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Ever since the story broke a month or so ago about U.S. Attorney Joseph Van Bokkelen becoming a federal judge, it's been eating at me.

Not that Van Bokkelen wouldn't make a good judge.

To the contrary, he'd be just fine.

What keeps dogging me is that Van Bokkelen will turn 64 in June, a month before he's expected to take his seat on the federal bench when Judge Rudy Lozano steps down to take senior status.

It's not that 64 should be considered old. But in terms of launching a career on the bench, 64 borders on ancient.

Van Bokkelen is bright. Very bright. He knows his way around the justice system and around a courtroom.

His career has been lengthy and varied -- the kind of career that prepares one for being a judge. But, at 64, how long will he serve?

Van Bokkelen was an assistant U.S. attorney in the 1970s and prosecuted members of the Family Street Gang -- the worst of the worst -- who terrorized Gary, leaving bodies strewn all over the city streets.

From there, he went into private practice and became one of the most successful defense attorneys in the area.

A former U.S. attorney once told me that the three best defense attorneys in Lake County -- in terms of white-collar crimes and public corruption -- were Dick James and Max Cohen, both retired, and Van Bokkelen.

When former Lake County Prosecutor Jack Crawford was at wits' end over the murder of East Chicago lawyer and political operative Jay Given in the early 1980s, Van Bokkelen got the call as special prosecutor.

Van Bokkelen said publicly at the time that he felt he had enough to have East Chicago Deputy Police Chief John Cardona indicted for the murder. But Crawford wouldn't act.

Several years later, Juvenile Court Judge Mary Beth Bonaventura hired Van Bokkelen to help in her push to get the county to commit to building a new juvenile justice facility in Crown Point. He won.

After the Supreme Court selected George Bush to be president, Van Bokkelen's name was among those that surfaced to be U.S. attorney.

But Van Bokkelen balked somewhat, saying he wasn't sure he wanted to give up his law practice -- a comment that was synonymous with saying he didn't want to take a pay cut to become federal prosecutor.

Nevertheless, the lure of being in a position to dismantle the Lake County Democratic Party was too much to turn down.

Sen. Richard Lugar recommended Van Bokkelen to Bush, and the rest is history. Van Bokkelen -- sometimes arrogantly and flippantly -- and a host of federal investigators riddled the ranks of Lake County Democrats with public corruption indictments and convictions.

But Van Bokkelen could be jobless in a couple years when a new president is elected. And trying to jump start an idle law practice likely isn't an attractive proposition.

For his tenacious pursuit of the Democrats, Van Bokkelen will be rewarded with a lifetime job on the bench. Doesn't matter about qualifications; this is little more than a payback.

It all makes you wonder about the GOP philosophy of filling the courts with young Republicans to have an impact on the direction of the federal judiciary for decades to come. So much for principle.

Yeah, a lifetime job at $165,000 per year. Talk about judicial politics. It's all so brazenly cozy.

And, it all kind of makes Republican criticism of Lake County Democrats giving jobs to campaign workers pale in comparison.

Contact Rich James at 648-3117 or [email protected]