Submitted by paul leonard sass, May 2, 2008 09:09

Your editorial on judicial salaries misses the point. Stupid decisions by judges are not a reason to deny them reasonable salaries for the positions they hold.It is easy to target the judiciary when we disagree with a judgement delivered seemingly inthe face of simple logic.

If the Rev. AL had written an editorial seeking to deny Justice Cooperman a salary increase for his decision in the Bell case acquitting the three detectives, would you have jumped on that bandwagon? I think not!

Most judges work long and hard dealing with heavy calendars every day. If they are not legal geniuses perhaps you might want to look at how they got on the Bench in the first place. Do you think that race ,ethnicity and sexplay no role in who gets a judgeship? No, your position does not hold water.

Those of us who have practiced in the courts are under no delusions about the quality of the Bench. But we can understand why judges are frustrated with law school graduates starting at higher salaries than they make when they go to major firms.The fact that 10 years have gone by while they are held hostage by theNYS assembly is certainly a source of frustration.

Practicing lawyers who pay for offices, secretaries and so forth often wonder when this issue arises why the judges don't quit and return to a "lucrative" practice. The answer is obvious:most of the judges never had lucrative practices to begin with before ascending bto the Bench. But it is really ridiculous that we have a judiciary in New York that hasn't seen a cost of living increase inso many years.

We don't have to like our judges to pay them what shoud be a respectable wage.Nor should that wage dep[end on whether we aqgree with their decisions. If you seek to reform the judiciary, more power to you;I'll be glad to join youin that truly to be desired effort. But your editorialk is pathetically far off the mark.

sincerely,

PAUL LEONARD SASS, Eeq.

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