This is a letter written by a citizen, concerned about the fact that "temporary Judges" are not temporary at all.
June 30, 2011
Dear Chief justice,
I am writing to you as a concerned citizen that has witnessed many inequities in the family law system, here in Shasta County. I have no case in court.
I see that you have expressed concern about the proposed budget cuts to the state court system, I wonder if you are aware of the money leaking out through the "Assigned Judges Program"; it appears to me if that spending were reigned in, there would be no budget problem.
Case in point, Judge jack Halpin sits on the bench here in Shasta county, out of the "Assigned Judges Program", Judge Halpin has served here as a "temporary judge" since 1997 and is paid his full pension plus 90% of a regular judge's salary; a combined estimated total of $4000,000 per year.
If this is the case, Judge Halpin has been paid around 5.6 million dollars, just during his new career as a "temporary" judge.
According to preliminary statistics gathered from the "AOC", 400 judges served in temporary assignments in 2010 and 133 of them over many years. If 133 judges served for a comparable amount of time as Judge Halpin in this capacity and at presumably the same rate of pay, Then we are talking about an estimated figure of 6.6 Billion dollars; taking away the pension they would receive anyway still leaves a monstrous figure of over 3 billion dollars.
Chief Justice, you know as well as I do that the "Assigned Judges Program" was not crated to make retired judges or to put retired judges in to permanent positions; especially when retired judges are not held accountable because they are not under the jurisdiction of the "Center on Judicial Performance", therefore they have no motivation to act appropriately and objectively.
Judge halpin has had numerous complaints lodged against him and they have all been ignored.
I implore you to make policy changes concerning the "Assigned Judges Program", so that they can not become permanent "temporary" judges.
Thank you, Robert Hovey
2 comments:
Mr. Hovey, I applaud your comments on the assigned, Temporary-but-really-Permanent Judges situation in Shasta County. I have no case in court, but I have observed several friends undergo Judge Halpin's incompetent rulings with no recourse. He ignores the laws appropriate to the case he is ruling on, handing down judgements that are neither fair nor applicable. He has been a "Temporary" Judge for far too long, sucking away funds from our legal system's budget. I can't comprehend why this is not being addressed by those that have the power to do so. To me, it appears that there really is no Justice in the Justice system.
C. V.
I will pass your comment on to mMr. Hovey, Thank you.
Post a Comment