Will Galison Testifying at the Judicial Compensation Hearing 7/20/11

WATCH THE VIDEO HERE

On July 20, 2011, hearings were held in to determine whether New York State Judges should receive a significant pay raise.

Along with 32 others, Will Galison testified before a panel of seven commissioners selected by Governor Cuomo.

Witnesses were allowed seven minutes each to testify if they represented an organization, and three minutes if they spoke as individuals. Galison applied for seven minutes as a representative of the Black Star News and the group he heads called "Citizens Against Judicial Corruption". Despite these affiliations Galison was given three minutes to testify.

The impromptu explanation was that only "heads of organizations" were allowed seven minutes.

Three problems with that explanation are:

1) No provision in the committee's rules required that the representative of the organization must be its "head".

2) Most of the other "representatives" allowed seven minutes were not the "heads" of their organization. For example, Judith Kaye is not the "head" of the Skadden Arps lawfirm where she is employed.

3) Galison is in fact the "head" of the admittedly modest organization "Citizens against Judicial Corruption". There were no criteria regarding the size of an organization in the rules.

So the decision to limit Galison's testimony was capricious at best, and more likely an effort to limit the impact of his statement, which concerns the suspected murder by a NY Supreme Court Judge of a New York citizen who had investigating alleged crimes by the Judge.

Galison said this was relevant to the hearings because there the agency that oversees judicial misconduct is corrupt and cannot separate judges who are worthy of a raise from those who are not, such as the one accused by the murdered man of judicial misconduct.