POINT ONE: What a nice exchange over the holiday weekend, as readers posted their favourite 1970's songs. Now we enter the long hot summer months, when no one feels like trying cases and everyone eyes a cabin in North Carolina as a getaway.
Lawyers and Judges running for election or re-election face the challenges of raising money and capturing the attention of the voting public for an election date in August. That seems like a difficult challenge. On the other hand, if the election was moved to November, then the candidates would have the problem of getting their message out during a crowded election cycle.
POINT TWO: We note that there is significant criticism with the response of the local police to the school shooting in Texas last week. The NY Times has an Op Ed by the FBI Agent who created the Active Shooter response team, criticizing the local police's response. The police waited outside for the better part of an hour. Sort of defeats the argument that the way to stop mass shootings is to arm more people.
And even worse, as America mourned the death of innocent children, there were another ELEVEN mass shootings over the holiday weekend. Welcome to the United States in 2022. It's a dangerous place to live.
POINT THREE$$: If there is a new bounce in the step of your favourite circuit or county judge, maybe it's because they are planning a myriad of ways to spend a new raise coming their way. Circuit Judges (motto: "The motion to suppress is respectfully denied" ) are going from 160 to 182, while County Court Judges (Motto: "Misdemeanors Matter!") will be going from 151 to 172. You can buy a lot of crypto for that cash, or a new Tesla, or a vacay in Italy, or why not all three??
The new raise is on the Governor's desk, and as much as it pains us to say it, our robed readers (most of them anyway) deserve it and we hope Governor "There is no such thing as Covid" signs the raise.
As former Judge Harvey Shenberg said as he stuffed fifty thousand dollars in cash in his pants while being recorded in Operation Court Broom "It's hard to send a kid to college on a judge's salary." And he was right. He just went about it the wrong way.