Clerk magistrates perform vital function
To the editor:
As first vice-president of the statewide Clerk/Magistrates Association, I thank the Advisory Board on Compensation (Board) for their efforts to address the issue of fair compensation for public employees. However, we strongly disagree with the board's recommendation to de-couple the salary of clerk/magistrates with respect to judges.
Presently, clerk/magistrates are paid a salary equal to 81.57 percent of the departmental chief justice, whose salary is set by the Legislature. The Board recommended an upward salary adjustment for judges and de-coupling the salaries of clerk/magistrates to judges. They offer two reasons for this recommendation. The first is that clerk/magistrates simply constitute administrative personnel, and the second is that the duties, qualifications and work hours of judges and clerks are simply different. Therefore, the Board concluded that there is little rationale for linking the two salaries.
This conclusion is seriously flawed and demonstrates a fundamental lack of understanding of the judicial process and the vital role the clerk/magistrates and their staff play in our courthouses. If afforded the opportunity to be heard during the Board's deliberations from December 2007 through May 2008, I would have offered the following facts for the Board's consideration:
It is accurate that clerk/magistrates perform administrative functions. We are responsible for the entire internal administration of our offices, including personnel, budget, staffing and case processing. Lawyers and litigants familiar with the process understand the complexities involved in the preparation, processing and recording of the vast and numerous types of pleadings and filings received each day in our courthouses. The staff in any clerk's office works significantly longer than the 37.5 hours per week for which they are compensated and receive no additional pay.
The clerk/magistrate of the court is a gubernatorial appointment and submits to the identical selection process as any judge. Although a law degree is not required, many clerk/magistrates and their assistants have obtained a law degree and other post secondary graduate degrees. Many clerks and assistant clerks have spent decades working in clerks' offices prior to their appointment.
Clerk/magistrates perform numerous magisterial and quasi-judicial functions. We review each arrest and issue process if we find that probable cause for that arrest exists. We preside over criminal show cause hearings alleging violations of both felonies and misdemeanors. Such hearings include swearing witnesses, hearing testimony and ultimately determining which cases enter the criminal process and which do not. The Supreme Judicial Court has ruled that the clerk/magistrate acts as a gate keeper to the criminal process, and we exercise extraordinary discretion in this regard.
In fiscal year 2007, the district and municipal courts conducted 60,934 criminal show cause hearings. Clerk/magistrates hear and decide small claims cases, hear and decide contested and uncontested motions, and conduct payment hearings. In fiscal year 2007, clerk/magistrates heard and decided 122,566 small claims cases.
The Legislature understands the vital role of the clerk/magistrate in our judicial process and compensates the clerks with a percentage of the chief justice's salary. Our association and all of its members publically thank the members of the General Court for their confidence and support over these many years. We appreciate it and we will continue to work hard each and every day.
KEITH MCDONOUGH
Clerk Magistrate
Lawrence District Court
Media won't report success in Iraq
To the editor:
In January 2007 President Bush announced a 33,000 troop surge in Iraq to tamp down violence and help prepare Iraq's national security forces.
Since then about the only news provided by the major media (Associated Press, CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC, NY Times, Boston Globe, various news magazines, etc., etc.) described suicide bombings and deaths, roadside bombings and deaths, suicide car bombings and deaths, etc. The Eagle-Tribune daily reports on the obituary page the total number of deaths in Iraq since the beginning of hostilities.
Success, achievement, progress, and victories are seldom if ever reported. When forced to report good news, the media resorts to rhetoric such as "Lately the news out of Iraq is not all bad."
Because of the major media's apparent and deliberate control of the news from Iraq, I searched and found the main source of news releases and feature articles that are provided to the media. I know what is not being reported. I have accumulated thousands of these press releases from Camp Victory in the Green Zone Baghdad, Iraq.
These press releases reveal an untold story of the enormous success of the surge. You can read them for yourself at www.mnf-iraq.com.
Apparently the news media doesn't think the success and end of the surge is something you should know.
CARMINE LOCONTE
Haverhill
Saren is best choice for state representative
To the editor:
I first met Joel Saren about 10 years ago. He was serving as the secretary and treasurer of an organization I was interested in joining. We met. We discussed my membership. He mentored me and welcomed me. For a while, Joel was my role model. He has always been very professional, honest and reliable. He is a person I have come to count on and someone who I would trust with almost anything. His attention to detail and follow up is outstanding. He is a good, strong, loyal family man. I support his run for the N.H. House Representative representing me in Plaistow, Kingston, and Hampstead.
I am totally confident that Joel is, and always has been, a person I can rely on. If elected, I am confident he would represent all of us and someone we could count on as our state representative. That's why I totally support Joel.
RALPH L. WADE JR., M.D.
Plaistow, N.H.
