LUTHMANN NOTE: Judges demand respect for their independence. Fine. Independence doesn’t mean insulation from criticism, guaranteed raises, or a taxpayer-funded escalator to a lucrative retirement. Connecticut’s black robes now come with six-figure salaries, state benefits and pensions while ordinary litigants leave family court broke, silenced and separated from their children. Before lawmakers approve another dollar, they should demand performance audits, transparent assignment practices, meaningful complaint review and full disclosure of judicial workloads. Public office isn’t hereditary nobility. The robe belongs to the people. So does the courthouse. If Connecticut’s judges want Wall Street compensation, let them first deliver Main Street accountability. This piece is “Connecticut Judges Get Raises,” first available on Larry Noodles’ Blog and also available on The World-Famous Blog.
Connecticut asks jurors to decide guilt, innocence, liability, and damages for as little as $50 a day once state-paid service begins. Does that bargain-basement rate produce bargain-basement justice? Of course not. The same is true with Judges. If you increased their salaries, you are not going to get a more thoughtful, scholarly, and compassionate Judge who will carefully weigh the evidence and consider the law before rendering a decision, not unlike what jurors do every day for fifty bucks a day.
Being a Judge for some is a personal calling. I know plenty of Judges who would work for next to nothing, just like a juror. Judge Jon Blue can be seen at all hours toiling in the New Haven law library pondering the legal nuances of a dog bite case. At the same time, Judge Angeline Ioannou-Goff seems to be spending her free time posting Instagram videos of one of her houses that she is looking to sell in her “Luxury Home Portfolio” with her wife Brooke Goff. They seem to be in the high-end property flipping biz if you type their names into the West Hartford land records portal.
A good portion of these Judges are former State’s Attorneys. Some are former public defenders. Criminal law is not rocket science. Another good portion of judges are former State employees who worked in cubicles at the Attorney General’s Office, or other State agencies, departments, or helped the current governor get elected.
The argument that CT needs to pay more money to attract higher-quality lawyers as judges is a lot of bunk. Lawyers who work for big law firms and make the big bucks are not going to work for the CT Judiciary unless you pay them a million bucks a year, which the State doesn’t have. So you are stuck with deep-state employees and mentally challenged political meatheads in robes. If you offer lower salaries and have the names removed from applications, so that everyone is a number, you will attract people who care more about the citizens of the Constitution State and less about pleasing their political masters. Legal aid has been attracting Ivy League graduates, some from wealthy families, for many years at low starting salaries.
The Connecticut Judiciary is getting more and more graduates from low-ranked law schools such as Quinnipiac Law School. Full disclosure: I graduated from Quinnipiac Law School, back when the graduates were even dumber than the ones who graduate today. The old-timers in Connecticut mostly graduated from UCONN. Big deal. UCONN Law grads look down on Quinnipiac grads, as if UCONN is a real family. UCONN is just a glorified crew. The five families include Yale, Harvard, NYU, Stanford, and Columbia. They produce the most made men and women who get hired by the top criminal gangs on Wall Street and Silicon Valley.
Most Judges make well over $200K a year, with full pensions and benefits. After getting a pay increase last year, they are now looking for another pay increase. $200K a year to rule on fender benders, evictions, dog bites,s and visitation? Give me a break! This is not brain surgery. It’s like paying a nurse practitioner the same salary as a neurosurgeon. Talk about white-collar welfare. Most judges have a staff of “clerks” who do a good portion of the research and writing. The clerks are lawyers who keep a low profile but get high State salaries and benefits working behind the scenes, almost approaching a judge’s salary.
The Judiciary is drowning in petty politics. The politically connected and “cool” judges who run the system all work out of the very uncool city of Waterbury, known for producing corrupt Mayors and a certain crooked governor. Why do some very good criminal lawyers, like Tara Knight, get banished to the Juvenile Court? Why do some Judges get banished to the Habeas Court in Rockville, where you never hear from them again? You know there are Judicial “politics” behind the scenes that are completely sealed from public viewing. A judge making over $200K a year working in the Habeas Court is grossly overpaid. You could get an AI computer to handle habeas cases that get denied 99.9 % of the time.
What would these Judges do in the real world if they were not Judges? Go back to working at some State agency or the State’s Attorney’s Office, or DCF? Many Judges retire and get higher-paying jobs at big law firms, such as CT Justices Joette Katz, Richard Robinson, and Chase Rogers. The CT Judiciary is a stepping stone to higher and higher salaries. Why should CT subsidize people looking to cash in after they retire with a full pension?
There has always been this ongoing demand for more diversity on the Bench. We don’t need more diverse skin colors, zebras, or incels on the bench; we need more diversity of thought and ideas, not a bunch of deep State zombies. The former prosecutors on the Bench, ie., Judge Alexander, Judge Mullins, and Judge Jongbloed, have all “voted” together in favor of Police / Prosecutorial Power, at the expense of greater Constitutional rights, in the minority in a couple of major cases, such as State v. Parris and Moore v. Commissioner of Corrections. Are these the kind of Judges we want for the Constitution State? Politicians in robes, pandering to their buddies in the law enforcement community? Or do we want compassionate, neutral legal scholars who believe that justice is blind? An independent judiciary.
