Community

California Chief Justice: Budget Doesn’t Even ‘Tread Water’

June 23, 2014 By CCM Staff

California Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye, who has said that justice system budget cuts have created a new civil rights issue by limiting court access, is taking a softer tone in the wake of this year’s state budget, judging by published reports. For example, over the weekend the L.A. Times reported she “… said Friday the new state budget will mean “more disappointment, service reduction and delay for those who need our courts.”

But she also thanked the governor and lawmakers for their efforts. The Times noted that the budget “… contains less than half the money Cantil-Sakauye said would be needed for trial courts “just to tread water” after years of courthouse closures, layoffs and other cutbacks… court employees are still being furloughed, and services to the public have been slashed. Court users have reported waits of as many as eight hours at clerk windows, and closures have forced some residents to drive several hours to get to the nearest open courthouse.”

The chief justice also said, according to the Times, that “.. she was grateful that Brown and the Legislature had added funds for specific court programs and were helping to solve the long term effect of employee benefit costs.” Read the story here: New California budget fails to ease court woes, chief justice says

Filed Under: Community, Courts Budget Tagged With: California, California Budget, California Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye, california court cuts, california courts, California State Budget, California Supreme Court, Chief Justice

Eight New Judges For L.A. Superior

June 20, 2014 By CCM Staff

Sixteen new judges were appointed this week to California superior courts, eight of them in Los Angeles. The Courthouse News reports that the L.A. Superior Court judges are Richard J. Burdge Jr., Rupert A. Byrdsong, David J. Cowan, Brian S. Currey, Sherilyn P. Garnett, Christopher K. Lui, Enrique Monguia and Gustavo N. Sztraicher. Find out more about the judges and their immediate background here.

Filed Under: Community Tagged With: california courts, Judges, LA County Court, LA superior court judge nominations, Legal news, Superior Courts

Critics Target State Budget Process

June 19, 2014 By CCM Staff

Critics of the state budget process are starting to note last-minute deals that left lawmakers lacking information while negotiations went on in secret. Report the Los Angeles Times, “… in the final days of negotiations this year, lawmakers and Gov. Jerry Brown added $5 million to help Los Angeles host the Special Olympics next year and $3 million for research into the emerging field of precision medicine. But it’s not just relatively minor spending items that are included at the last minute; there are also complex policy proposals [for example] the administration introduced a plan to limit the amount of money school districts can keep in their reserves, just hours before it was vetted by the joint budget committee Wednesday.”

Meanwhile, commentary on what the new budget means for the court system remains scarce. But read the LAT report here: Closed-door, last-minute state budget decisions raise concerns

Filed Under: Community, Courts Budget Tagged With: California Budget, california courts, California Train, court cuts, Gov. Jerry Brown, Special Olympics

Budget Losers Now Learning The Score

June 18, 2014 By CCM Staff

Court system leadership may be fairly silent about this election-year budget deal, but the people actually dealing with ongoing shortfalls are starting to figure out that they were left out. Take child welfare courts, for example, where officials had expected modest increases, as noted in the Chronicle of Social Change website: “The California State Assembly and Senate had both signed off on a modest pot of money earmarked to help children’s legal representatives reduce caseloads that have grown to more than 400 children per lawyer in some counties… the state would have doled out $11 million in funding over the next year to help lower caseloads in child-welfare courts, followed by $22 million in the second year and $33 million in the third year. However, that money vanished in the final version of the budget that was sent to the Gov. Jerry Brown (D) for approval on Sunday [June 15].

You can hear discontent rising, but we are told many individual operations are being told to hold their fire because they might be among those lucky few getting some of the modest increases. But as those promises fade, it will be interesting to see what happens. Read some reaction here: California Rejects Bid to Restore Funding for Child Welfare Courts

Filed Under: Community, Courts Budget Tagged With: California Budget, california court cuts, california courts, California State Budget, child lawyers, child welfare, civil court, court rationing, juvenile courts, juvenile justice

Courts Budget Too Little, Too Wait

June 17, 2014 By CCM Staff

Those long wait times and delayed justice are not likely to go away anytime soon, given this year’s state budget focus on Gov. Brown’s bullet train project and increased education funding, say the early reviews of the just-passed spending plan. Says The Courthouse News: “… [the] $156 billion budget California lawmakers passed Sunday gave a $40 million boost to courthouse construction, but fell far short of the $266 million the judiciary hoped to raise for the trial courts this year… Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye unveiled in January a “budget blueprint” for the courts that set a $1.2 billion funding goal over the next three years, with $266 million more needed this year just to stay afloat.

Also from TCN: “We are nowhere near adequate funding of the [justice] system and nowhere even their own treading water mark, and that’s unfortunate,” Assemblyman Jeff Gorell, R-Camarillo, said on Sunday. “This budget simply does not focus on the priorities that Californians have set.”

What’s less clear is what political price, if any, lawmakers will pay for putting the courts on the budget back-burner.

See the story here: Courthouse News Service

Filed Under: Community, Courts Budget Tagged With: california court cuts, california courts, California Courts Budget, California Rail, California State Budget, California Train, civil court, court cuts, court rationing, Gov. Jerry Brown

Train, Not Courts, Wins In State Budget

June 16, 2014 By CCM Staff

So, maybe people can find a way to take the bullet train to far-flung courts? The California budget approved this week grants hundreds of millions of dollars in funding, but the courts have fallen well short of their requests. The Los Angeles Times report included this: “The new trial court budget is simply insufficient for those who need access to a courthouse,” Contra Costa County Presiding Superior Court Judge Barry Goode said. “Crime victims, law enforcement, those suffering from domestic violence, families in trouble and other court users will continue to have to travel long distances and endure long waits for justice.”

Read the Times report here: California bullet train deal: Hundreds of millions of dollars

Filed Under: Community, Courts Budget Tagged With: California, California Budget, california court cuts, california courts, California State Budget, California Trains, Gov. Jerry Brown, train

Budget Deadline Punts On Court Funding

June 13, 2014 By CCM Staff

How to handle an election-year funding issue involving the labor-intensive courts system? First, expand it to a “two-year” plan to avoid the hard questions in the election cycle and then tie any increases to “reforms” to be identified later. As this weekend’s constitutionally mandated June 15 California budget deadline expires, that’s the status of hard-hit courts in Gov. Brown’s budget. Not always noted is that one of the ways to “tighten operating costs” is increasing the amount workers pay into their pension funds.

The Courthouse News is a go-to source for following the issue, especially with the focus on Los Angeles, home of the nation’s largest trial court where cutbacks have closed courthouses and forced long journeys to court.

For this years budget, The Courthouse News reports that “… Department of Finance Director Michael Cohen said the $160 million for the courts is part of a two-year strategy to stabilize court funding while the Judicial Council and the chief justice look for ways to tighten operating costs. Most of the additional funds will go toward paying court-employee pensions and benefits and backfilling a shortfall in filing-fee revenue.”

Follow the issue here.

Filed Under: Community, Courts Budget Tagged With: california courts, court funding, judicial council

Secret Deals May Mean More Court Money

June 11, 2014 By CCM Staff

They are the most important decisions being made for people of California, so of course the negotiations are going on in secret – but the “leaks” are that courts are about to get a “modest” increase over previous drafts of Gov. Brown’s proposal, according to published news report.

The Contra Costa Times reports that this year’s deal-making is going nicely, saying that “… the knockdown, drag-out partisan fights, stretching on for months, are history. These days, state budget negotiations are downright cordial.” And the paper adds that “… according to Capitol sources briefed on closed-door budget negotiations, the administration of Gov. Jerry Brown and Democratic lawmakers have quietly reached deals on funding prekindergarten, pumping more money into the state’s beleaguered court system and funding levels for the state’s controversial bullet train.”

On courts, the report also says that “… after proposing a $160 million increase in spending for California’s courts, Brown has reportedly agreed to another modest bump in funding for the judicial system, whose budget was hit hard at the height of the state’s financial crisis.”

Read the report here.

Filed Under: Community, Courts Budget Tagged With: budget, California, california courts, court budget, Gov. Jerry Brown

Divorce Delay? Not If You Can Pay For Private!

June 10, 2014 By CCM Staff

Years of judicial branch budget cuts have delayed civil trials, and divorce cases have been hard-hit as family law judges focus on domestic violence orders and other priorities. While state lawmakers have been slow to react, it seems the free market is making a move: a growing trend is to have “private trials,” and it’s apparently catching on across the country.

The Tulsa World newspaper is reporting that “California-based trial consulting firm Decision Analysis has been suggesting clients use a private trial for a long time, but the procedure is just starting to gain popularity, firm president Richard Gabriel said.” He said that “I think people are starting to consider it more and more because state court budgets across the country have been severely slashed,” adding that the cuts mean fewer court staff, increasing the length of time and money it takes for cases to be completed in the public courts system.

Other advantages if you can afford to pay for judges, and sometimes juries and other costs: Private trials also provide the privacy that mediation and arbitration do. Petition for divorce and decree of divorce is public record, but unless somebody appeals to the actual court system, the conclusions of law then those specifics are confidential.

Despite all that, some studies suggest that you might actually save money because “… complicated civil cases often come out ahead financially because private trials are much quicker.” Read the story here.

Filed Under: Community, Courts Budget Tagged With: Civil Courts, court cuts, Decision Analysis, family law, Justice Rationing, Legal news, private courts, private trials

CityWatch: Dems Tone-Deaf on Veterans’ Asbestos Issue

June 9, 2014 By CCM Staff

CityWatch has published the recent commentary by California Courts Monitor publisher, Sara Warner. The piece, originally published on the Huffington Post’s national political page, argues that Democrats are tone deaf when it comes to the role that veterans play in asbestos bankruptcy trust issues.

Read it at CityWatch here.

Filed Under: Community Tagged With: AMVETS, asbestos, asbestos litigation, FACT, garlock, Legal news, mesothelioma, VA, veterans, Veterans administration, Veterans' Affairs