The game may be ending.

Continuing our coverage of Michigan state court judge Wade McCree (see here, here, here, and here), the Michigan Judicial Tenure Commission has reached a decision and recommendation for the Michigan Supreme Court about how to handle the charges that Judge McCree engaged in improper conduct while on the bench.  Most of the allegations relate to the fact that Judge McCree became romantically involved with a woman who had a case pending before him. You can read the decision and recommendation here.  In essence, the commission recommends that Judge McCree be suspended from being a judge for a period of six years beginning on January 1, 2015. Judge McCree is up for re-election in 2014.  So, if the voters in Wayne County, Michigan decide someone other than Judge McCree should be their judge, then Judge McCree's suspension will not take effect (assuming that the Michigan Supreme Court adopts the recommendation).  Or perhaps Judge McCree will simply have been suspended by a different authority than the Michigan Supreme court.  I suppose that is a matter of perspective.  

Sometimes it is hard to tell who is on which side.

The Miami New Times has a story today about Adam Finkel, a 26-year-old assistant state attorney in Florida. Mr. Finkel allegedly got into an altercation this weekend with the doorman of a club in South Beach. The altercation allegedly occurred with Mr. Finkel was told that he had to wait in line because the club was full.  After arguing with the doorman about having to wait, Mr. Finkel was told he was no longer welcome at the club. 

Some people do not know when to stop.

When one sees a Detroit Free Press story about a Wayne County, Michigan judge being removed from office, one thinks the story will refer to Judge Wade McCree (see other posts about Judge McCree here, here, here, here, here, and here). But it turns out that Judge McCree is not the only judge in Wayne County to run into problems with the Michigan Supreme Court.

Too old to judge?

There is a movement afoot in New York to remove its constitution's requirement that judges retire at age 70.

Mr. Gillette recently posted about Vermont's "optimistic" forced retirement age of 90. As I said in a comment to that post, my intuition is that judges should probably retire sooner rather than later. Here's my thinking, beyond the obvious arguments about how they may be too old to do the job.

1) New blood. There are plenty of good middle-aged lawyers who are waiting to bring a fresh perspective and energy to the bench. Even in systems where there are judicial "elections," they are generally not highly contested affairs. Age limits are a good practical way to clear the way for better judges.

2) Turnover can be good. Although today's elderly are surely healthier than the elderly of yesterday, old judges are just as susceptible to the dreaded "black robes disease"  as they used to be. This is another reason for new blood. (Although, to be fair, this particular disease often goes away with age rather than worsening.)

3) Generational equity. I think it's kind of pathetic to see rich old people hanging on to these awesome jobs while qualified people in the next generation scrounge for work—or at least soak up all the available work so that the next generation down has to scrounge for work. I think there should be a strong presumption that old judges should step aside to let the next generation take over.

4) Joe Paterno.

Obviously not every 70-year old is financially independent. But if you are a 70-year who was successful enough to become a judge, you should be financially independent. If you aren't, you likely just spent too much money on stupid things and you do not have my sympathy. On the contrary, I condemn you!

It's not just judges who should retire at 70 or thereabout, by the way. All rich people should retire at around 70 if they can, and that should be the societal expectation and the societal pressure. I'm not saying that there should be laws to enforce this, but we should fogey-shame rich people who hang on to their high-paying jobs past the point of reason.

An example in the news recently is E. Gordon Gee, the president of Ohio State. Mr. Gee is a guy who thinks he's a lot cleverer than he really is, so he's constantly getting into trouble for running his mouth off. (This is a sort of corollary to black-robes diseases—these successful academics who never get negative feedback from their underlings on a day-to-day basis start thinking that people are laughing at their offensive and idiotic jokes because they are actually funny, when the truth is that they're laughing because it is part of their jobs.) After Mr. Gee's most recent outburst became public—in which he insulted "those damn Catholics" at Notre Dame, among many others—he got a stern rebuke from the board of trustees at Ohio State. "One more strike and you're out!" they said, effectively.

But Gee is 69-years old. He makes about $2 million a year now, and he's presumably been making seven figures for many years, and six figures for decades. He is the .00001%. He should just retire. More importantly, everybody around him, including the trustees, should be saying to him, "Why don't you just retire? Why are you hanging on to this awesome, high-paying job that some other person could do without embarrassing the entire state?" The regents' threat to fire him the next time he insults an entire ethnic group is pretty empty—there's no way Gee needs the money. Although I guess he'd rather not be embarrassed by being fired, that's the only thing on the line.

That's a long tangent. Point is, old rich people should be retiring more to make way for the poor and unemployed young people to fill up the ranks. I think it's morally unacceptable for them not to accept a life of leisure at this point.

The Green Mountain State

The state motto for Vermont is "freedom and unity."  The motto raises the (unintentional) question about whether one is free to not be part of the unity in Vermont.  One thing that judges in Vermont are not free to do is serve as long as they are able.  Like many states, Vermont has a mandatory retirement age for judges.  For most states the mandatory retirement age is either 70 or 75.  Vermont, however, has a mandatory retirement age of 90.  That is a somewhat interesting choice by the Vermont legislature given that it is 11 years longer than the average life expectancy for someone living in Vermont.  I could not find anything that showed how many Vermont judges, if any, have served until they were 90.  But I guess that it is good that Vermont judges have more freedom to chose how long they serve than judges in our states.

Is king of latex a desirable nickname?

Continuing our coverage the misadventures of Michigan circuit court judge Wayne McCree (see here, here, here, and here) we report, thanks to Mlive.com, that Judge McCree's judicial misconduct trial has started.  According to the testimony, Judge McCree when presented with a claim that he impregnated his mistress responded by saying he was the "king of latex."  I assume this means that Judge McCree used condoms and not that he dressed like the gimp in Pulp Fiction.

Blame the Lawyers?

Tim Pernetti, the athletic director at Rutgers, has resigned for failing to fire Mike Rice, the school's basketball coach, after seeing a video of him brutalizing and belittling the team's players during practice. 

Any sane person with authority over "Coach" Rice would have fired him on the spot, and Pernetti has deservedly lost his job for his insane failure to do so. But he's going down swinging, and his target is lawyers:

As you know, my first instincts when I saw the videotape of Coach Rice's behavior was to fire him immediately. However, Rutgers decided to follow a process involving university lawyers, human resources professionals, and outside counsel. Following review of the independent investigative report, the consensus was that university policy would not justify dismissal.

I will assume for a moment that this is true, because I have heard stories of similar bureaucratic nonsense—particularly in public universities and other public employment settings. Mike Rice had an employment contract. He could not be fired at will; Rutgers needed good cause to fire him. So lawyers and "human resources professionals" were going to have to review any decision to terminate, and in my experience they follow a rote, unthinking "process." According to Pernetti, they followed that process and prevented him from firing Rice because it was a "first offense" (as he said when the video first became public) and therefore "university policy would not justify dismissal."

I don't know anything about Rutgers's "university policy," but obviously that initial interpretation of the policy was wrong because Mike Rice has now been fired (for the same behavior) and no one at the university is complaining anymore that the conduct doesn't justify dismissal. (I guess they're all too busy running for cover to complain.) So maybe Pernetti has a legitimate beef against those lawyers and HR "professionals." In a remotely just world, they'd all be next in line with their resignation letters.

What's really going on here is that people are way too afraid of legal disputes, even ones that are objectively frivolous. If Mike Rice had been fired back in December, he would have gone to a lawyer, and the lawyer would have sued Rutgers alleging a breach of contract and an unlawful termination. In all likelihood, that lawsuit would have been a loser—objectively frivolous, in my opinion—but you just never know. Even sure-winner lawsuits are expensive, time-consuming, and embarrassing. So we avoid them at all costs.

But, oh the costs! How many kids took a fastball to the face from Mike Rice so that Rutgers could avoid a frivolous lawsuit? How many kids had to stand there while Rice spewed spit and shouted "you are a fucking faggot!" at them so that Rutgers could avoid a lawsuit?

Too many, obviously. This is what happens when cowards and idiots conspire.

In the end, this whole affair goes in as entry number 3,254 on my list of "Reasons I'm Glad I Don't Live in New Jersey."

No pay in his game either.

Continuing our coverage of Michigan circuit judge Wayne McCree (see here, here, and here) we report, thanks to this United Press International story, that Judge McCree has been suspended without pay over the allegation that he allegedly impregnated a woman who appeared before him as part of a custody dispute.  We covered that story back in December.

You can't quit, you're fired.

Although I am still feeling pretty unsettled about the shooting in Newtown Connecticut on Friday, I assume that our Reader(s)™ want a diversion from the bad news.  Perhaps something from the judges do the darndest things file.

Some people just can't stay out of trouble.

Michigan judge Wade "no shame in my game" McCree is back in the news.  We have previously covered the exploits of Judge McCree here and here.  

Shamed, or at least censured, by his game.

Reader(s)™ may recall this post from April in which we discussed how Wayne County, Michigan Circuit Judge Wade H. McCree told the media "Hot Dog, yep that's me. I've got no shame in my game" upon being shown a picture by the Detroit Free Press of the judge sans shirt that he had given to his bailiff.  The bailiff's husband was not amused.

This day in drug-using prosecutors

1) Nicholas Athanasiou, a former prosecutor, allegedly accepted cocaine as payment for legal services. Thus begins a new era in alternative billing: the snortable hour.

2) Jason Cantrell, a current prosecutor, was arrested by the police officers he was talking to when he took his hands out of his pockets and a marijuana joint fell out. The incident occurred in the courthouse. To top it off, his wife is running for city council. She is concerned: “I love my husband unconditionally and am very concerned for his health and well-being, and for that of our family. I hope that this incident will encourage Jason to seek the professional help.”

Do not post pictures of your client's underwear on your Facebook page.

You might think that the (non-legal) advice found in the title of this post was obvious to everyone.  You would be wrong. 

Don't be cheap.

This is probably the best advice (NonLegal™) that I can give: being cheap in your dealings with others will come back to haunt you.

Ninth Circuit to Senate: It is your fault.

Back in May, we posted about how the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit was not going to let a couple of senators push them around about where the Ninth Circuit decided to have a judicial conference. When the senators asked about the costs associated with having a conference in Maui, the Ninth Circuit told them to buzz off.

Some people really should know better.

If you google the phrase "computer forensics firms" google will give you about 2,540,000 results in .48 seconds. 

Handcuffing your wife during an argument will get you fired if you are a police officer.

As the Green Bay Press Gazette reports, Thomas Benike, a police officer in Ashwaubenon, Wisconsin, has been fired by the Ashwaubenon Police and Fire Commission.

Officer Benike's troubles started when he got into a dispute with his soon-to-be ex-wife regarding the location of Officer Benike's wallet.  Officer Benike could not locate find the wallet.  When he couldn't locate the wallet, Officer Benike did something that I suspect 98% of married people do in similar circumstances:  he blamed his spouse for taking or moving the wallet.  The article is unclear on what evidence—other than the fact that the wallet was not where Officer Benike thought it should be—supported the conclusion that Mrs. Benike took or moved the wallet.

“Costs for lodging and air travel to attend the conference are comparative to those found at mainland venues.”

The quote is the Ninth Circuit's response to a letter the court received from Senators Charles Grassley and Jeff Sessions inquiring why the Ninth Circuit was hosting its annual judicial conference at a resort on Maui instead of, say, a hotel in Billings, Montana.  The Senators' letter notes that the cost of accommodations on Maui will exceed $700,000 assuming that the conference has as many attendees as the court's 2010 conference.  This matters because the travel and accommodations costs for the judges in the Ninth circuit are paid by the government (which gets its money from taxes).

I guess simply answering that Maui is nicer than Billings would have been undiplomatic.

Something I have never heard of before: a Federal district court judge files for bankruptcy.

The Wall Street Journal Law Blog reports that Judge Otis D. Wright II, a United States District Court Judge for the Central District of California, has filed for bankruptcy.  The post says that Judge Wright's bankruptcy petition (which was filed late last year) lists assets of $833,426 and liabilities of $895,292. Evidently the judge and his wife have more than $70,000 in credit card debt, including $12,740 on a Nordstrom card, according to the filing.  The post says that Nordstrom is suing the Judge and his wife over the debt.

"Hot Dog, yep that's me. I've got no shame in my game."

Thus spoke Wayne County, Michigan Circuit Judge Wade H. McCree.  What prompted Judge McCree to discuss the lack of shame in his game?  He was asked by Detroit's Fox News affiliate to discuss this picture