Mo. chief justice endorses judicial pay raises

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) -- Missouri Chief Justice Michael Wolff renewed his push Wednesday for lawmakers to approve pay raises for judges.

Delivering the annual State of the Judiciary address before a joint House and Senate, Wolff said a lack of resources is one of the biggest challenges facing Missouri courts and endorsed a plan that would increase salaries by $1,200, plus an additional 4 percent.

The pay raise, Wolff said during his speech, "is essential to our continued ability to attract highly qualified and well-motivated men and women to judicial service. Seven years without one penny of increase is too long."

The Citizens' Commission on Compensation in November recommended a pay raise for judges and elected officeholders. Although the commission has existed for more than 10 years, lawmakers have often ignored or refused to budget for the pay raises approved by the commission. A constitutional amendment approved by voters last fall would put the recommendations into effect unless two-thirds of the House and Senate vote to overrule the commission.

As head of the Supreme Court, Wolff makes $125,499 a year. The other judges on the Supreme Court earn $123,000, local circuit judges make $108,000 and associate circuit judges earn $96,000.

Both Republican and Democratic legislative leaders have expressed concern about the proposed pay increase because of its size and because it links lawmakers with judges.

Rep. J.C. Kuessner, who has filed a resolution that would disallow the raises, said he was disappointed the chief justice did not better explain why the salary increases were necessary, especially because lawmakers cannot approve a raise for judges without also giving one to themselves.

Kuessner, D-Eminence, said he thinks the process for approving the raises has been rushed and the compensation commission did not have enough time to gather data from across the state and compare judicial salaries in Missouri with other states.

In the face of increasing criticism directed at the courts at both the state and national level, Wolff blamed a lack of information about judges for some people's lack of confidence in the judiciary and called for the Missouri Bar Association to create a panel of lawyers and non-lawyers to examine how judges are evaluated.

"I believe we should enhance the opportunities for the public to get to know these judges, on whom they vote, and to have an evaluation system that provides timely critiques for the benefit of both the public and our judges," he said.

Wolff said the system for selecting Missouri judges works.

Judges for appellate courts, the Missouri Supreme Court and the state's largest jurisdictions are selected by the governor after a nonpartisan panel recommends three candidates. They then face periodic retention votes. Other trial judges are selected by voters on partisan ballots.

Wolff pointed to the state high court's decision in the famous Dred Scott case as proof of what can happen when judges must respond to politics. In that case, he said, the court went against its own precedents in ruling that a slave who travels into free areas is still a slave.

"The people's confidence that their disputes will be resolved on the basis of the law is a bedrock principle of our constitutional democracy as well as fundamental to our economic system," he said.

Although the American Bar Association study found resource shortages to be the Missouri courts' biggest problem, Wolff told lawmakers that they should wait until all the data comes in this summer before deciding whether new judgeships should be created.

"Do we need more judges? My own guess is that, overall, we have enough judges statewide," Wolff said. "But until the data are available this summer, any guess regarding our judicial personnel is still just a guess."

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On the Net:

Judiciary: http://www.courts.mo.gov