HANDS-ON NOMINATION 
Governor Eliot Spitzer announced his first judicial pick over the holiday weekend. But that doesn’t mean it slipped notice. The governor announced on Sunday his nomination of Theodore Jones, Jr. (click here to read his Judicial Reports profile), a black judge and 17-year veteran of the Brooklyn Supreme Court. The New York Law Journal (subscription-free for this story) says that the appointment is a window into how Spitzer goes about choosing judges. The governor, who had to make an appointment by Jan. 15, interviewed all seven candidates and met face to face with four of them. A “virtually unprecedented approach” the NYLJ quotes observers saying. Usually interviews are reserved for the nominee who will eventually get the nod, or staff is ordered do the legwork. “I have always felt that the judiciary is our most important branch of government,” Spitzer said at a press conference Sunday in Manhattan. Sewell Chan in The New York Times reminds us that George Pataki had declined to renominate Judge George Bundy Smith, whose term expired in September, which had left the state’s highest court without a black jurist (for the first time since 1985.) Senate Republican Majority leader Joseph Bruno was reportedly “very affirmative” about the nomination. Jones, who presided over the New York City transit strike legal matters, is 62 — which leaves him with just eight years until he reaches the mandatory retirement age of 70.

 
PROSECUTORIAL BENCH ATTACK 
Judges aren’t following the frenzy over child pornography in the way that prosecutors would like them to. Despite attention from the media and efforts by state legislatures to raise penalties for child pornography, sentencing patterns are going in the opposite direction, according to an “unusual attack against the judiciary” by the U.S. attorney for New Jersey. Christopher Christie recently criticized federal judges for imposing slight sentences (probation to three years in prison for child porn cases), the National Law Journal reports. The comments in question were made back in October 2006, but they are still unusual for their direct challenge to the judiciary. “Our judiciary needs to understand: These are not victimless crimes, these are not just poor, disturbed people,” Christie said during a news conference about a nationwide pornography sweep. “If anybody sat and looked at these images, they would never, ever let anyone who's involved in looking at these images or creating these images off easily.” Two Supreme Court rulings in 2005 that made federal sentencing guidelines recommended rather than mandatory are a big part of the problem, prosecutors argue. Drew Oosterbaan, chief of the child exploitation and obscenity section of the U.S. Department of Justice, said most sentences for child porn are below federal sentencing guidelines. “This is a crime not well understood by judges, and it's difficult for prosecutors to make a case for it,” he said. One solution is more victim impact statements, and broader efforts to educate judges about the “severity of the images in question,” Oosterbaan said. “Even now, it's hard to get judges to look at the pornography.”

 
GETTING OVER OVERTIME 
The New York Post says Governor Spitzer is planning a “crackdown” on state workers getting paid for extra hours. “We have been over the past several weeks, reviewing the overtime issue," Spitzer's spokeswoman, Christine Anderson, said. “This is an issue where we'll obviously take a closer look for cost control. It's something we're taking incredibly seriously.” The Post reported yesterday that the state’s top 20 overtime earners each made more in overtime pay than their base salaries.