiday week, Chief Judge Kaye, pictured at right, backed down. In an unsigned, four page letter marked “Confidential,” she wrote that any such lawsuit by the Third Branch of government against the other two “must withstand the strong light of day,” and that formulating an appropriate theory has “not be an easy task.” The judge added that had such a suit already been brought, it would not “have helped us one whit” and “it would have damaged our cause.”

How did this confidential letter come to light? Because sitting Justice Emily Jane Goodman of Manhattan has now written about it, publishing both the Chief Judge’s letter and her own response online in an exclusive report at Judicial Reports. And Justice Goodman wants to know why, if such a suit would not have been helpful or couldn’t be brought, was the threat so publicly made?

Justice Goodman, using an extraordinarily sharp tone considering her target, and often dripping with sarcasm that attorneys are unaccustomed to hearing from the bench, is anything but kind to Chief Judge Kaye. A few snippets of of Justice Goodman’s response:

The Chief Judge writes that she understands my “mounting frustration,” though I suspect she will find it unseemly when I, a New York State Supreme Court Justice, am forced into bankruptcy. She’s assuring me that our problems with the Governor and Legislature are not unique in the nation; but show me one other judicial entity in its ninth year without a pay raise or cost of living increase.

…

Yet all is not lost. They are “doing something,” and, “please be assured that we are wholly dedicated to achieving our objectives and unrelenting in our daily calls and visits.” Calls and visits are sweet, but have little to do with the urgency felt by those of us who are losing control of our lives.

I’m sure the Chief Judge believes that these contacts will do the trick. But, by the way, she and the other administrators have never been elected, have never run for office or been touched by politics, in a way that would enable them to understand politics and political negotiation. Those who are appointed are the beneficiaries of politics, without experiencing the dynamics themselves. Almost all court administrators (I can think of few exceptions) are appointed, and almost none have ever been elected to the Supreme Court.

There is much more at the Judicial Reports link above.

The publication of the confidential letter and the sharp commentary accompanying it, has the sound of an insurrection against Chief Judge Kaye from the ranks of our trial judges, if others feel as betrayed as Justice Goodman. And it is possible that, if the trial judges don’t see acceptable action from their leadership or the legislature, that a work “slow down” may be in the future.

Addendum 7/15/07: See also A Bold Move By Justice E.J. Goodman (Simple Justice)

(Eric Turkewitz is a personal injury attorney in New York)

When looking for stories on personal injury law for this blog, I often come across comments bashing the jury system. So consider this: Would you want any of these judges sitting on your case:

• Judge Roy Pearson (D.C.), crying in court over his $54M pants;
• Elizabeth Halverson (Las Vegas), Ordering her staff to give her foot rubs, among other transgressions;
• Judge Larry Seidlin (Florida) – crying in the Anna Nicole Smith baby case;
• Judge Lance Ito – Who turned the O.J. Simpson case into a three-ring circcus

And they are not alone. Others get “selected” from time-to-time for their “jurisprudence:”

Readers Digest: America’s Worst Judges;
Overlawyered: Worst Judges, cont’d.;
The Legal Reader: Memphis Judge Banned From Florida Resort For Harassment;

And these links don’t even involve scandal of the bribery or bench-buying kind, as we’ve seen in Brooklyn, or those with political biases judges might bring to the bench.

The point, however, is not to bash judges in general. Not even close, since most I’ve seen are hard-working and conscientious (and I have to appear in front of them). But rather, to highlight that just as there may be bad jurors from time-to-time, so too are there bad judges. Humans are fallible.

When the nations founders enshrined the right to trial by jury, even in civil cases, they knew what they were doing.

Last week, New York’s highest court did something I’ve never seen. And lawyers I have spoken with have also never seen it.

They wrote a decision without any citations at all. Not one. If anyone else has ever seen such a thing from a state’s highest court, I’d love to hear about it.

The decision is reproduced in full below (Scott Greenfield, loved the caption, People v. Person, and the substance is also discussed by Nicole Black at Sui Generis):

Published by New York State Law Reporting Bureau pursuant to Judiciary Law § 431.
This opinion is uncorrected and subject to revision before publication in the Official Reports.

Decided on May 8, 2007
No. 66

[*1] The People & c., Respondent,
v
Paul Person, Appellant.

MEMORANDUM:
The order of the Appellate Division should be affirmed. Defendant orchestrated a robbery that was perpetrated by two accomplices whose actions resulted in the death of the victim. After being apprehended by the police, the accomplices gave videotaped statements incriminating themselves but exculpating defendant of involvement in the crime. The [*2]accomplices later entered into cooperation agreements with the People and gave testimony at trial detailing defendant’s role in planning the robbery.

During cross-examination of the accomplices, defense counsel used the transcripts of the videotaped interviews to impeach the credibility of the witnesses by questioning them about the prior inconsistent statements each had initially made to the police. Both accomplices acknowledged they made the prior inconsistent statements. Defense counsel then sought to introduce the videotaped interviews into evidence. Supreme Court denied the request because the accomplices admitted they made the statements on the videotapes. Defendant was subsequently convicted of multiple counts of robbery in the first and second degrees.

Before our Court, defendant asserts that preclusion of the videotaped statements was erroneous as a matter of law because Supreme Court failed to recognize that the jury could not reliably gauge the credibility of the witnesses without viewing their demeanor and hearing their voices during the police interviews. At trial, however, the crux of defendant’s argument was that he should be able to use the videotapes, rather than the transcripts, to prove the content of the prior inconsistent statements. Defendant at that time failed to explain how the videotapes would have conveyed information beyond that provided by the verbatim transcripts of the statements. As a result, he did not preserve his current contention that Supreme Court had discretion to admit the videotapes because they were relevant to the jury’s ability to reliably evaluate the credibility of the witnesses. We therefore have no occasion to consider whether the preclusion of this evidence constituted an abuse of discretion as a matter of law. Defendant’s constitutional claims are similarly unpreserved.

With badly needed judicial pay raises being left out of New York’s April 1st budget agreement, New York Chief Judge Judith Kaye threatened to bring suit against the legislative and executive branches for the raises. In harsh and emotional language she held a press conference and put out a statement on the issue.

New York’s trial court judges have starting salaries at $136,700, and now trail the starting salaries of first year associates at Big Law firms by tens of thousands of dollars.

Chief Judge Kaye called the failure to give the raises “distressing and infuriating” in her press release. The New York Law Journal is reporting as follows:

An emotional Chief Judge Judith S. Kaye said yesterday the judiciary will not remain “docile in the face of the shabby treatment” it is receiving from officials of other governmental branches and is prepared to sue to get judges their first raises in more than eight years.

The chief judge said a suit would be the “very last resort,” but she said she may take that step if lawmakers and the governor do not authorize a pay increase between now and June.

“If there is no action on judicial salaries before the Legislature adjourns in June, the only remaining course of action available to us may well be to institute litigation with the full weight of the state judiciary behind it,” Chief Judge Kaye said yesterday at a rare news conference at her Albany courthouse. “That truly would be a sad day for us, for state government and for the people of New York.”

In the press release put out by the Chief Judge, she said that it was “disgraceful” that New York judges have not even had a cost of living increase in eight years, and that they must go “begging and pleading” for even such an adjustment.

When Eliot Spitzer was inaugurated as our new governor, I had written of my hope that this particular wrong would be righted. It is embarrassing for New York to continue on this path, and justice itself will suffer if we can not pay a decent salary to retain quality judges. While no one would expect head-to-head competition with the salaries a judge could earn in the private sector, if we can’t even keep pace with inflation, the bench will seriously deteriorate.