Who are we to judge? (Psst … they’re awful)

Not all Massachusetts state judges are bad, it’s just that 98 percent of them who give the other 2 percent such a poor reputation.

Whenever some obviously dangerous illegal alien gets cut loose by one of these failed lawyers, people always ask, Who would do such an irresponsible thing?

And the answer is, some hack Democrat judge.

Today, let’s consider one of the Commonwealth’s eminent jurists, selected not at random but in the wake of her recent decision on behalf of the undocumented Democrat community in Lawrence.

Meet Judge J. Elizabeth Cremens. She recently had before her in Lowell District court a Dominican illegal charged with approximately 17 counts, including a fraudulent drivers’ license and almost running over a Billerica cop while trying to escape from a drug-infested neighborhood in Tewksbury.

She set his bail at $500.

Cremens is 71, which means she’s retired ($84,399 a year). But now she’s gone on “recall.” That means that in addition to her $7033-a-month kiss in the mail, she still collects a paycheck as a part-time judge, even though by state law she’s too old to be fulltime. By Jan. 19, according to state payroll records, she’d already grabbed more than $8900 in “recall” pay this year.

It’s called double-dipping. And it’s an epidemic in the judicial hackerama, and elsewhere in state government.

If anyone in the Dreaded Private Sector has such a sweetheart deal, I don’t “recall” their names.

You ask, how did Judge Cremens get her robes? Gov. Deval Patrick nominated her in 2010 when she was 63, kinda long in the tooth for a first judgeship, but her credentials were impeccable.

Before her appointment, she’d donated to every single Democrat presidential campaign all the way back to M. Stanley Dukakis. I’m sure the governor who finally handed her early retirement, Deval Patrick, was most impressed by the $2175 she threw in to “Obama for America.”

Other contributions went to such Congressional titans as Teddy Kennedy, Eddie Markey and Carol Shea Porter.

The Democratic National Committee got $500. She faithfully ponied up for Marsha Coakley, she even joined the “Creem Team,” as Sen. Cynthia Creem termed her organization in the Lewinsky year of 1998 – fill in your own R-rated joke here.

Cremens is a second-generation hack. Her dad was John F. Cremens, a former state rep from Cambridge who is probably best known for once filing a bill to rename Fresh Pond Parkway the John F. Cremens Parkway.

“I don’t know about that,” quipped future House speaker (and felon) Charlie Flaherty. “Fresh Pond Parkway has a nice ring to it, especially since it runs around… Fresh Pond.”

As we all know, once you go hack you never go back. And the hack gene is passed on down through the generations. Her brother, John Cremens, had his snout buried in the probation-department trough. He was “first assistant deputy.”

Remember the probation department scandal a few years back, involving the hiring of unqualified hacks, many of whom were the children of judges, and some of whom were junkies?

The question in federal court was, were all these probation-department coat holders and payroll Charlies racketeers… or hacketeers?

John Cremens, the judge’s brother, was called as a witness. A defense lawyer asked him, “Did you commit perjury in 2010 in your sworn testimony?”

“It wasn’t my intention,” Cremens said, and that makes all the difference, doesn’t it?

At her confirmation hearing, one of Cremens’ witnesses was Judge Paul Heffernan, whose abysmal career on the bench I haven’t got room enough to list again. His daughter, by the way, is also on the bench – Mary Beth Heffernan.

She’s the one who a couple of years ago in Newton rushed through the bail paperwork on a thrice-deported Dominican gangbanger charged with raping a Boston College student. ICE wanted to grab him at the jail, but he made bail at the courthouse… and promptly vanished.

Proving yet again that, as bad as hacks are, second-generation hacks are even worse.

There’s a questionnaire all judicial nominees have to fill out for the Governor’s Council, and question 3 is about judges’ discretion, so often abused in favor of criminal illegal aliens, in sentencing. The same questions apply generally to bail.

Here was Judge Cremens’ answer to the question of judicial discretion in dealing with defendants:

“The protection of public safety is a primary factor, especially with a violent offense.”

Is almost running over a cop while fleeing from a stop while driving unlicensed – could that be considered a violent offense? Probably, but only if you’re not an illegal Dominican from Lawrence.

Through a court spokesman, the judge declined to comment.