From this morning’s Seattle Times:
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Seattle’s Mardi Gras and racial-profiling task forces must meet in public. A Superior Court judge has ruled that, contrary to the city’s contentions, closed meetings violate the state’s open-meetings law.
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This just in from the Department of Redundancy Department: this just in.
It reminds me of how the current UK Government promised to introduce Freedom of Information legislation. It turned out that their proposals would, in fact, considerably restrict access.
P.S. Why don’t we have Inferior Court judges?
Here’s a headline from one of our local stations today that I found funny as hell.
http://www.thedenverchannel.com/den/news/stories/news-78357120010522-080528.html
You’ve obviously never met the New York judiciary. 
Actually, almost all jurisdictions have inferior court judges, though exactly which courts are considered superior and inferior vary by jurisdiction.
The trial court of general jurisdiction and the appellate courts above it are generally considered the superior courts. The trial court of general jurisdiction in must US states is usually known as something like Superior Court, District Court, or Circuit Court (in the Federal System it’s the United States District Court). The highest and intermediate appellate courts of the states are usually known by titles such as Supreme Court, Appellate Court, Court of Appeals, and sometimes District Court or Circuit Court.
In addition to the superior courts, all US states have inferior courts which have limited jurisdiction. Typically, these would include family courts, probate courts, and local courts with jursidictions over only civil disputes up to a certain amount or less serious criminal violations.
New York State has a famously byzantine court system, with over a dozen different types of courts, six of them considered superior. They are:
Superior Courts
– New York Court of Appeals (New York’s highest court, would be called Supreme Court in most other states)
– Appellate Division (technically Appellate Division of the Supreme Court – intermediate appellate court)
– Appellate Term (technically Appellate Term of the Supreme Court – lower appellate court hearing appeals from certain inferior courts in downstate counties)
– Supreme Court (perversely named trial court of general jurisdiction – would be known as Superior Court or similar designation in most states)
– County Court (court in counties outside New York city with limited civil and felony criminal jurisdiction – procedurally considered a superior court in New York)
Inferior Courts
– Court of Claims (specalized court in which all claims against the State of New York must be brought)
– Surrogage’s Court (handling probate and related matters)
– Family Court (juvenile offences, abuse/neglect petitions, some custody matters)
– District Court (court of limited civil and misdemeanor criminal jurisdiction in certain downstate counties)
– Civil Court of the City of New York (court of limited civil jurisdiction in New York City – includes housing court)
– Criminal Court of the City of New York (misdemeanor criminal jursidiction in New York City)
– City Courts (limited civil and misdemeanor jurisdiction in Cities other than New York City)
– Town Courts (very limited civil and misdemeanor jursdiction in incorporated townships)
– Village Courts (very limited civil and misdemeanor jursidiction in incorporated villages)
There have been various proposals to revamp the system into a managable number of courts, but none has been able to be implemented due to political considerations (largely revolving around the election/appointment of judges).
Billdo,
It was only a joke - but thanks for the interesting information.
Times newspaper, England:
Mr. Townend, who has insisted he will not be silenced, refused to comment.