WITH A GUN AND CASH
The murder case against former FBI agent Lindley DeVecchio may have dissolved yesterday, but not without a stinging critique of the FBI by Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Gustin Reichbach. Newsday has the story, while The New York Law Journal links to Reichbach’s must-read decision. Reichbach conjures the likes of Friedrich Nietzsche and the devil (not to mention The Village Voice’s Tom Robbins, who broke the story that discredited the government’s main witness) in discussing the FBI’s questionable partnership with Colombo crime family capo and informant Gregory Scarpa. In particular, Reichbach comments on testimony that FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover sent Scarpa to Mississippi in 1964 with a gun and cash to intimidate witnesses into revealing where three slain civil rights workers were buried — a tactic the judge compared to the kind being used in the war on terror. “That a thug like Scarpa would be employed by the federal government to beat witnesses and threaten them at gunpoint to obtain information regarding the death of civil rights workers in the south in the early 1960's is a shocking demonstration of the government's willingness to employ criminality to fight crime. It is redolent of the current mindset of some in the government who argue that the practice of terror and torture can be freely employed against those the government claims are terrorists themselves: that it is permissible to make men scream in the name of national security.” (Whether Reichbach was signalling former Southern District Judge Michael Mukasey, currently being pilloried by Democrats in the U.S. Senate for failing to disown waterboarding during hearings on his nomination for Attorney General, is anyone's guess.)

THROW 'EM A BONE 
While the push for judicial pay increases has stalled, The New York Law Journal reports on the Office of Court Administration’s improved benefits and vacation plan for judges. Saying that the Supplemental Support Fund is “not in any way intended to be, nor could be, a substitute for a salary increase,” Chief Administrative Judge Ann Pfau described the program as an effort by OCA “to look at anything we can do in the interim to make their lives better, because it is very demanding to be a judge.” The plan increases vacation time from 20 to 25 days for judges with five or more years of experience and offers up to $5000 in reimbursable medical and other expenses.

KAYE'S "DREADFUL YEAR"
The plan was announced only days after Chief Judge Judith S. Kaye sent a memo to judges saying that she thinks discussions over pay raises are still productive and that the filing of a lawsuit by members of the judiciary could damage that. Kaye has a letter to the editor in the Law Journal today about “this dreadful year of my life.” She further implored legislators: “What do the words ‘co-equal’ and ‘independent’ mean when referring to the New York State Judiciary? What meaning is there in your consistent statements that ‘the Judiciary deserves a long overdue adjustment of compensation’ when none is forthcoming? And do you see the toll being taken on us as mere ‘collateral damage’ — collateral to legislative pay increases, campaign finance reform and ‘other’ issues?” (Whether the benefits package and letter will mollify the cadre of jurists who fault the Kaye administration for being too tepid in the salary fight is anyone's guess.)

MURDER AND A PULLOVER STOCKING HAT
The New York Times reports on the renewed efforts of Martin H. Tankleff to exonerate himself in the 1988 murders of his parents after his conviction was upheld by a Suffolk County judge in 2004. Tankleff — who was convicted primarily on an admission written by police that he refused to sign — says he has new evidence that Joseph Creedon was paid to carry out the murder by father’s former business partner, Jerard Steuerman, and has filed a motion in Suffolk County Court in Riverhead seeking another appeal. The new evidence includes allegations by Creedon’s current and ex-girlfriends that he admitted to the crime and that he kept albums of items about the Tankleff case including a safe containing “a .22-caliber automatic, leg irons, handcuffs, security guard badge on a neck chain and a black pullover stocking hat.” Said Stephen L. Braga, a lawyer for Mr. Tankleff: “A killer is walking the streets of Suffolk County with a feeling of impunity created by the fact that he is ‘untouchable’ by the D.A. One can hardly imagine a more dangerous situation.”

REPLACING THE RAMP 
The Staten Island Advance has a story about a community’s efforts to help wheelchair-bound quadriplegic Judge Alexander Jeong. An unknown thief stole the seven-foot-long metal ramp from outside Jeong's Annadale home, preventing him from getting down his front steps. After the incident was reported in the Advance, readers responded with offers to provide a new ramp. “I'm very grateful to all those people who were willing to extend a hand to a stranger,” Jeong said today. “Everybody has been very empathetic with people who are in a difficult situation.”

NOACH DEAR'S NEMESIS 
Finally, The Brooklyn Paper writes about the Brooklyn Civil Court candidacy of James McCall, a so-called Reagan Democrat who is running as a Republican in an attempt to beat the heavy, if controversial, favorite, Noach Dear. While Dear has been endorsed by Borough President Marty Markowitz and Kings County Democratic Party Chairman and Assemblyman Vito Lopez, his troubled record as a Borough Park city councilman, combined with other accusations of corruption and his lack of experience as a lawyer, may give McCall a fighting chance of becoming the first Republican to win a Brooklyn judgeship since the middle of the 20th century. Of particular intrigue: the Lambda Independent Democrats, a lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender political club, came close to endorsing McCall last week. “Dear has been so vile in his homophobia that we [should] support a Republican to defeat him,” said Bay Ridge district leader Ralph Perfetto,who joined McCall at the Lambda endorsement meeting. (Whether the Lambda folks think Dear would be the judicial equivalent of Torquemada is not subject to a guess.)