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.