No Room In Jails, Sex Offenders Disable Tracking, Walk Away

February 26, 2013 By

Call it a great example of ripple effects from rationing justice: The state cuts expenses by shuffling sex offenders from state prisons to county jails, then county jails cut expenses by parole and rely on GPS tracking devices (ankle bracelets), and then the sex offenders simply disable the devices and walk away. The L.A. Times’ Paige St. John is reporting this week that state corrections officials are “expressing concern” and the “problem may be larger than they believed.”

Reports St. John: “Officials in the Department of Corrections had stated for months that such cases numbered in the hundreds. Then, earlier this month, they said they knew of 3,200 cases from October 2011 through December 2012. On Monday, department spokeswoman Deborah Hoffman said that because that tally included only cases in which parole revocation hearings were held, the actual number of incidents may be larger.” It seems more than 400 convicted sex offenders may have escaped the system and remain at large.

If state officials are admitting this much already, this is a scandal to monitor. Read the story here.

Filed Under: Community

Common Sense Report Echoes Statewide

February 22, 2013 By
One problem with sounding the alarm on state courts funding cuts is that each crisis usually exists in isolation, at least outside political and policy circles. So it’s good news that a new report from the Common Sense group is getting some “legs,” including fueling a major editorial in the Orange County Register.
 
That report (see previous post) notes that the state’s “balanced” budget simply ignores some realities. It also notes that the increased tax revenue is not going so much for services as other expenses, like retirement commitments. Notes the OC Register: “Despite more tax revenue, proposed spending is significantly lower in key areas in 2013-14 than in 2007-08, the analysis found. Funds for social services declined 14 percent; universities, 14 percent; courts, 16 percent; and transportation, 31 percent. State spending on K-12 education is expected to be no higher than in the 2007-08 proposed budget.”
 

In contrast, spending on health care services is up 62 percent; employee compensation, up 16 percent; retirement benefits, up 25 percent; and debt service, 24 percent. “General obligation and retirement benefit debt has grown substantially – 55 percent and 25 percent, respectively,” the report says.

See the Register opinion here.

Filed Under: Community

Report Outlines Court Spending

February 20, 2013 By
An important new report from California Common Sense outlines one reason that California’s courts are facing cutbacks: increased spending on public employee salaries and health care, especially when seen as a percentage of the state budget.
 
The L.A. Times has a good report, including this: “Think of the state’s proposed budget as a pie. Compared to 2007-08, the overall pie is larger, but social services, K-12, universities, courts, and other services are now smaller slices,” said a statement from Autumn Carter, the executive director of California Common Sense. “On the other hand, health care services, employee salaries, retirement benefits, and debt service are all larger slices.”
 
The story includes a graph that illustrates the trends. Find it here.
 
Filed Under: Community

Judge ‘Dismayed’ at Gov’s Allegations; Demands Evidence

February 15, 2013 By
Yikes! When Gov. Brown questioned the objectivity of a court-appointed “special master” to oversee the treatment of mentally ill state inmates, he certainly got the attention of a federal judge who is effectively telling the governor to put up or shut up. U.S. District Court Judge Lawrence Karlton ordered the state to consider withdrawing the complaint, which he actually called “a smear.”
 
It gets worse: The Associate Press reports that Judge Karlton wrote in response to a court filing that “… defendants’ [the state’s] attack consists of a raw assertion of unethical conduct, with no supporting evidence nor even any hint that defendants actually believe the attack they make,” Karlton wrote. He added later that “the court can only be dismayed by the cavalier manner in which defendants … level a smear against the character and reputation of the Special Master.” Later, the AP reports, the judge even said the complaint may violate a court rule that allows sanctions for court filings that are intended to harass or are without any evidence.

Here’s the AP story via a San Jose Mercury News edition.

Filed Under: Community

Straight Talk On Unbalanced State Budget

February 14, 2013 By
The Sacramento Bee journalist Dan Walters built a reputation for covering state government and politics in print, but he also has a video blog worth monitoring. A post this week puts the state court budget into simple language, noting how the system shifted from local to state funding years ago – with unintended and ironic results. He also scoffs at the “balanced” state budget, identifying the courts as one of the non-sustainable cuts that create that “balance.”
 
Here’s the Walters link.
 
Filed Under: Community

Somewhere Near Barstow, Budget Cuts Kicked In

February 13, 2013 By
They were somewhere near Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the state courts budget crisis kicked in, literally; Barstow is among those communities losing its court as California balances its budget amid justice system cuts. The Press-Enterprise newspaper is reporting that San Bernardino County Presiding Judge Marsha Slough told the Assembly Judiciary Committee this week that “… we will have five facilities left to service 20,000 square miles and more than 2 million people.”
 

Closures include some significant cities: Chino, Redlands, Barstow, Needles and Big Bear. You can read more here.

Filed Under: Community

Video notes court budget impacts: most needy hurt the most

February 12, 2013 By
The folks at California Courts have some of the better video focused on court budget issues, and here’s one worth a look. It details impacts on some of the most needy users of the courts, like tenants seeking help with landlord disputes and family law cases involving kids. How would you like to be a parent waiting six months just to see if you’re allowed to see your children? Even “emergency” issues involving domestic disputes are taking two weeks.
 
California Courts is operated by the state judicial branch, and its website also offers a bunch of self-help information, which unfortunately may become more and more important as the courts scale back on paid public assistance. 
 

View Video: http://www.youtube.com/user/CaliforniaCourts?feature=watch

 
Filed Under: Community

Letter From Ventura: Court Access Being Denied

February 6, 2013 By
News outlets statewide are documenting the installment-plan crisis that is California courts funding, including a recent report by Raul Hernandez in the Ventura County Star. Presiding Judge Brian Back and Michael Planet, the Superior Court’s executive officer, told a lunch gathering in Oxnard that their “rainy day fund” is virtually gone, going from $7 million to around $300,000 while dealing with cuts, the paper said.
 
Ventura County is noted as the 14th largest court system in the state and eighth in terms of cases filed. It is first in civil cases under $25,000. How dire is it getting? Among the “solutions” being considered, they say, is cutting juries from 12 people to six. And those running the courts make it clear that access to justice is being denied as self-help programs and other access programs are being dismantled.
 

The Star story is here.

Filed Under: Community

Paper: Move to Electronic Court Reporting

February 4, 2013 By
The Sun-Star newspaper in Merced is among those calling for electronic court reporting for California, an idea not exactly popular with human court reporters. In an editorial, the paper notes that “… court reporters are a strange hybrid of government employee and private entrepreneur. Even though they are paid by the court to make the official court record, once that record is produced, they own it. The court or the parties involved in litigation have to purchase it from them at a price (85 cents per 100 words) set in statute.
 
The report also notes thatCalifornia courts spend $24 million to purchase trial court transcripts from their paid employees (and) “… the union that represents court reporters argues that these trained stenographers are cheaper and more reliable and accurate than electronic recordings. Strong evidence and real court experience dispute that.”

At issue are non-civil cases. Civil actions already require that the parties involved pay for their recorders. Read the entire Sun-Star position here.

Filed Under: Community

State court cuts called on in HuffPo

January 29, 2013 By
A major national story by Joanne Doroshow on the Huffington Post Politics blog is a bit sarcastic toward Gov. Brown and laments the “Slow Death of Justice in California.”  The writer, who has a day job with the Center for Justice and Democracy at New York Law School, virtually scoffs at the governor’s priorities, writing that Brown is “… so excited… about the state’s budget situation that in his State of the State address, he spoke starry-eyed about ideas that suddenly seemed possible, like a new high-speed rail.”
 
The story is an important counter-narrative to the Brown administration’s attitude that the state has somehow managed to create a surplus and can now begin spending on certain projects while looking the other way on court shortfalls. Read it here.
 
Filed Under: Community
«Older Posts
Newer Posts»