CCM Staff

Paper Notes $93 Million Question For Trial Courts

August 20, 2013 By CCM Staff

The Desert Dispatch newspaper in San Bernardino County is among few outlets noting that the California Judicial Council will decide THIS WEEK where to allocate up to $93 million of “special funds” to support trial courts. Meeting in San Francisco starting Thursday, that group will evaluate recommendations from yet another committee, the “Trial Court Budget Advisory Committee.”

Citing the “state judiciary,” the Desert Dispatch says “… the two special funds provide primary support to self help centers, technology support and initiatives, the civil litigation program, education of judges and court staff and reimbursement for other court costs.” To some, especially to labor leaders, that seems like money that is not going directly to save courthouse jobs – an issue that links back to the state budget mandate for some budget increases to target jobs and keeping courthouses open.

To read more, check out the story here.

Filed Under: Community, Courts Budget Tagged With: AFSCME, California, California Budget, California State Budget, court rationing, courthouses, Judges, judicial council, Justice Rationing, Legal news, SEIU, unions

Appeals Court Rules On Long-Standing Appeal Of Deputy Dismissal

August 19, 2013 By CCM Staff

A federal appeals court has upheld the dismissal of a former Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy (turned security officer) in a labor case that began with a firing in 1990 and illustrates how “old” information can surface on the Internet. Among the issues was if employment records obtained online could be considered the same as “non-public” records and if the California Science Center acted property when it discovered previous information.

In effect, the employee explained his dismissal from the sheriff’s department in way, but it later surfaced that there was more possible wrongdoing involved. That came to light in 2007, years after the incident and after the employee had been working and received promotions. The worker’s legal team argued that online information should not be allowed for consideration because it was obtained without a waiver or other legal means for obtaining employment records. The Science Center countered that it got the information from the Internet.

You can read about California Science Center v. State Personnel Board (Arellanes), 13 S.O.S. 4282 at the MetNews here.

Filed Under: Community, Courts Budget Tagged With: California, california court cuts, employee relations, employment law, federal appeals court, internet privacy, Judges, justice, online privacy, Sherriff, worker's rights

‘System Failure’ Closes ‘Public’ Court Budget Meeting

August 16, 2013 By CCM Staff

State officials are blaming a “systems failure” for loss of an audiocast feed that effectively shut unions and others out of a key budget-allocation meeting this week. The failure took on added impact, union leadership noted, because they had not received timely notice about the meeting and were relying on the audio. While the Administrative Office of the Courts set up a conference line for some of the budget committee members, there were not enough lines for labor officials and even legislative aides who wanted to hear about how court money is being divided.

The Courthouse News quoted Michelle Castro with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) saying that “… we have a vested interest in trial court funding; how the funds get distributed and what purposes they are establishing priorities around,” Michelle Castro with the SEIU said in an interview. “We’re at a very critical juncture in the trial courts. We are going through extreme amounts of cuts on the backs of court workers.”

At issue are deliberations of a special advisory committee for trial court budgets that approved roughly $72 million for programs supporting the trial courts and technology projects. The Courthouse News reported that the “… allocations included $18 million to maintain interim versions of the now-defunct Court Case Management System and the Arizona server that hosts it.” That’s bound to raise eyebrows because the state legislature approved a last-minute $60 million for trail courts with the direction it be used to save jobs and keep courts open – there has been a concern that money might be directly spent on other areas or diverted to replace money that would have otherwise gone for those purposes.

“Our big issue is the Legislature said this $60 million was directly supposed to go to making sure the court doors were open. Is that really happening?” said a union official in the Courthouse News story. Read more here.

Filed Under: Community, Courts Budget Tagged With: AFSCME, California Budget, california court cuts, court rationing, justice denied, lay-offs, open meetings, SEIU, transparency

Court Cuts Are ‘Back To The Future’ For Delays

August 15, 2013 By CCM Staff

A relatively older post (meaning pre-2013 state budget) by a West Hollywood attorney has been making the rounds (at least our rounds) because it notes that the looming delays in California’s civil courts are actually a return to the bad old days.

David S. White begins his history lesson by noting that “… thirty-six years ago, when I began practicing law in the Los Angeles Superior Court system, the backlog of cases was so immense that you had to wait ﬁve years to get to trial. A Master Calendar Department would then put the lawyers on Beepers (like some restaurants today use), and, when your Beeper buzzed you, it was time to gather up your boxes of documents and your witnesses, and come to the courtroom designated for your trial – if that courtroom was not already backed up, trying one or more cases.”

He then outlines how a “fast track” policy tried to get disputes to trial in a year or less, a goal that Mr. White feels was very nearly attained until the “bubble” of the early 2000’s burst in California real estate, followed soon by the national Great Recession and a Golden State deeply “upside down” financially.

His post at the Fox & Hounds website offers context, but also a lively comments section on civil tort reforms and the like. He is good at responding. Find the discussion here.

Filed Under: Community, Courts Budget Tagged With: California, California Budget, california court cuts, California State Budget, court rationing, justice denied, Justice Rationing, speedy trial

Pushback, Frustration Mounts Against Slow Court Dockets

August 14, 2013 By CCM Staff

It will take a bit more time before the most recent civil court budget courts, and their resulting delays, become a routine part of lawsuit strategy. But, already you can see where people seeking their day in court are becoming increasingly frustrated – to the point of one attorney holding press conferences and citing a landmark NBC3 investigative report by Stephen Stock (see previous posts) to make his point.

The Michael Rooney law office, in an apparent Redwood City civil lawsuit between individuals, even issued a press release over a popular distribution network recently and scheduled a press conference on the courthouse steps – just to demand a case get a trial date. In the statement, the budget cuts are noted and the argument is made that people abusing the courts can “…further exploit the Courts’ apparent inability to handle cases by using every trick to delay their victims’ right to justice, while making themselves judgment-proof before a jury renders a judgment against them, once again outsmarting the legal system that they have abused for years.”

The NBC3 report comes into play (and you can bet it will again) by noting “… as San Mateo County Superior Court Presiding Judge Robert Foiles, recently stated in an interview by NBC3 Reporter, Stephen Stock: “justice delayed is justice denied… and we’re delaying justice!”

You can check out the PR Newswire release here.

Filed Under: Community, Courts Budget Tagged With: california court cuts, California State Budget, court rationing, Courts, Judges, justice denied, Justice Rationing, law, NBC, San Mateo

The ABA Meeting Continues Big-Name Draw

August 12, 2013 By CCM Staff

Not that anybody is saying anything new, but at least the big American Bar Association meeting in San Francisco is hosting the biggest names to say the old stuff. Like a Supreme Court Justice coming out strongly in favor of increasing civic education.

The ABA website is doing a good job keeping up with the annual conference via social and traditional postings. It says “…. Supreme Court Associate Justice Anthony M. Kennedy commended the American Bar Association for its efforts to call attention to the nation’s justice system, but he stressed that the ABA must do more with regard to civic education. Kennedy, speaking Saturday night at the Opening Assembly of the ABA Annual Meeting in San Francisco, said the association “must insist that civic education be recommenced and revitalized because freedom is not something that’s on automatic pilot.”

Keep up with the legal elite here.

Filed Under: National Tagged With: American Bar Association, Anthony Kennedy, California, California Budget, california court cuts, civic education, court rationing, Justice Kennedy, San Francisco, Supreme Court

NPR Posting Story On Rural Courthouse Closing

August 12, 2013 By CCM Staff

National Public Radio is reporting nationally on the closing of a rural Fresno County court, including quoting the presiding judge making the case that budgets left no choice. NPR’s Emily Green reports that “… Gary Hoff, presiding judge of Fresno County Superior Court, says he knew closing the courts would mean some people just wouldn’t go to the courts looking for justice, but that the closures were necessary.

“We knew that closing the courts would deny people in outlying jurisdictions the availability of going to a local courthouse to take care of their business,” he says. “I know others have disagreed with our choice, but financially we could not do anything else but close those courts. We have to live within our budget.”

See how NPR documents the dismantling of our justice system here.

Filed Under: National Tagged With: California, California Budget, California Corrections, california court cuts, court rationing, Fresno, justice, justice denied, Justice Rationing, NPR

Three Large-State Court Leaders Bemoan Funding Cuts

August 9, 2013 By CCM Staff

Chief justices from California, New York and Texas joined three federal judges Thursday in bemoaning court funding nationwide. The group was part of an American Bar Association conference in San Francisco, participating in a panel discussion called “Are Courts Dying? The Decline of Open and Public Adjudication.” The California chief justice actually said she was “afraid” to see the future, which is true enough but sidesteps the fact that many people are afraid of the present.

The ABA website coverage also noted that the cuts have been going on for years, even though they may have finally bottomed out: “While budget cuts have severely hit the justice systems of the nation’s three most populated states, each top judge offered some encouragement. A study last fall by the National Center for State Courts indicated after four years of constant reductions, funding in most states has stabilized if not increased.”

The Bay City News website reported that “California Supreme Court Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye said she had reluctantly supported some increases in court fees as ‘desperate measures’ in the face of deep funding cuts that have resulted in the closure of 40 courthouses and 77 courtrooms statewide.

The BCN also reports that “… judges also said public access to courts is impaired not only by funding cuts but also by the high cost of lawyers in civil cases and the so-called “outsourcing” of adjudication. Examples of outsourcing, they said, are the use of private judges for those who can afford it and the use of mandatory, closed-door arbitration instead of open courts to resolve consumer disputes. About 8,000 lawyers and guests are attending the ABA meeting, which continues throughTuesday.

Read the Bay City coverage via the San Francisco Appeal here.

See the ABA website daily coverage of the ongoing meeting here.

Filed Under: Community, Courts Budget

Courts Begin New System For Rationing Budget

August 7, 2013 By CCM Staff

It was just a “drop in the bucket,” according to California’s chief courts fiscal officer, but the restored funding from our recently passed state budget is being allocated under a new formula that creates winners and losers. The San Francisco Appeal website has a good accounting of its local situation, noting that the “increase” actually “… still leaves the superior courts $201 million short of the amount received last year, on top of previous cuts of $214 million.”

The website explains “… the new allocation formula, developed by an advisory committee of judges and court executives, takes account of varying court workloads that may have changed in recent years because of population growth or other factors. The previous formula, used for the past 15 years, was based primarily on the share each superior court had in 1998, the year the state government took over court funding from the individual counties. That approach didn’t keep up with increased court workloads in counties where the population grew faster.”

The $60 million added to the state budget at the last minute is considered “new” spending and will come under the new guidelines.

In the Bay Area, it’s been widely reported that Contra Costa, Monterey, Solano and Sonoma county superior courts will get more funding under the new system than they would have under the old formula. Los Angeles Superior Court is also expected to get a slight increase over what it would have gotten before.

Read the Appeal story here.

Filed Under: Community, Courts Budget Tagged With: California, California Budget, California Corrections, california court cuts, court rationing, LA County Court, Legal news, San Francisco

For Raw Court Coverage, Watch ‘Judicial Council Watcher

August 6, 2013 By CCM Staff

For anyone seeking a more “raw” and reliably skeptical view of the ongoing trial court budget crisis, a decent place to visit is the “Judicial Council Watch.” They recently noted that the Administrative Office of Courts (AOC) wants to “augment their own staff” while many court jobs are being eliminated and many workers laid off. It might also be news to many that the spending debate, which seemed over once the governor signed the budget, still continues.

The website puts it thus: “By way of background, after the Legislature passes the state budget bill and the Governor signs it, entities of state government can present budget change proposals [BCP] to the Department of Finance which request additional funding for programs or projects deemed essential and for which insufficient funding has been appropriated. Sometimes the BCP is approved and other times the Department of Finance might request additional information or simply deny the request altogether. Generally speaking, you can identify an entity’s priorities by reviewing what BCP’s they are submitting.”

The Watch links to a 21-minute audio presentation by the courts Chief Administrative Officer, Curt Soderlund. The site maintains the presentation reflects “the branch’s priorities,” including a “Blue Ribbon Commission.”

To this the website offers some comment: “Seriously? We are at a loss to understand why our branch leadership would use what little political capital they may still have to feather their own nests while ignoring the fact that thousands of trial court employees have already lost their jobs. It is clear, however, that restoring funding for our local court staff did not make the cut on the AOC’s wish-list.”

Talk a longer walk on the courts journalism wild side here.

Filed Under: Community