The Part 36 restrictions were put in after the Birnbaum Commission recommended that Judges be restricted in their ability to make patronage appointment of Guardians, Receivers, and other lucrative thingies. This whole imbroglio was set in motion because some ‘Pols’ in Brooklyn had the stones to publicly complain that they weren’t getting the cushy appointments in spite of their $$$upport of the party organization.
As they are prone to do, the powers that be set out to destroy a few mosquitoes by bombarding the entire region with napalm.
A bit strong, okay. But if they want to prohibit Judges from giving every damn lucrative Receivership to a single party hack, as they did out in Long Island recently – in spite of the Part 36 Rules! Hello? – why not simply pass a prohibition against the concentration of single appointments with projected compensation of $50,000 per year ? How about no Judge can give any single individual one of his ‘super appointments’ more than once a year?
Well, we didn’t do that. We’re keeping track of every damn thing [or we’re supposed to], and it’s a tragic waste of the time of court personnel. And it degrades the proceedings themselves, because some of the survivors on the list are very bad. Really, do you give a damn if a certain Judge gives five appointments to the same property appraiser, who gets $ 450 – 650 per appointment? But why do we now have, as of this morning, 15 [fifteen] [XV] different categories of Part 36 appointment? What in the name of all that’s holy does that accomplish? And we still have doosh bag Judges who will ignore the whole damn thing anyway.
Do it my way; we’ll knock this down to Guardians, Receivers, and SNT Trustees. The rest of you are on your own.
And for the zillionth time, why are we losing i.e. ‘capping out’ — our best Court Examiners because some pin head decided they were ‘fiduciaries” ?
And why not try something new: let’s discipline Judges caught doing this stuff by tossing them off the bench? You know, treat them the same as we treat the upstate non-lawyer Justices of the Peace caught fixing tickets? Can we guess why? Judge McMahon; I’m sorry. Did you say something?
Let’s dial this thing back. More restrictions are not better. OCA is totally hypocritical on this stuff, anyway. Here’s one obvious example: when an incapacitated person dies, the “Court Examiner” ceases to be. So we now designate the same person as “Referee” and let them review the final account, the same estate they were reviewing as Court Examiner. But because we’ve changed their title to something that Part 36 doesn’t cover, the fact that they might be capped out is irrelevant. OCA has no problem with this, but can’t explain why.
And the Republic yet stands.
My sage and measured recommendation? Shit-can the damn thing, and start over. Hone in on the problem, and deal directly with that, and with nothing else. We just designed a computer program, over two years, in a State Wide Task force just to make sure the Judges were reporting all their compensation. Instead of wondering what purpose Part 36 was serving, they spent tons of dough designing this computerized compliance regimen that does almost no good for anybody. J. Lippman’s last bowel movement, and it lasted way past the time when anyone could remember Gentleman Johnny’s winning smile.
Meanwhile, our compliance programs for Guardians – their reporting duties I mean – are still roughly what they were in the era of Conservators and Commissions. C’mon guys; let’s wake up.
The NRA Gunsters are always claiming we have plenty of anti gun laws already on the books that we should enforce, and that would be very helpful in preventing a lot of the gun crime we have now without passing further restrictions. I’m no fan of these bastards, but they are not all wrong. Let’s stop the slaps on the wrist to the worst miscreants, but let’s liberate the rest of us from pointless restrictions that diminish the quality of court proceedings.
Imagine this conversation:
MEMBER OF PUBLIC: Judge, I can’t be my son’s Guardian, but I know you’ll appoint someone who will do the best job for my son.
JUDGE: The best. Oh yes. Well, there’s a list of 140 candidates, of whom only 36 are active, and some of them really suck, but I’ll try to get you the one who sucks the least. The good ones are already capped out, even though they are on the list, and so I can’t appoint them. Sorry.
MEMBER OF PUBLIC: Can’t I get another Judge?
And by the way; if you are absolutely gung-ho to be appointed “counsel for an incapacitated person” ten or more times this year, by all means let’s get in touch.
