Looking for ‘literature,’ finding civic revolt

April 18, 2013 By

By Sara Warner, from CCM Special Report

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. After some time Back East, I was moving back to California where I’ve lived nearly all of the past 17 years. When talk turned to a courts website last year, our pretensions were mostly literary: we wanted www.californiacourtsmonitor.com to celebrate “the writing” about justice, like that you get from Associated Press Special Correspondent Linda Deutsch or maybe even less known voices like James Preston Allen, the publisher of San Pedro’s “Random LengthNews.” (Not, by the way, that Mr. Allen is likely to care all that much.)

It seemed logical enough. It was a good project that meshed nicely with my day job as development director for a non-profit legal foundation. Also, I grew up with the Law (capital “L” in our house). My grandfather was a famous lawyer and my grand uncle was a Federal Court judge. Who knew we would find a civil courts system in what amounts to full-on revolt?

 

 

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Filed Under: Community, Courts Budget Tagged With: , , , , ,

CCM issues first ‘special print report’

April 17, 2013 By
Who says new media can’t be old school? Today, the California Courts Monitor is releasing a special report, on old-fashioned newsprint no less, in the Los Angeles area. Distributed free all over the city, the idea is to increase awareness of the ongoing civil courts crisis while also explaining a new focus online.
 
When we launched the CCM, we hoped to highlight great writing on the judicial process and celebrate the extended legal community. But what we’ve found is a true crisis in the civil court system, so we have decided to become the only site — that we know of, anyway — to consolidate coverage of those issues.
 
We’ll be posting parts of the special report here in the coming days and if you live in the Los Angeles area keep an eye out for the depression-era photo illustration. You’ll know it when you see it. — The Editors.
 
(Note: you can download a pdf of the complete Special Report here.)
Filed Under: Community, Courts Budget Tagged With: , , , ,

Report: Services Slashed, Trials Delayed As Court Cutbacks Take Hold

April 11, 2013 By
You might think that domestic violence restraining orders would be same-day service by California courts. But you wold be wrong in at least 11 counties, according to the Trial Court Presiding Judges Committee. Plus, some 38 counties have reduced self-help services for litigants without lawyers, according to a report in The Los Angeles Times.
 
A story by Maura Dolan (maura.dolan@latimes.com) adds to the details stacking up as the state courts cutbacks take hold. She writes that “California courts, reeling from years of state budget cuts, are delaying hearings and trials, allowing records to sit unprocessed for months and slashing services at public windows, a judge’s committee has reported.”

The story offers some highlights: In San Francisco, paying a traffic ticket can now take up to four hours, and filing a lawsuit can consume nearly three hours, the report said. In Sacramento, window services have been slashed by more than 75%, prompting fights in lines, according to the committee. Getting a trial in a traffic matter in San Diego requires at least a five-month wait, the survey found, and court closures have forced some San Bernardino residents to drive up to 175 miles one way to attend to a legal matter. Record-filing has slowed across many counties and created backlogs, the report said.

Read the latest here.

Filed Under: Community Tagged With: , , , ,

Ethics Committee Says Judges Can Ask Attorneys to Lobby

April 10, 2013 By

One more bit of history for the courts funding crisis: It’s helped prompt the first decision from a California ethics committee, which has decided judges can ask attorneys to lobby for more courts funding. That means asking them to write opinion pieces and lobby both the community and state lawmakers. The requests, however, can’t be “coercive,” and by that we guess they mean no more than is inherent when a judge asks something of folks appearing in their court.

The 12-member ethics committee is reportedly the idea of former Chief Justice Ronald M. George and was actually selected years ago by the California Supreme Court. It acts independently of all agencies and its advisory opinions are published at JudicialEthicsOpinions.ca.gov.

More on the “Committee on Judicial Ethics Opinions” can be found in a Maura Dolan story in The Los Angeles Times here.

Filed Under: Community

Barstow Gets Limited Court From ‘Couch-Cushion’ Money

April 9, 2013 By
They were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the budget cuts took hold. But it turns out that the Barstow courthouse will not be entirely closed, as has been thought, but will instead offer limited services, according to the Press-Enterprise newspaper’s Crime Blotter blog
 
The report reports that “… San Bernardino County Superior Court has become the poster-child for budget cuts to the state court system, with May 6 shutdowns scheduled for its courthouses in Barstow, Needles and Big Bear. But now a small bit of good news. The California Judicial Council has come up with some couch-cushion money from a statewide reserve, and the $1.2 million in emergency funds will allow one courtroom in the Barstow Courthouse to stay in business three days a week, through June 2014.
 

The newspaper says the court in Barstow will hear traffic, landlord-tenant, small claims and domestic violence cases while civil, family law and criminal cases will still have to be heard elsewhere. Those who get their cases heard in Barstow will be spared a 32-highway-mile, one-way drive to the nearest fulltime court in Victorville. Needles residents whose cases fit the limited Barstow docket will get 30 miles cut from their 174-mile, one-way drive to Victorville.

See the story here.  

Filed Under: Community, Courts Budget

More Pushback On Judicial Spending, Lawmaker Sends Strong Warning

April 8, 2013 By
When the chairperson of a legislative committee appears at a subcommittee hearing, they want to get people’s attention, according to Recorder blogger Cheryl Miller, and that is what happened recently when Assemblyman Bob Blumenfield, D-Van Nuys, visited a courts budget meeting.
 
Miller, writing in the Recorder’s LegalPad blog, notes that Blumenfield told the group that “… while the state grappled with a budget crisis, court administrators sometimes have acted fiscally irresponsible even though fiscal responsibility was the mantra of the day… We’ve seen a failed computer system with years of cost overruns and nearly $500 million wasted. In the process, the courts took millions from trial courts — sacrificing access to justice — to keep the failed computer project running. This year, the court system will likely enter an agreement and spend $100 million more than we should to build a new courthouse in Long Beach.”
 
That is another indication of dueling narratives as the state rations access to justice. Miller writes that, “… reading between the lines, the Assembly’s top budget official seemed to be saying that if the Legislature does restore any judicial funding, it’s going to come with some serious strings attached.” It also indicates that not everyone is buying the idea that the courts are with “the people” on spending issues.
 

Read the Miller blog here.

Filed Under: Community Tagged With: , , , ,

Groups Ask State Court To Block Courthouse Cutbacks

April 3, 2013 By
Groups opposing Los Angeles Superior Courts cutbacks have taken their cases to a state court after a federal court judge decided not to rule on their argument. They say the state-level effort is to cover their bases while planning an appeal on the federal dismissal. The Inland Valley Daily Bulletin is quoting Maria Palomares, a lawyer working with the Neighborhood Legal Services organization, as explaining that, said the appeals court should act urgently to reverse the policy, implemented March 18, that would cram the county’s 70,000 annual eviction cases into just five courtrooms.
 
Last year, tenants could go to 21 courthouses to try to avoid being kicked out of their homes, the paper reported. Palomares argued this creates a hardship for tenants who would have to commute for hours to courthouses as far as 60 miles away to fight eviction. The groups noted that when Federal Judge Terry Hatter quickly dismissed the earlier lawsuit he did not rule on the merits but indicated a different court should hear the case.
 
The Daily Bulletin story was written by Christina Villacorte: christina.villacorte@dailynews.com @LADNvillacorte on Twitter. Read the story here. 
Filed Under: Community Tagged With: , , ,

Heat Is On Judges With Court Cutbacks

April 2, 2013 By
Asking some hard questions about how California courts are managed, a column by James Preston Allen puts the focus on the judicial branch. The publisher of the website Random Length News (www.randomlengthnews.com) actually compares the justice system to church. It’s an important voice because it pushes back on the judicial branch argument that the finger should be pointed at the state budget.
 
In a recent column, he wrote: “When you think about it, courts and churches do have some striking similarities. Both have these large symbolic edifices with intimidating rooms of pomp and ritual where attendees sit in rows. One is refrained from approaching the altar, judicial or otherwise, unless invited and the officiators for either God or law all wear ceremonial robes. I could go on, but I think you get the point. Just as we have segregated God from pedestrian access, so too have we separated justice from the common civic experience. It’s about to get worse in our California justice system.”

Allen follows that with a list of financial issues, noting that the current crisis ” is just more of the unintended consequences of balancing the state budget while screwing the taxpayers.” That column has been picked up by City Watch L.A. and you can read the details here.

Filed Under: Community Tagged With: , , , ,

L.A. Court Cuts Becoming Model For Others

April 1, 2013 By
If anyone was wondering if the reorganization and centralization of the Los Angeles County court system would become a model for others, they can stop. It, of course, is. The most recent public example came from the Bakersfield Californian as the paper, in an editorial, said that counties will “… have to get creative, and some already have. Los Angeles County Superior Court, faced with an even bigger shortfall, will create specialized hubs where certain cases will be processed, such as personal injury, limited civil, small claims, collections and unlawful detainer [eviction] matters. All general civil personal injury and some civil actions, for example, must be filed at a single specified courthouses… Kern County officials will have to look at those and similar models to keep the already-overburdened court system moving…”
 
Kern County is like many others in facing big local cuts, and faces a $3.7 million deficit. The Californian outlines other options and notes “… some suggested more than a year ago by then-Los Angeles County Presiding Judge Lee Smalley Edmon, include simplifying criminal and civil procedures — something that’s long overdue regardless of budgetary necessity.”

You can see the editorial and get more details here.

Filed Under: Community Tagged With: , , ,

High-Profile Courts Lawsuit Tossed By Feds

March 27, 2013 By
 
That high-profile federal lawsuit against California court closings and cutbacks has been dismissed, the plaintiffs announced. The Coalition for Economic Survival, one of the leaders among several groups bringing the lawsuit that included the state ACLU, said a federal court judge ruled the national government has no right to intercede in state court matters; it’s called the “abstention doctrine.”
 
The group added the the federal judge “… felt strongly that this was an issue that should go to either state court or the Federal Court of Appeals. But, he did not rule on the merits of our case. As a result, there is strong determination by teh attorneys and plaintiffs to continue on.”
 
The ruling was dated March 18. See the CES report on the organization’s website here.

 
 
Filed Under: Uncategorized
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