The best justification for making the senior judge program permanent is that it lightens the workload on our judges and helps move cases faster. While that may be true, it comes at a heavy price. The family courts were created for the same purpose and are now a permanent institution.
We have an opportunity to cut loose some double-dippers in state government and we should jump at the chance. Tell your state representative to vote against Welfare for Judges, HB 465.
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SENIOR JUDGE PROGRAM: GOLDEN PARACHUTE FOR UNDERACHIEVERS
Since most people have been kept intentionally in the dark about the inner workings of the judiciary in Kentucky, perhaps now is as good a time as any to tear back the curtain and expose the truth.
Warning: tought talk is ahead.
In 1976 we amended the constitution and required that all judges be lawyers. Before that event, this was not the case.
Historically it has been a fact since the new court system was voted in back in 1976 that judges were paid far less than what successful attorneys were making in the private practice of law.
So, with a few rare exceptions, these new judgeships attracted the interest of those lawyers who couldn't make it in the private practice.
Judges were known to have great jobs anyway, with short work days, government benefits and a fair amount of prestige associated with the wearing of the robes.
And since the higher up in the system the judgeship was located the more money the job paid and the more power the judge had, judges at the lower levels kept looking to move up.
This system of promoting from within evolved into a game of political musical chairs. With the help of the legislature the higher up judges restructured the election cycle so that all judges ran for office in the same year. That way the higher up judges would not face as many challenges from below because in order to run the lower court judges would risk losing his/her seat if defeated.
This arrangement served to widen the gap between the judiciary and the public by putting more control over advancement in the hands of sitting judges. Alliances within the judiciary and outright deal making was the only chance for a lower court judge to move up without risking the label of "rogue" among the bench and bar.
Over time judges in Kentucky came to appreciate the power of the Chief Justice and his role as head of the Administrative Office of the Courts. He was the political arm of the judiciary who could get things done in Frankfort, like the creation of new judgeships, increasing their salaries and benefits, championing their calls for docket help and, when the time came, serving as the most powerful member of the judicial nominating committees to choose the replacements for judges who decided to retire.
As was to be expected when the number of criminal cases and civil cases and divorce cases increased, judges complained about the increase in their work load. This resulted in higher salaries, more benefits and eventually the call for more judges.
But getting the legislature to fund new judgeships is a very hard task. It costs alot of money.
So in order to sell any program it had to be linked with "improved efficiency".
First came the creation of the Family Courts, to relieve the poor overworked Circuit and District Judges who could no longer go home at three in the afternoon or take every other week off in some counties.
"Damn the Constitution, full steam ahead" was the approach taken by the Chief Justice who implemented the Family Court System long before the required Constitutional Amendment was ever reported out of committee.
Then came the amendment, and the lawful creation of the Family Court and then came the new judgeships and then came the new justice centers around the state, and then came more salary increases, all at the expense of cuts in the pension plans of new judges.
So now with a big outcry from what the Supreme Court deems to be its real constituency, the bench and bar, there had to be some way to increase pensions to keep the judiciary happy.
So, once again, to sell the program there was the requirement that it be shown as increasing efficiency.
Here comes the Senior Status Judge Program. It was sold as a way to attract more experienced lawyers onto the bench (an odd admission that what we had been getting were the underachievers) and as a way to help poor overburdened judges keep up with their dockets.
Here is how it works. It is a program which allows judges to retire, even early, collect retirement, promise to work a total of 600 days over five, years (with any part of a day, even a few minutes in the morning counting as a whole day), and then at the end of five years bump their reitrement benefits up from a fraction of their last highest salary to 100% of their last highest salary, for life.
And since the efficiency requirement was sold as a stop gap measure only necessary long enough to allow the legislature to create new judgeships and to implement the family court system, it was predetermined to expire, on its own, in June of this year.
So did the pressure to create new judgeships or the family court system go away? Of course not. And the legislature has dealt with the efficiency problems in a very responsible way over the intervening years creating many new judgeships including the implementation of the Family Court System.
The Senior Status Judge program is due to expire this year as planned. But now the judges want it to continue.
As Ronald Reagan once said "We have long since discovered that nothing lasts longer than a temporary government program."
Did the program attract more experienced lawyers to leave the private practice for the bench thus imporving the quality of our judges? Hardly.
It is still very much a system that promotes from within and with few exceptions the entry level position (district court) is still the domain of people who couldn't make it in the practice of law. Over time their so called "judicial experience" is touted as an invaluable qualification for promotion and so as time goes on what we get is a system filled from top to bottom with rejects and underachievers who have banded together using the power and influence of their office to exact increasing benefits for themselves at the expense of the public, defending with all their might their desire to keep the public in the dark about their doings and now are trying to extend the date for the deployment of their golden parachute.
Why? Because the longer they serve before having to jump the higher the lifetime benefit will be since their salary will increase each year and the benefit is based upon their last highest three years in office.
The only way to get the kind of quality judges we deserve is to let this program die and watch as the number of judges who are gaming the system jump ship, opening up a lot of seats to the examination of the public rather than allowing the same old cronies to make deals for their replacements.
And when this bill dies I think you will be very surprised at the number of judges, just elected last year, who will leave after having served but six months of their newly elected term of office.
You are right. We don't need the Senior Judge Program, or as it should be more accurately calle, a golden parachute for underachievers.
Thanks judge wisely, that commentary is quite informative indeed.
Good call KP!
www.jail4judges.org !
Judge Wisely, that is perhaps the best thing I have read yet on the senior judge issue.
The frank honesty of that piece needs to be told everywhere.
I am a lawyer and you are absolutely correct, the judges in Kentucky are a fraternity of state employees made up of lackluster lawyers who spend more time trying to figure out how to get more tax dollars for themselves and hide their own ineptitudes than any other activity they engage in.
Somebody needs to get this post out to every outlet, and fast, before the rats take over the ship.
The rats have already taken over the ship. I give you the Kentucky Legislature and Congress as proof.
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