PAY — BACK
New York judges woke up with a nasty surprise this morning. The much-celebrated judicial pay raise that Governor Eliot Spitzer built into the state budget was scrapped in last-minute negotiations. The New York Law Journal reports that the $121 billion budget plan will not include the more than $120 million earmarked for pay raises and for retroactively repaying judges for the raise that didn’t materialize last year either. Chief Administrative Judge Jonathan Lippman weighed in when he discovered that the final negotiations among Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, and Spitzer killed the pay raise in a compromise that pushed the new budget through at the start of the new fiscal year: “This is a judiciary that deserves over and over again a pay raise equal to the critical responsibilities that we have in our tripartite system of government. It is indefensible." The judge's problem, however, is that the constituency for a raise doesn't extend far beyond his colleagues (and Judicial Reports!)

 
OPEN THE COURTS
An editorial in  The New York Times yesterday made a public plea for more “openness” in Connecticut courts. That state’s Joint Committee on Government Administration and Elections recently passed a measure that will prevent Connecticut judges from continuing a “culture of secrecy” where judges prevented reporters from taking notes in the courtroom, sealed court records on high-profile cases, and ignored legislative standards for courtroom openness. The proposal is headed to the legislature’s Judiciary Committee, and from there, the whole legislature can vote on the bill. “[A]cting chief justice, David Borden, has tried to coax the judiciary to behave in a more transparent manner, but after his retirement in August there is no guarantee that his initiatives will continue,” the paper notes. “But as Judge Dale Radcliffe of Superior Court recently observed, ‘Any reforms may be rescinded when no one is looking and pressure is off.’ ”

WAR CRIMES: DEAL, BUT NO SALE
The first person convicted of war crimes since World War Two was sentenced last week, the New York Post notes. David Hicks, an Australian caught when United States forces raided an Al Qaeda training camp, was sentenced by Marines Corps Judge Ralph Kohlmann to seven years in prison as part of a special plea deal. Under the deal, Hicks must withdraw his accusations of mistreatment at Guantanamo Bay — where he has been held for the last five years without trial. The paper notes an interesting caveat tucked into the plea agreement, something that will hamper any attempt to profit off his strange tale: “The plea agreement calls for him to hand over to the Australian government any proceeds from selling the rights to his life story.”

DESTINY'S DEFENDANT WINS
A pop star received a one-million-dollar judgment last Friday as a Supreme Court judge ruled that Beyonce Knowles doesn’t owe a powerful executive $1.5 million for his help brokering a fashion deal. The New York Daily News reports that Supreme Court Justice Herman Kahn ruled that Knowles already paid Greg Walker (the CEO of Icon Entertainment) enough money for his work. The lucrative fashion deal ultimately produced the clothing line House of Dereon, a clothing line featuring the singer that ended up netting more than $15 million since 2003. Walker sued to get a bigger cut.