From the April 2000 Idaho Observer:

Support your local judge -- it's the law

For almost anyone who has been forced to defend himself (family, life, property, business, children, freedom) from the position of a plaintiff or a defendant in a contemporary court, judges can be a life form lower than attorneys. Why? Because judges come to court with the gameboard set up so their actors can lie, cheat, steal and purchase their way through the justice system.

There is no question among those who have been in it, the court system, managed and policed by judges, is a $multibillion litigation racket where justice is only served by accident. It is of paramount irony that judges, the same ones who have been presiding all these years and are responsible for the absolute, money-and-misery-making machine that has become the legal system, are obligated by law to pad their retirement a little softer with every civil action a citizen files in his court.

Following is the language that is law concerning judges. Keep in mind that supreme court judges, as of 1998, make $90,791 per year with an annual 4 percent increase in pay; district court judges make $85,095 per year with the same 4 percent annual increase in pay that most of us cannot claim by law.

The potential for judges to stack their retirement fund by forcing desperate people to file useless actions in court is extreme and, considering the nature of some men to be insatiably greedy, we can imagine that judges and their agents have learned how to run their court in a manner most likely to produce the maximum of documents which must be filed for a fee. Add the carrot of modern investment strategies that have made $billions of (electronic) dollars for pools of investors and you have the most illustrative real life example of the fox guarding the henhouse that has ever been sanctioned by state statute.

TITLE 1

COURTS AND COURT OFFICIALS

CHAPTER 20

JUDGES' RETIREMENT AND COMPENSATION

1-2002. JUDGES' RETIREMENT FUND. For the purpose of paying such retirement compensation, there is hereby created in the office of the treasurer of the state of Idaho a fund to be known as the “Judges' Retirement Fund,” which shall consist of all moneys appropriated from the general fund, and all moneys received from special fees to be paid by parties to civil actions and proceedings, other than criminal, commenced in or appealed to the several courts of the state, together with all contributions out of the salaries and compensation of justices and judges, and interest received from investment, and reinvestment, of moneys of the judges' retirement fund, all as hereinafter provided.

All sums of money so accrued and accruing to the judges' retirement fund, less an amount deemed reasonable and necessary by the administrative director of the courts to pay for necessary actuarial studies to assist in administering the judges' retirement fund, are hereby appropriated to the payment of the annual retirement compensation of such retired justices and judges, and to payment of the allowances to surviving spouses.

TITLE 1

COURTS AND COURT OFFICIALS

CHAPTER 20

JUDGES' RETIREMENT AND COMPENSATION

1-2003. ADDITIONAL FEES IN CIVIL ACTIONS AND APPEALS. (a) In addition to the fees and charges to be collected by the clerks of the district courts of the state and by other persons authorized by rule or administrative order of the Supreme Court as now or hereafter provided by law, such clerks and authorized persons are directed to charge and collect the additional sum of eighteen dollars ($18.00) for filing a civil case or proceeding of any type in the district court or magistrate's division of the district court including cases involving the administration of decedents' estates, whether testate or intestate, conservatorships of the person or of the estate or both and guardianships of the person or of the estate or both, except that no fee shall be charged or collected for filing a proceeding under the Summary Administration of Small Estates Act. The additional sum of eighteen dollars ($18.00) shall also be collected from any party, except the plaintiff, making an appearance in any civil action in the district court, but such eighteen dollars ($18.00) fee shall not be collected from the person making an appearance in civil actions filed in the small claims departments of the district court.

(b) The sum of eighteen dollars ($18.00) shall also be collected:

(1) from an intervenor in an action;

(2) from a party who files a third party claim;

(3) from a party who files a cross claim;

(4) from a party appealing from the magistrate's division of the district court to the district court;

(5) from a party appealing the decision of any commission, board or body to the district court.

(c) The clerk of the Supreme Court is authorized and directed to charge and collect, in addition to the fees now prescribed by law and as a part of the cost of filing the transcript on appeal in any civil case or proceeding, other than criminal, appealed to the Supreme Court, the additional sum of eighteen dollars ($18.00); for filing a petition for rehearing, the additional sum of ten dollars ($10.00); for filing an application for any writ for which a fee is now prescribed, the additional sum of ten dollars ($10.00); for filing appeals from the industrial accident board, the additional sum of five dollars ($5.00).

(d) The clerks of the district courts, persons authorized by rule or administrative order of the Supreme Court and the clerk of the Supreme Court are directed and required to remit all additional charges and fees authorized by this section and collected during a calendar month, to the state treasurer within five (5) days after the end of the month in which such fees were collected. The state treasurer shall place all such sums in the judges' retirement fund.

TITLE 1

COURTS AND COURT OFFICIALS

CHAPTER 20

JUDGES' RETIREMENT AND COMPENSATION

1-2008. INVESTMENT OF JUDGES' RETIREMENT FUND. The investment board shall at the direction of the supreme court select and contract with a minimum of one (1) investment manager to manage the investment of the judges' retirement fund. The investment manager(s) shall, subject to the direction of the board, exert control over the funds as though the investment manager(s) were the owner thereof, subject to the limitation hereinafter provided. The investment manager(s) is hereby authorized to invest the judges' retirement fund in the following manner and in the following investments or securities and none others:

(1) Bonds, notes or other obligations of the United States or any agency or instrumentality thereof.

(2) Money market mutual funds.

(3) Bonds, notes, or other obligations of the state of Idaho and its political subdivisions, or bonds, notes, or other obligations of other states and their political subdivisions, provided such bonds, notes, or other obligations or the issuing agency for other than the state of Idaho and its political subdivisions have, at the time of their purchase, an AAA rating by a commonly known rating service.

(4) Bonds, debentures or notes of any corporation organized, controlled, and operating within the United States which have, at the time of their purchase, an A rating or higher by a commonly known rating service.

(5) Corporate obligations designated as corporate convertible debt securities.

(6) Obligations secured by mortgages constituting a first lien upon real property of the state of Idaho which are fully insured or guaranteed as to the payment of the principal by the government of the United States or any agency thereof.

(7) Time certificates of deposit and savings accounts.

(8) Common or preferred stocks of corporations.

(9) Commercial paper, which at the time of purchase, is rated prime 1 by moody's investors service incorporated or is rated A-1 or higher by standard and poor's corporation.

In acquiring, investing, reinvesting, exchanging, retaining, selling and managing the moneys and securities of the fund, the investment manager(s) shall be governed by the prudent man investment act, sections 68-501 through 68-506, Idaho Code; provided, however, that the supreme court may in its sole discretion, limit the types, kinds and amounts of such investments. The investment board shall be responsible for assuring that the investment manager(s) complies with this act. The investment board, subject to the approval of the supreme court, is hereby authorized to select and contract with a bank or trust company located in the state of Idaho, to act as custodian of the judges' retirement fund, who shall hold all securities and moneys of the judges' retirement fund and shall collect the principal, dividends and interest thereof when due and pay the same into the judges' retirement fund. The state treasurer shall pay all warrants drawn on the judges' retirement fund for making such investments when issued pursuant to vouchers signed by the chief justice of the supreme court and by the state controller.

As we can plainly see, our legislature has provided the judicial branch of government with laws that allow them to prosecute for profit the most obvious conflict of interest imaginable: Judges are allowed to run their courts as a vehicle to generate revenue that allows them to pad their own retirements.

The more appeals the public is forced to file because lower court rulings were compromised in one way or another, the more money appears in the account. The worse judges are, the better their retirement.

One last point: Judges' private retirement fund from publicly-generated revenues is overflowing with money and being used to make more money through modern investment strategies while your public retirement from privately-generated revenue has been spent by the people we elected to draft, approve and implement this entire retirement travesty.