Court funding: Politics large and small

April 22, 2013 By

Article from CCM’s Special Report – CIVIL COURTS: RATIONING JUSTICE IN LOS ANGELES COUNTY

A few weeks after a big downtown rally against Los Angeles Superior Court reorganization, a middle-aged man who had attended the protest walked into a Starbucks next to the Stanley Mosk Courthouse and ordered an elaborate latte concoction.

“It would be different,” he mused as they prepared the drink, “if the judges were elected.” 

He must have been thinking of federal court, because the Superior Court judges held up as out-of-touch 1 percenters at the protest ARE elected, albeit in the most unheralded races anyone might imagine. That near-total lack of political interest is a key reason that this “special report” is a long-form accounting of what amounts to simple political Darwinism.

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

Looking for ‘literature,’ finding civic revolt

April 18, 2013 By

By Sara Warner, from CCM Special Report

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. After some time Back East, I was moving back to California where I’ve lived nearly all of the past 17 years. When talk turned to a courts website last year, our pretensions were mostly literary: we wanted www.californiacourtsmonitor.com to celebrate “the writing” about justice, like that you get from Associated Press Special Correspondent Linda Deutsch or maybe even less known voices like James Preston Allen, the publisher of San Pedro’s “Random LengthNews.” (Not, by the way, that Mr. Allen is likely to care all that much.)

It seemed logical enough. It was a good project that meshed nicely with my day job as development director for a non-profit legal foundation. Also, I grew up with the Law (capital “L” in our house). My grandfather was a famous lawyer and my grand uncle was a Federal Court judge. Who knew we would find a civil courts system in what amounts to full-on revolt?

 

 

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

Federal Courts Now Face Own Shutdowns

March 22, 2013 By
It’s not just California’s state courts facing widespread closings these days. Federal courts, blaming the across-the-board “sequestration” budget cuts enacted because Congress and the president couldn’t reach a financial deal, are being blamed for employee furloughs and once-a-month courtroom closings, according to The Courthouse News. The CN said that “San Francisco, San Jose and Eureka Federal Courts will shut down on the first Friday of each month, and Oakland Federal will close the first Monday of the month.”
 
The report quotes Judge Julia Gibbons, who chaired the federal Judicial Conference Budget Committee, explaining that sequestration put the judiciary in “uncharted territory,” facing a “budget crisis that is unprecedented, one that is not likely to end in the near term.” Another quote that sounds a lot like the state judges talking about their financial problems: “We believe we have done all we can to minimize the impact of sequestration, but a cut of this magnitude, particularly so late in the fiscal year, will affect every aspect of court operations.”
 
Read more on the issue here.
 

 

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

Editorial Boards Continue To Lament Court Cutbacks

March 20, 2013 By
The new rationing system for California justice is gaining attention of the mainstream press, and over the past few weeks some of the state’s newspaper editorial boards have taken stands. It’s interesting that the opinions tend to be numbers-filled, a sign that the writers know their readership is not yet up to speed on the issue. You can add a very fine Sacramento Bee editorial, bylined by “the editorial board,” to the list.
 
Notes the Bee: “According to the [state] chief justice, since January 2010, 22 courthouses have closed across the state, 114 courtrooms have been shuttered, 30 courts have reduced their hours of operations, and more than 2,600 court employees have either been laid off or left and were not replaced… Scores of specialty courts for veterans, the homeless, people with mental illnesses and drug addicts have gone by the wayside.
 
“The result – access to justice, particularly the civil side of justice, has been dangerously curtailed.
In Sacramento County, for example, more than a quarter of the courthouse workforce, 230 people, has been laid off or left and not been replaced since 2008. Family law litigants seeking to divorce or settle child custody and support matters can wait up to seven hours to file documents… Help that used to be available to assist those litigants, 70 percent of whom come without lawyers, has been slashed to the bone. Help with forms, telephone responses and via email is nearly gone. Twenty-five counter service windows have been closed and the hours reduced for those that are left. Even janitorial services have been cut to the most basic level.”
 
Read the lament here.
Filed Under: Community, Courts Budget Tagged With: , , , , ,

$10 To View Court Documents? 1st Amendment Groups Protesting

March 19, 2013 By
You can add First Amendment groups to those upset by budget-crunching changes to the California justice system. They say a new $10 fee just to view court documents limits access to public information. The Judicial Council, the policy guys for the courts, say it’s just a way to fund the system. Peter Scheer of the San Rafael-based First Amendment Coalition, also complains that the change was deep in Gov. Jerry Brown’s budget bill rather than in sponsored legislation – a way to limit opposition.
 
“This will alter and in this case diminish the scope of a personal right of citizenship,” Scheer told the Santa Rosa Press Democrat, which covered the issue this week. “It should not be done by trailer bill in the dark of night.” His voice adds to a growing chorus of discontent as long-promised changes in the court system take effect and as more details of Gov. Brown’s budget come to light.
 
Read the excellent report here. 
Filed Under: Community, Courts Budget Tagged With: , , , , ,

Daily News Offers Good Story On Court Protests

March 18, 2013 By
Looking for a good handle on last week’s court protests? Then check out the L.A. Daily News. That’s news too, because the paper has not exactly led coverage on the issue; nothing like marching in the streets to draw the mainstream media. That said, staff writer Christina Villacorte does a good job outlining the issues  of a federal lawsuit, especially the arguments that the court changes violate the Americans with Disabilities Act, or ADA.
 
Villacorte also amplifies growing complaints that the court cuts took place in relative secrecy, reporting that “… The Save Our Courts Coalition, made up of community groups, religious organizations, legal aid providers, labor union and court employees, demanded that the Los Angeles Superior Court cancel the closures, hold public hearings at each of the affected courthouses and find other ways to balance its budget.”
 
A great get-up-to-speed link to send to your non-court-watching friends is right here. 
Filed Under: Community Tagged With: , , , , , ,

ADA Is Key To Court Re-Org Lawsuit

March 15, 2013 By
The Americans With Disabilities Act, or ADA, appears to be the heart of that complaint filed against state reorganization of its courts. The federal complaint, filed March 13, makes an argument that under the new system “… there will be no unlawful detainer courtrooms in the San Fernando Valley [so] tenants from the Valley will be forced to travel to either Santa Monica or Pasadena – areas to which there is no adequate public transportation route from the Valley.” Unlawful detainer is the term for eviction actions.
CCM staff photo

CCM staff photo

 
The complaint offers an example of a San Fernando Valley resident who now could access a courthouse six miles away but would have to travel some 30 miles to Santa Monica under the new system. The action, filed by a coalition of non-profits including a low-income housing group, notes that state law offers strict timelines for eviction cases and that lack of transportation might favor the landlords.
 
Read about the issue and access a copy of the full complaint here. 
Filed Under: Community, Courts Budget Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Breaking News: Legal Aid Groups Sue L.A. County Over Court Closings

March 14, 2013 By
The lawsuits have begun over Los Angeles County’s plan to close courthouses and switch formerly community-based operations to “hubs.” Now a “coalition of legal aid groups” is suing in Federal Court, saying that shutting down those courthouses will deny access to justice. It will be interesting to see how court officials defend that charge since many have been saying the same thing for months.
 
Specifically, some groups feel that moving time-sensitive eviction cases to hubs also violates the state’s obligation to make courts available to people with disabilities. The hubs plan is set to take effect Monday.
 

Listen to a  L.A. public radio report on the breaking story here.

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

It’s Getting Real: Courts Begin Shifting Cases Away From Communities

March 5, 2013 By
The dismantling of Los Angeles County’s once-praised community court-access system is getting under way, with small claims cases filed at the Torrance courthouse being handled in Inglewood and many personal injury cases, perhaps thousands of them, being moved from local courts to the Stanley Mosk Courthouse in downtown L.A.
 
The Daily Breeze newspaper is among those documenting the shift. “We do not take these actions likely,” Torrance Superior Court Judge Stuart Rice told the Daily Breeze. “They break our heart, but for the lack of funding this would not be happening.” Under the county court plan to create “hubs” where cases are heard, collections matters will be scheduled in the Chatsworth and Norwalk courthouses, and South Bay landlord-tenant disputes will be set for the Long Beach courthouse.
 
Read about these and other major shifts in the paper’s story here.
Filed Under: Community Tagged With: , , , ,

Stronger Rhetoric Used In Courts Funding Crisis

March 4, 2013 By
The usually judicious advocates for increasing funding to California courts are using increasingly heated terms for the situation, with the state’s Chief Justice getting a lot of Internet buzz after saying the results will be “… the dismemberment of the judicial branch.” And chief justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye was not addressing some obscure civic group but the high-profile Public Policy Institute.
 
In published reports, she said that: “In the last five years, $1 billion has been taken from the judicial branch… according to the latest proposed budget, it looks like the judicial branch will receive one penny of every dollar of the General Fund, which is an incredible bargain for what we provide. So we do that without raises and without broadening our scope and without more judges… all the while our caseload remains the same. We continue to provide a forum for justice on an ever-shrinking, minuscule slice of the pie. For California, it means disparate access to justice, and in some it means no access to justice.”
 
San Bernardino County continues to be a poster child of the cutbacks. The chief justice explained that a San Bernardino resident, to get his or her day in court, has to travel 175 miles one way; you have to assume they have transportation, that they can leave work to spend the day in court. Then they have a 175-mile trip back.

Link to the report in The Courthouse News here.

Filed Under: Community Tagged With: , , , , ,
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