"Judges Are Also Citizens"

Until this week courts had held that Article III-Section 1 of the Constitution* meant the Federal Government could not tax its judges' salaries. The inference was that Congress might sway justice by slapping taxes on its dispensers. That interpretation, acid-tongued Justice Felix Frankfurter in effect ruled this week, is so much tommyrot:

"To suggest that [taxing them] makes inroads upon the independence of judges . . . is to trivialize the great historic experience on which the framers based the safeguard . . . of the Constitution. To subject them to a general tax is merely to recognize that judges are also citizens."

Felix Frankfurter's decision will cost him $1,435 of his $20,000 salary. Justice McReynolds, not voting in the 8-0 opinion, will as a bachelor pay more than any other justice: $1,660. Chief Justice Hughes' bill (on $20,500): $1,510.

-"The judges . . . shall at stated times receive for their services a compensation which shall not be diminished during their continuance in office."

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