A previously unknown benefit for becoming a judge.

There are a lot of obvious reasons why some lawyers want to become judges.  Here is one that had not occurred to me--the media will let a judge know if the judge has any unpaid traffic tickets.

The Flint Journal broke the story of three Genese County, Michigan judges who collectively had three hundred dollars in unpaid parking tickets.  Two of the judges denied knowledge of the tickets (although someone had paid four dollars toward the balance owed on one ticket) and the third said that, despite the tickets, he had authority to park in a prohibited spot.

As the Journal's followup story notes, two of the three judges paid the tickets within hours of being contacted by the newspaper.  Probably in an effort to avoid further attention being paid to what the Journal obviously sees as some sort of scandal involving public malfeasance.  Attentive readers of the Journal's first article will note that the reporting ends on this dejected note,  "The Judicial Tenure Commission, which "promotes the integrity of the judicial process and preserve public confidence in the courts" declined comment."

I don't believe that I have any outstanding parking tickets but it is comforting to know that when President Obama gets around to appointing Mr. Torvik and me to two of these vacancies, intrepid reporters will be there to make sure all parking-related fines are paid.