California Eyes Emergency Rules On ‘Pay-To-Play’ Traffic Courts

June 8, 2015 By
 
 
The Golden State legislature is among governments statewide considering rapid reforms to traffic court policies in the wake of unrest in places like Furguson, Mo., that spotlighted how some policies send minority residents into a spiral of debt and fees that can lead to jail – usually without any real legal representation along the way.
 
California lawmakers this week are considering “emergency rules” that, the L.A. Times explains, “… would make it easier for drivers to contest traffic tickets — but will do nothing to help those already saddled with fines and fees they cannot afford to pay, according to lawyers and court officials. The state has added on charges that make the cost of a routine traffic ticket nearly $500, an amount that rapidly inflates when deadlines are missed. Although state courts charge people many fees — raised during the budget crisis — to use the legal system, the outcry has been loudest in the traffic arena.”
 
The LAT noted that “… lawyers representing the poor have complained that judges in some counties have been requiring drivers to pay the fines as a condition of contesting them, a practice that California Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye called “pay to play” and vowed to stop.”
 
Nearly 5 million California drivers have had their licenses suspended because of an inability to pay fines, officials say.
 
Read the L.A. Times story here.

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Lawyers’ Self-Regulation Question Is Part Of Newspaper’s Reporting

June 4, 2015 By
 
The Modesto Bee is reporting on state bar action against 28 attorneys in the newspaper’s reporting area, but those complaints also raise the question of how the legal profession will be regulated – in short, if it can remain a self-policing profession.
 
As an example, the newspaper says that “… the University of San Diego School of Law, the Consumers Union and the Citizen Advocacy Center sent a May 4 letter to attorneys general of all states warning that state bars are ‘theoretically vulnerable to federal felony prosecution’ unless their enforcement system is overseen by others. Occupational licensing boards that regulate accountants, doctors, brokers, barbers and other trades don’t serve the public interest if regulated by themselves, the consumer advocates say.”
 
Read the Bee’s story here.
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State’s Chief Justice Seeks Emergency Rule On Tickets

June 3, 2015 By
 
Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye (Photo: California Courts)

Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye (Photo: California Courts)

You can add California Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye to those supporting Gov. Brown’s push for reforming traffic tickets. The Chief Justice is asking the court’s governing body for an “emergency rule” to prevent courts from requiring drivers to pay traffic tickets before they can go to court to contest them.
 
The Los Angeles Times, saying the Chief Justice was “… weighing in on a troubled system” explains that “… her directive, issued Monday, comes as legislators and Gov. Jerry Brown tackle the issue of escalating traffic fines, fees and penalties that have led to driver’s license suspensions for 4.8 million Californians.” The situation has grabbed headlines around the nation as communities take hard looks at how they treat traffic citations, which have become a revenue stream for many places.
 
Read the L.A. Times story, reported from San Francisco, here.

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NYC And Municipal Leadership On Civil Justice

June 2, 2015 By
Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito at her State of the City address. (Photo: William Alatriste/NYC Council as reported in the New York Observer)

Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito at her State of the City address. (Photo: William Alatriste/NYC Council as reported in the New York Observer)

Despite the welcomed statewide “traffic court amnesty” in California, it remains clear that municipal governments are leading the way in providing civil justice leadership. The latest example comes from the Big Apple, where the city council has voted to create an “Office of Civil Justice” to connect poor people facing housing and other issues with attorneys.

 
New York Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito has dubbed the proposal “the people’s law firm” and said in a press conference that “… limited access to an attorney means limited access to justice.” Ms. Mark-Viverito said today at a press conference before the Council’s vote on the bill. As the NY Observer reported, “… while plaintiffs in criminal cases are guaranteed lawyers, those in civil cases—which can include deportation, child custody and eviction proceedings—are not.”
 
Read more here.  
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California Eyes Statewide Amnesty Plan For Paying Off Traffic Tickets

June 1, 2015 By
 
California Gov. Jerry Brown is pushing for an amnesty program for residents who can’t afford to pay off their traffic ticket debt, which often includes a range of court-funding fees. The costs are largely blamed for some 4.8 million driver’s license suspensions since 2006. Such reforms are being discussed at the municipal level, but this would be a landmark move by the nation’s most populated state.
 
The Associated Press is reporting that “… the push by the Democratic governor spotlights concern among lawmakers and court administrators that California’s justice system is profiting off minorities and low-income residents. It’s a civil rights issue that has prompted discussions between the Brown administration and the U.S. Department of Justice, according to the governor’s spokesman, Evan Westrup.”
 
The AP notes that “… advocates for the poor have likened California’s problem to the police and municipal court structure in Ferguson, Missouri, which was criticized by the Justice Department as a revenue-generating machine following last year’s fatal shooting of Michael Brown by a police officer.”
 
The report also breaks down how the traffic fines have become a revenue machine: “Traffic fines have been skyrocketing in California and courts have grown reliant on fees as a result of budget cuts during the recession. Twenty years ago, the fine for running a red light was $103. Today, it costs as much as $490 as the state has established add-on fees to support everything from court construction to emergency medical air transportation. The cost can jump to over $800 once a person fails to pay or misses a traffic court appearance.”
 
Read the story here.
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Another NBC I-Team Bombshell On Immigration Court Crisis

May 29, 2015 By
 
There must have been a memo. Another NBC station is breaking news on the immigration court crisis, with the New York affiliate reporting on a huge loophole for entering the U.S. The station’s in-depth coverage includes that “… according to court sources… [the source] is at least the 14th Amandeep Singh from the Punjab state of India to seek immigration help in Queens Family Court — a place better known for custody and child support cases. Singh tells a judge he was abused by his parents, starved and beaten with sticks. Although this may be completely true, judges say they have no investigative recourse. After one hour in court, Singh, who is undocumented and was smuggled across the border, was well on his way to getting a green card, permanent legal status and the right to work in the U.S.”
 
Read the story here.
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TV News Report Includes Director’s Rare Comments Demanding Change

May 27, 2015 By
 
A California NBC TV affiliate has scored a rare interview with the director of the nation’s immigration system, and he’s not holding back in blaming lawmakers for what amounts to a broken system. Bay Area NBC says that “… in his first ever TV interview on camera, the Director of the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) tells NBC Bay Area that only a complete overhaul by Congress will truly fix the issues plaguing the current system.”
 
“There’s no question that the system, the immigration court system, is under incredible stress right now,” Director Juan Osuna told the NBC Bay Area Investigative Unit, which conducted the interview in Washington, D.C. The multi-part report says that “… according to EOIR’s latest figures, US Immigration Courts received 306,045 cases in 2014 alone. Many of those cases were never heard, adding to a backlog which now totals 445,607 according to Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, or TRAC.”
 
The comments are rare, both because of what NBC called “tradition” and also because the immigration system, including the judicial branch, are not “courts” at all but really are a function of the Department of Justice. 
 
See the milestone story here.
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Judges Oppose Proposed Budget Oversight

May 21, 2015 By
Judges and court clerks on the Judicial Council’s Trial Court Budget Advisory Committee are opposing a proposed rule change “… that would give a different council committee the authority to go back and review how the council and its staff spent judiciary funds on behalf of the courts,” the Courthouse News Service (CNS) is reporting.
   
In a detailed story, the CNS quotes a San Luis Obispo judge complaining that the rule change would be “… a complete diminution of the authority of” the existing committee while adding that “… this [judicial] branch has a history of problems with credibility and transparency. I think we’ve worked on that, but this goes backwards. It reduces transparency.”
 
The rule change comes in response to a harsh state audit that questioned how the courts spend money and create transparent decision-making.
 
Read the CNS story here.
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New State Budget Gives Courts A Slight Increase

May 15, 2015 By
 

Gov. Brown’s latest spending  plan gives California courts a slight boost from the January version, but falls well short of restoring the drastic cuts that have hit the system over the last half-decade. The San Jose Mercury-News break it down as “… [the increase is] from last year’s $3.29 billion to about $3.47 billion, with most of that increase headed to the 58 trial courts around California hit hardest by past cutbacks. Courts in counties across the state, including Bay Area systems in Santa Clara, San Mateo, Alameda and Contra Costa counties, have been forced to reduce public hours, lay off employees and shutter remote courthouses as a result of prior cuts that at one point exceeded $1 billion over several years.”

Read the story here.
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UPDATE: House Committee Endorses Asbestos Bankruptcy ‘Transparency’ Proposal

May 14, 2015 By
 
By a 19-9 vote along party lines Thursday (May 14), the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee has decided to send an asbestos bankruptcy transparency proposal to the full House. The legislation, called “FACT,” for Furthering Asbestos Claims Transparency, would require court-approved bankruptcy trust funds to disclose name, claim and payout information of people seeking payouts from the funds.
 
Dozens of the trust funds have been created to address liability of bankrupt firms facing asbestos exposure liability. Republicans argue that transparency is needed to prevent “double dipping” from people who get paid by both trusts and civil lawsuits; Democrats counter that trusts are a different system and defendants could get the payout information via pre-lawsuit discovery efforts. Both sides claim to have interests of veterans at heart.
 
Watch the sometimes testy debate at the House website archives (note it might take some time to convert the webcast to archive): http://judiciary.house.gov/index.cfm/videos
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