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To err is human, not to judge is divine
NWI Times
Oct 13, 2004
http://www.nwitimes.com/news/opinion/columnists/mark-kiesling/to-err-is-human-not-to-judge-is-divine/article_fdcf8cf1-5eeb-534c-a2b5-0ae23263080d.html
In the Marx Brothers' film "Animal Crackers," Groucho as Captain Spaulding is discussing the payment to musicians led by Signor Emanual Ravelli, played by Chico.
"What do you fellows get an hour?" inquires Groucho, to which Chico replies, "Oh, for playing we getta 10 dollars an hour."
"And what do you get for not playing?" Groucho continues. "Twelve dollars an hour," Chico says, then goes on to explain they get $15 an hour for rehearsing.
And for not rehearsing?
"You couldn't afford it," Chico says.
How much does Lake Criminal Court Judge Joan Kouros get for not judging?
According to Meg Babcock, chief counsel for the Indiana Supreme Court's Commission on Judicial Qualifications, Kouros has spent from June 27, 2003, to Jan. 1 and from Aug. 2 to the present on paid suspension.
That's nine months, or 10 percent of the time she has been in office since being sworn in as a judge in March 1997.
For this, she is making about $98,000 a year. Indiana judges routinely complain about being underpaid compared to counterparts in neighboring states, but it's tough to gripe when you don't actually have to work.
Tuesday came word the 45-year-old judge will "retire" Feb. 25, which will allow her to just become vested in the judicial pension plan, which was the rumor all along. Next stop? Look for a job somewhere in the county's legal system so she can keep her insurance. They take care of their own.
This would put her at having served 15 percent of her career on paid suspension.
The irony is that Kouros was probably the hardest-working judge in the county's criminal division, often staying late and working weekends to make sure all the i's were dotted and t's crossed.
And it was Kouros who angered her fellow judges and their employees when she went public with what everyone who works in the courthouse knows: That there are a lot of times when judges are done by or before noon and they go home or out to hit 18 holes.
A lot of Kouros' hard work was brought on by her own perfectionism, which was the eventual cause of her downfall.
The state's high court has twice suspended Kouros for being unable to manage the day-to-day affairs of court, particularly in respect to getting paperwork completed in a timely manner. Noting this has cost inmates days of freedom and has opened the county to potential legal action, the Supreme Court in essence told her to clean up the mess and keep it cleaned up.
This she promised to do, but fudged when it came time to keep the promise. Files cleaned up during the 2003 caretakership of retired Porter Circuit Judge Raymond Kickbush once again began to litter the courtroom and her chambers.
But despite the infractions and suspensions, the supremes kept her on to preserve the pension she will be allowed to draw at 62.
It could only happen to someone from East Chicago.
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