SUPPLEMENTS

If you are reading this blog I hope you have read the preceding blog on County Judge's supplements.  If you have not read it please do so before reading this blog.  It will give you a better idea about where I am going with this blog.

As noted in the article a total of 219 of the 254 County Judges in Texas receive a annual supplement of 25,200 dollars per year.  They receive it for simply signing a single sheet of paper that states they will commit 40% of their time to judicial work.  This amounts to two days per week, 64 hours a month and costs the state taxpayers over five and a half million dollars each year.

That single sheet of paper is an affidavit.  Affidavit is defined in Texas Government Code 312.011 as a statement in writing of a fact or facts signed by the party making it, sworn to before an officer authorized to administer oaths, and officially certified to by the officer under his seal of office.

When I took office in 1999 the supplement was 5,000 dollars per year.  Nineteen years later it has grown to over 25,000, and according to the article is set to grow again during the next legislative session.

When first taking office I signed the affidavit, and made it a point to put my 16 hours a week in.  I held two docket calls a month that lasted about 4 hours on average.  I also held night court once a month for the first year to dispose of a large docket facing the court when I took office.  Night Court lasted two hours on the average.  Trials were set for two days a month, but there was not a trial every month, and sometimes trials lasted more than a day.  One often referred to by some as the longest misdemeanor trial in Milam County history lasted for three days.  However, most jury trials were completed within five hours or less.

Other judicial activities I was involved in included two probate courts each month one hour each, Juvenile hearings and guardianship hearings as needed often less than an hour each.  I was available 24-7 as a magistrate and alternated with some of the JPs on their weekends.  I also assisted the JPs with inquests when they were unavailable, and handled inquests for Justice Precinct 4 on weekends when the deaths occurred on my end of the county.

I heard each and every request for legal representation within the required 72 hours, and spent a good deal of time on preparation for hearings.  There were also some instances where out of court time was spent on judicial activities doing paperwork and signing dockets.  

Bottom line is it is really hard to account for all the time spent on judicial matters when you consider the variability with many of the judicial activities.  For example a call at two in the morning for an inquest in Maysfield might take two hours or more with travel time included.  On the other hand an inquest call to Cameron when you are in the courthouse might take only fifteen minutes.

    

Looking back on my twelve years as County Judge I can assure you it is hard to account for 64 hours per month of judicial work.  Some months it is more than 64 yet other months it is considerably less, and I worked at it

.

Our current Judge does not do inquests or magistrations, but he does follow the same probate, docket call and trial schedule that I did.  That being said it is hard to see how he can even come close to 64 hours per month of judicial activity.  Truth is the majority of a County Judge's activity deal with administration and other non-judicial activities.

  

One of the reasons it has taken me so long to follow up my preceding post is that I was trying to obtain real time figures on judicial time spent by me and the current judge on judicial activity.  This information is available from the Office of Court Administration but not real easy to calculate because of the out of court judicial activities that are not reported.

Now, be assured I am in no way attacking or criticizing our current or future County Judges throughout the state on their taking the state supplement.  As the American Statesman article stated there are judges that do almost no judicial activity and yet still take the supplement. The point I am trying to get to is that Judges in Texas are held to a higher standard than other government officials.  All judges in Texas must abide by the Code of Judicial Conduct, sometimes referred to as the Judicial Canons. 

The Preamble of the code is as follows;

"Our legal system is based on the principle that an independent, fair and competent judiciary will interpret and apply the laws that govern us. The role of the judiciary is central to American concepts of justice and the rule of law. Intrinsic to all sections of this Code of Judicial Conduct are the precepts that judges, individually and collectively, must respect and honor the judicial office as a public trust and strive to enhance and maintain confidence in our legal system. The judge is an arbiter of facts and law for the resolution of disputes and a highly visible symbol of government under the rule of law."

Judges are held to a higher standard and we should hold our state government officials who grant and oversee the judicial supplement to higher standards as well.  Some sort of accounting method, or annual audit should be conducted to insure that judges are in fact committing 40% of their time to judicial activities. Or the Legislature could simply change the amount of time required.  A compromise might be a year end audit of time spent and then supplement the judge on the basis of actual time spent on judicial activities.

As the American Statesman article stated the state is spending over five and one half million of our tax dollars on these supplements, and may be increasing it during this next legislative session.  Not really sure why or how the supplement got started in the first place. 

Bottom line is our representatives in Austin who claim to be conservative should think twice before increasing funding that they cannot even account for, and in the interest of "public trust" a judge should carefully consider whether or not he or she should sign a sworn statement claiming the supplement.