Court Interpreters Are Another Budget Issue

April 2, 2014 By
 
Who gets court-funded interpreters and how many are available are among issues being raised by a series of “working group” meetings focused on the pending state budget court-funding debate. While many judges say they may have enough to deal with Spanish-speaking cases, they note that more than 200 languages are spoken in California, according to a report by public radio station KPCC.
 
Another issue is which kinds of cases even get court-funded interpreters, notes the station, noting that “… while counties provide them for criminal cases, they generally don’t for things like child custody hearings and divorce proceedings. “We provide an interpreter for someone who ran a red light, but not someone who’s losing their children,” said one source.
 
The working group has already met in San Francisco. Next month, they’ll hold their final hearing in Sacramento before submitting the first draft of a language access improvement plan in June, reports Rina Palta, the station’s crime and safety reporter. Read and listen to the report here.


Follow the reporter on Twitter: @KPCCRina911 

 

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City Watch Hits Flat-Fee Juvenile Defense Issue

April 2, 2014 By
 
The City Watch website is posting a story about the flat-fee juvenile defense system. At issue is how attorneys representing indigent youth are paid. The story by Gary Cohn is making the rounds as activists try to apply heat to officials who control the system.
 
Cohn writes that “… the problem is particularly serious in Los Angeles County, one of the world’s largest juvenile justice systems, where a controversial low-bid, flat fee compensation system for attorneys representing certain indigent youth raises systemic due process concerns. Under that system, contract attorneys — such as the one who represented Antonio, are paid an astonishingly low fee of $300 to $350 per case, regardless of whether the case involves shoplifting or murder. This is in a city where private lawyers are costly. Criminal defense attorney fees in Los Angeles can easily exceed $500 an hour.”
 
He also reports that the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors on Feb. 11 voted unanimously to study the issue of panel attorneys’ compensation and other issues involving the county’s juvenile defense system. A series of recommendations is expected to be presented to the board this spring. 
 
Read the report, which also appears on publicCEO.com, here.
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Class-Action Suit Seeks Judicial Back Pay

March 31, 2014 By
 
California judges are owed back pay and pension increases because their salaries did not keep pace with state worker compensation as required by law, according to a class action lawsuit filed by a recently retired judge. Robert Mallano, a former presiding judge of the 2nd District Court of Appeal, filed the lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court in January, according to the PublicCEO website.
 
At a meeting of state officials this month where the lawsuit was discussed, Alan Milligan, California’s chief actuary, said there is no formal estimate of the cost if the suit prevails. He said “most or all” of a $97 million liability gain, mainly due to lower salaries, likely would be lost. “How it plays out over time in the contribution rate, that’s a bit more difficult,” Milligan said. “I would have to do a bit of work to calculate that.”
 

You can read the report here.

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‘Alternative’ Judge’s Group Gaining Momentum?

March 25, 2014 By
 
A judicial group that has been critical of the current court management seems to be gaining some momentum after successfully supporting a legislative audit of the Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC), drawing a crowd to its second annual conference in Los Angeles, partnering with a major university for that conference and gaining strong coverage in The Courthouse News.
 
The CN reported last week that “… the 500-member Alliance of California Judges conference was enlivened with at-times feverish energy, bolstered by a legislative committee’s recent approval of a financial audit examining the Administrative Office of the Courts and how it spends public money. Alliance members had lobbied for the audit, a campaign born out of the AOC’s ability to insulate a large staff and give the staff raises while trial courts were making draconian budget cuts, laying off workers and closing courtrooms.”
 
The CN quoted judges who called the event a “milestone” and it also reported that some out-of-state speakers were surprised to find out how difficult the courts situation has become in California. The conference included participation from George Mason University, and you can check out the CN coverage here. 
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Juvenile Advocates Highlight Flaws In System

March 24, 2014 By
 

 

The advocacy website Juvenile Justice Information Exchange has posted a significant report detailing problems with how Los Angeles County provides legal representation for juveniles who cannot afford their own lawyer. 
 
The report notes that “… the problem is particularly serious in Los Angeles County, one of the world’s largest juvenile justice systems, where a controversial low-bid, flat fee compensation system for attorneys representing certain indigent youth raises systemic due process concerns. Under that system, contract attorneys — such as the one who represented Antonio, are paid an astonishingly low fee of $300 to $350 per case, regardless of whether the case involves shoplifting or murder. This is in a city where private lawyers are costly. Criminal defense attorney fees in Los Angeles can easily exceed $500 an hour.”
 
One suggestion is that the juvenile system work more like the adult system in Los Angeles where defendants are represented by attorneys from an alternate public defender’s office or by private attorneys paid an hourly rate based on the complexity of the case and seriousness of the offense – not the flat fee.
 
You can see the report here.
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Civil Rights Becoming Key Budget Argument

March 20, 2014 By
 
Stepping up her intensity from previous references, California Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye is pushing civil rights as a key argument for court funding increases, echoing comments from labor activists and others – and she’s including civil courts access along with the more high-profile (and obvious) criminal court problems.
Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye (Photo: California Courts)

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

 
The chief justice, in an address to state lawmakers, even put the number of California residents “deprived” of access to justice at 2 million and said the state was on the verge of what she called  civil rights crisis. Another talking point quote: “It’s tragic that 50 years after the enactment of the Civil Rights Act, California faces a different type of civil rights crisis. It is not about the law. It is about access to it.”

The chief justice’s comments are getting broad play around the state, and even the Los Angeles Times, which has not exactly been a leader in the court crisis coverage, took note. You can see the Times story here. 

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Pasadena ‘Walk-Up’ Window Cuts Wait Times

February 27, 2014 By
 
Courts across California are reporting long lines for relatively routine issues, like traffic tickets, but at Pasadena a new walk-up window is letting people bypass even entering the courthouse, which means not going through the security lines and reduced wait times.
 
The Courthouse News is reporting that Supervising Judge Mary Thornton House called the new window a huge success and said it would reduce long waits and lines, adding that the court would like to install more walk-up windows, but structurally the building can only accommodate one.
 
Judge House also noted in the CN that the recent L.A. County Superior Courtco consolidation plan led the Pasadena courthouse to assume Alhambra traffic cases… “so our traffic matters were doubled, which created very long lines and required people to go through weapons screening simply to pay a ticket.” The report also noted a Yelp user who said it had taken him two hours to pay a $238 traffic ticket. The report also says members of the public still need to visit the clerk’s office to request traffic school, or pay traffic citations that have already been sent to collections. Check out the story here.
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Chief Justice Still Pushing For Court Funds

February 21, 2014 By
 
With Gov. Brown’s approval numbers soaring and his 2014 budget getting mostly favorable reviews, you have to admire state Chief Justice Tani G. Cantil-Sakauye’s continued efforts to rally somebody, anybody, behind increased judicial funding. On a recent stop to rally Inland Empire attorneys, she addressed the “impression” that the courts had created their own crisis through mismanagement.
 
The Riverside News newspaper reported on the chief justice’s visit, saying she “pushed back on criticisms that the state court system is solely responsible for its financial straits” and quoted her as saying “there is a presumption, somehow, in the capitol in Sacramento that the judicial branch is where it is now, with courtrooms closed and less services … because somehow, somehow, we mismanaged ourselves into the situation.” 
 
Cantil-Sakauye said her counter is: “I have to remind them, ‘You took $1.5 billion from us,’ that’s how we’re here … If you ask me, we have done a remarkable, miraculous job of keeping the doors open when you took $1.5 billion from the judicial branch.”
 
The newspaper offered some context, reporting that “the chief justice did not specify the source of the criticism, but in 2012 the California Judicial Council voted to halt development of a statewide court computer system that some critics claimed consumed $500 million during years of tinkering that brought it no closer to operation.”
 
Read about the gathering here. 
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Great New Courthouse Threatened By Budget Woes

February 17, 2014 By
 
Up in Porterville, a San Joaquin Valley community of about 60,000, they have one of those great new courthouses that escaped state judicial budget cuts. It sounds great, described as a “… sparkling new 96,500 square-foot courthouse” with nine courtrooms, holding cells for 85 inmates, solar panels, natural lighting and drought-resistant landscaping. The $93-million facility replaced a much smaller courthouse that had only two courtrooms, making it an important addition to a town experiencing a population boom.”
Tulare County, Porterville Courthouse (photo: www.courts.ca.gov)

Tulare County, Porterville Courthouse (photo: www.courts.ca.gov)

 
One problem though. Local press is quoting the presiding judge saying that budget cuts actually threaten operation of the new facility.  “We are short-handed everywhere you look. We have cut and cut some more,” the presiding judge, Lloyd Hicks, told the local Visalia Times-Delta newspaper. “If we are [to] cut another $2 million, we would be faced with closing the new courthouse.”
 
The story is being reported in a Minneapolis-based news website, the The MintNews. In a story by Matt Heller, a California correspondent, the MintNews takes a good look at the statewide crisis and reports on specific problems, like “… waiting time for mediation in child custody disputes has risen in at least 19 counties, with parents in Stanislaus County having to wait up to 17 weeks, the report said. Some counties have eliminated hearings in small claims disputes and 11 counties told the committee they are no longer able to process domestic violence restraining orders the same day they are filed.”
 
Read the story here.
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L.A. County Eyes Juvenile Justice Overhaul

February 15, 2014 By
 
The Los Angeles County supervisors have voted to study overhauling how juvenile suspects are defended in the county. They are responding to complaints that some juveniles are assigned public defenders while others are represented by contractors known as “panel attorneys” who are paid flat rates of $319 to $345 per case. A Loyola Law School report that looked at 3,000 Los Angeles juvenile cases last year found that people represented by panel attorneys got more severe punishment.
 
The Los Angeles Times story on the issue cited attorney Gary Farwell, who was head of the juvenile panel at Kenyon Juvenile Justice Center until it closed last year, saying that the county should review the resources allocated to juvenile representation, but defended the work of his colleagues. The Times quoted Farwell: “We have hardworking, devoted people who do far more than what they’re paid on many cases. It’s not the people who are the panel attorneys that are the problem. It’s the system of resources available to the panel attorneys that’s the problem.”
 
Read the story here. 
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