New Courts Director Targets Pension Reform

February 25, 2015 By

That state auditor’s report illustrating free-spending ways for
California’s top courts officials has helped spark some reform. The
Courthouse News reports that “… in his first round of big changes to
California’s court bureaucracy, new director Martin Hoshino answered a
scathing report from the state auditor with a series of reforms that
included eliminating a lavish pension benefit for the top brass.

The CN adds that “the controversial perk was cut back in 2012 by Chief
Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye, but top executives were still receiving
another 22% in pension contributions from public funds on top of their
salaries, including Chief Operating Officer Curt Childs, Chief
Administrative Officer Curt Soderlund and Chief of Staff Jody Patel.
The pension benefit for the top officials caught the attention of the
California State Auditor, who honed in on the perk in a scathing
report released in January after a nearly year-long investigation of
the bureaucracy, formerly known as the Administrative Office of the
Courts. The new director said the benefit would end July 1st.”

Read the CN story
here:http://www.courthousenews.com/2015/02/19/new-director-of-california-court-agency-cuts-perk-for-top-brass.htm of reforms that
included eliminating a lavish pension benefit for the top brass.

The CN adds that “the controversial perk was cut back in 2012 by Chief
Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye, but top executives were still receiving
another 22% in pension contributions from public funds on top of their
salaries, including Chief Operating Officer Curt Childs, Chief
Administrative Officer Curt Soderlund and Chief of Staff Jody Patel.
The pension benefit for the top officials caught the attention of the
California State Auditor, who honed in on the perk in a scathing
report released in January after a nearly year-long investigation of
the bureaucracy, formerly known as the Administrative Office of the
Courts. The new director said the benefit would end July 1st.”

Read the CN story
here:http://www.courthousenews.com/2015/02/19/new-director-of-california-court-agency-cuts-perk-for-top-brass.htm

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

CM Publisher Has HuffPo Piece On GOP Civil Tort Priorities

February 10, 2015 By
Courts Monitor Publisher Sara Warner has published a Huffington Post story with her take on recent developments involving the New York Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver. She notes that “… the new Republican-controlled congress rolled up its sleeves and rolled out its agenda over the last week, and along with immigration and budget issues it turns out “asbestos litigation reform” is an apparent priority. The powerful House Judiciary Committee held a formal hearing in Washington in what amounts to a national campaign targeted at bankruptcy transparency – but fueled largely by both a landmark federal case out of North Carolina and the ongoing New York scandal involving the arrest of state assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver.”
 
Filed Under: Community, Courts Budget, National Tagged With: , , , ,

One-Day Divorce Heralded As Court Innovation

February 5, 2015 By
The Associated Press is profiling a California judge as an innovator for his one-day divorce process, a program inspired in some measure by $1 billion in court budget cuts during the recession. The AP notes that “… layoffs sapped employee morale, 52 courthouses closed across the state and the trying experience of going to court has become more tedious with longer lines, frustrating hearing delays and time-consuming waits on the phone.”
 
“Against that backdrop,” says the AP,”recent innovations seem like baby steps, but they have made it simpler to serve jury duty, pay traffic fines or get a restraining order in some counties. Lawyers in some courts can now schedule hearings online, file motions over the web and get judge’s orders electronically before they leave court.”
 
See a reminder that the California budget cuts are the new normal here.
Filed Under: Community, Courts Budget Tagged With: , , , ,

State Chief Justice Defends Admin Record

January 20, 2015 By
In the wake of that state auditor’s report questioning some $30 million in judicial branch spending Audit finds $30 million in ‘questionable’ court spending and salaries, California’s Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye is going on the defensive. In a relatively rare SoCal TV interview with Los Angeles NBC affiliate Channel 4.
 
The TV setup notes that “… Cantil-Sakauye has been criticized by a group of lower-court judges for not doing enough to send resources to Superior Courts in the state’s 58 counties. The Alliance of California Judges seized on a recent audit which questioned nearly $30 million in court staff spending. The audit noted the use of 66 state cars by staff, that some court administrators made more than the governor and had offices in three cities instead of one.” She counters by noting cutbacks and need for multiple offices to meet the needs of different sections of the state. See the interview here: CA Chief Justice on State of Courts
Filed Under: Cases, Courts Budget Tagged With: , , , ,

Gov. Adds Cash For Courts

January 12, 2015 By
Photo: gov.ca.gov.com

Gov. Jerry Brown – Photo: www.ca.gov



It seems Gov. Jerry Brown is increasing California judicial branch funding this year, not only moving closer to pre-recession levels but also singling our specific areas – like employee benefits – to illustrate where the money should go. The Mercury-News explains that “… the governor’s 2015-16 budget bumps the state court system’s budget from last year’s $3.29 billion to $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. Under the governor’s budget, the judiciary’s budget would inch closer to the $3.7 billion allocated in 2007-08. In fact, with the use of trial court reserve money required under previous budgets, the governor’s staff pegs spending on the judicial branch at about $3.7 billion in the 2015-16 fiscal year.
 
Read the story here.
Filed Under: Community, Courts Budget Tagged With: , , , , ,

Court Admin. Salaries Under Fire With Audit

January 8, 2015 By
California’s court management blew $30 million over four years on what a state audit is calling “questionable” expenses and salaries. The audit is sure to become an issue as the state heads into budget season with court leadership seeking to replace some $1 billion of recent-years cuts.
 
Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye (Photo: California Courts)

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

The audit was ordered by the state Legislature as part of the back-and-forth with court supporters who seek more funding. Some lawmakers have argued that the court administrators are not taking care of the purse strings. The debate has at least brought a re-branding: the Judicial Council, the policymaking arm of the courts, was previously called the Administrative Office of the Courts, or the AOC.
 
The Los Angeles Times reflected the tone of how the report is being received, reporting that “… auditors found the administrative office paid eight of its nine office directors more than $179,000 a year, which is higher than the salary for the governor and his top administration staff” and that a manager “… hired three months ago to run the San Francisco-based 800-employee agency, is the top earner, witan annual salary of $227,000. The governor earns $177,000 a year, less than the justices he appoints to serve on the California Supreme Court and less than is earned by some county court administrators.”
 
Filed Under: Cases, Courts Budget, National Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Immigration Judicial Complaints Remain Cloaked

December 30, 2014 By
A federal judge has ruled that identities of Immigration Court judges targeted by misconduct complaints can remain secret, including information like gender and even location of the court. The National Law Journal reports that “… the immigration office disclosed 16,000 pages associated with 767 complaints in the lawsuit, filed by the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) in June 2013. The government released nonconfidential information from substantiated and unsubstantiated complaints. The names of individual judges were redacted.”
 
The government argued the public release of the judges’ names and other identifying information would infringe privacy interests. U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper agreed, pointing out that the judges are career civil service employees and have privacy rights associated with that standing. That is a reference to Immigration Court judges not being “judges” in the typical sense, but are actually employees of the Justice Department.
 
 
Filed Under: Border Kids, Community, Courts Budget, National Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Immigration Backlog Shows Need For More Lawyers

December 29, 2014 By
This photo was part of an NBC News report, "Demand Intensifies for Nonprofit Immigration Lawyers" discussing how the US immigration system is seriously lacking in how it represents the poor.

This photo was part of an NBC News report, “Demand Intensifies for Nonprofit Immigration Lawyers” discussing how the US immigration system is seriously lacking in how it represents the poor.


NBC News is among those taking a look back at 2014 and finding the country’s immigration system seriously lacking in how it represents the poor. Says NBC, “… the past summer’s flocking of children and families to the U.S.-Mexico border, the president’s impending executive action on immigration and the two-year-old Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, DACA, have intensified demand for immigration attorneys, particularly those who charge little to nothing. With each success, they amplify the difference good legal help can make in the lives of immigrants.”
 
NBC has this quote in it’s Storyline report: “We’ve long known that results in immigration court, in particular, vary widely depending on whether you have legal representation or not,” said Crystal Williams, American Immigration Lawyers Association, AILA, executive director. She adds that “… what we are seeing quite honestly, is the people who are getting asylum and are getting bonded out of (the immigration detention center in) Artesia, had the attorneys not been there, they would have been removed already.”
 
Filed Under: Border Kids, Community, Courts Budget, National Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

A History Lesson On Race-Based Immigration

December 18, 2014 By
Controversy and court challenges over American birth-right citizenship for babies born in the U.S. to illegal immigrants? Targeting a particular group for enforcement because of their race? Accepting the labor and economic contribution while creating an immigrant underclass? An NBC news report outlines those moves against Chinese immigrants under the “Chinese Exclusion Act,” that was repealed in 1943 – after being in place for 61 years.
 
It was that debate over birth right to U.S. citizenship that brought the Supreme Court’s Wong Kim Ark case, which is still the legal standard today, notes NBC.
 
The Exclusion Act, says the report, “…. was repealed with the signing of the Magnuson Act on… Dec. 17, in 1943. The legal exclusion of Chinese lasted for sixty-one years. The repeal was named for Warren G. Magnuson, a member of Congress from Washington state, where some of the strongest anti-Chinese sentiment was heard. The repeal, however, was still restrictive, opening up Chinese immigration to just 105 visas.”
 
Read the NBC report and some details on the policy here: The Chinese Exclusion Act Ended Seventy-One Years Ago, Today
 
Filed Under: Border Kids, Community, Courts Budget Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

S.F And L.A. Sue Uber Car Service

December 15, 2014 By
If district attorneys from two big cities think you or I are breaking the law, they send the cops. But if you are a company valued at $40 billion, they send the civil attorneys. The San Francisco Chronicle and other outlets are reporting that “… both San Francisco and Los Angeles district attorneys filed a consumer protection lawsuit against on-demand ride service Uber on Tuesday, saying it misleads customers about driver background checks and violates state laws about airport rides and calculating fares.”
 
The newspaper reports that Uber’s rival service Lyft settled similar allegations and agreed to pay up to $500,000 in civil fines.
 
“Uber refused to comply with straightforward Caifornia laws to protect consumers from harm,” San Francisco District Attorney George Gascón said at a news conference. “Companies can be innovative without harming consumers.”
 
Uber spokeswoman Eva Behrend had a different take: “Californians and California lawmakers all agree — Uber is an integral, safe, and established part of the transportation ecosystem in the Golden State…”
 
Filed Under: Community, Courts Budget Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,
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