Judicial Quality and Salaries

I dithered between putting this post here or on one my law blogs. Opted for here as it is a more political issue. You may not know this but for many years Indiana's Chief Justice Shepard campaigned for increased judicial salaries. He argued that better salaries would lead to better judges. That argument may now have a hit a brick wall. See Will Higher Judicial Salaries Increase Quality? Judge Posner and Son Say No.

For those might not know of Judge Posner, let me just say that he is heavy hitter in the area of jurisprudence, the Michael Jackson of the law and economics school of thought, and would be on the United States Supreme Court if ideology did not matter as much as it has these past seven years.

For what it is worth, we have lost several Indiana Supreme Court justices for financial reasons. On the hand, Madison County has the same judges it had ten years ago.