Possible Private Court Hearings in R.I. Raise ACLU’s Hackles

Possible Private Court Hearings in R.I. Raise ACLU’s Hackles, ABA J. online, Dec. 24, 2008.

An almost 25-year-old law in Rhode Island is suddenly controversial, as it looks like it might be implemented for the first time.

The so-called hire-a-judge law enacted by the state in 1984 is the basis of an apparent plan by the Rhode Island Supreme Court to allow litigants in civil cases to retain retired judges to hold private hearings, reports the Providence Journal.

Under Rhode Island’s Retired Justice Trial Act, litigants decide where the case would be heard and pay all costs—including the fee for the retired judge whose decisions, the law states, would “have the same force and effect as if it had been entered or made by an active judge of the court.”

For more, see Hire-a-judge law may come to life, Providence J., Dec. 24, 2008.