AN UNCONSTITUTIONAL ABUSE OF POWER
As we reported yesterday, in one of three judicial pay raise lawsuits currently pending against the State, Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Edward H. Lehner has ordered Governor David Patterson and the New York Legislature to adjust the pay of the state’s 1,300 judges in the next 90 days to compensate for inflation since their last raise almost 10 years ago. The New York Law Journal also has the story. Lehner ruled that the Legislature and the Governor had “unconstitutionally abused their power” by not raising judicial pay, and that lawmakers had violated the separation of powers doctrine by linking judicial pay to other issues like raises for the Legislators themselves and campaign finance reform.

Meanwhile, The Law Journal also breaks down the State’s argument in the grandest of the three pay raise suits — the one filed by Chief Judge Judith Kaye and argued by prominent attorney Bernard Nussbaum. A brief filed on behalf of Governor Paterson and State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver asks Lehner to dismiss the case, arguing that the facts about judicial compensation in New York do not legitimate the Chief Judge’s contention that judges’ pay is constitutionally inadequate.

THE IMMIGRATION APPEALS BOARD'S "OBVIOUS ERRORS" 
Meanwhile, The New York Times reports on a unanimous and scathing ruling by the Second Circuit that says the Board of Immigration Appeals had committed “obvious errors” and “simply failed” in denying asylum to three Guinean women who said they were victims of genital cutting back in Africa. One judge, Rosemary S. Pooler, wrote that she was “deeply disturbed” that the women’s cases “did not receive the type of careful analysis they were due.” While the women had told the board that they feared for their own safety (and, in two of the women’s cases, for that of their daughters) if they were returned to Guinea, the board held that because their genitals had already been cut, they had nothing more to worry about.

THE MANIPULATION GAME 
The Times also reports on a letter sent by disgraced former National Basketball Association referee Tim Donaghy to Eastern District Judge Carol B. Amon, in the days before his sentencing for conspiring with gamblers to fix games. The letter, which comes as the NBA finals enter their second week and argues for a reduced sentence, alleges a broad pattern of collusion between NBA executives and referees to “to manipulate games” in order to “boost ticket sales and television ratings.” Said NBA  commissioner David Stern: “He turned on basically all of his colleagues in an attempt to demonstrate that he is not the only one who engaged in criminal activity. The U.S. Attorney’s Office and the F.B.I. have fully investigated it, and Mr. Donaghy is the only one who is guilty of a crime. And he’s going to be sentenced for that crime, regardless of these desperate attempts to implicate as many people as he can.”

UNHAPPY SUFFOLK LEGISLATORS AND A WORKER STATUS LAW
And as Newsday reports, the Suffolk County Legislature is dumping thousands of dollars to appeal Suffolk County Supreme Court Justice Ralph Costello’s recent ruling invalidating the region’s worker status law. Costello found that the law, which requires all Suffolk County contractors to prove their employees are not undocumented immigrants, had been improperly passed without considering a Hispanic Legislator’s argument that the bill was discharged from the Consumer Protection Committee. “It’s about the judiciary interfering in the legislative process and making the rules for the Legislature,” said Presiding Officer William Lindsay of the appeal. “I think it’s totally inappropriate that the judiciary interferes with another branch of government.”