L.A. Moves To Disassemble Part Of ‘School-To-Prison Pipeline’

As the nation watches racially heated events in Ferguson, Missouri unfold, the city of Los Angeles is going about disassembling what critics have called its “schools-to-prison” pipeline, ending policies that turned school issues into police issues. But the move is also a consequence of reduced juvenile court capacity, according to an official quoted in a New York Times article.
 
According to the NYT: “Michael Nash, the presiding judge of the Los Angeles Juvenile Courts, who was involved in creating the new policies, said that the juvenile justice system was overtaxed, and that the changes would ensure that the courts were dealing only with youngsters who ‘really pose the greatest risk to the community.'”
 
The NYT also reported that “… students 14 years old and under received more than 45 percent of the district’s 1,360 citations in 2013, according to the [Labor/Community] Strategy Center [a civil rights group] African-American students, who account for about 10 percent of the total population, received 39 percent of “disturbing the peace” citations, typically given for fights.” At one time, police in the program were issuing arrest citations for showing up late to school, a practice terminated in 2012.
 

Rich Sue, Poor Don’t In Downsized Courts

Under the downsized and more expensive California court systems, officials are reporting that some types of cases like probate, mental health, dependency, personal injury, property damage, and wrongful death claims continue increasing. But public-access civil cases like small claims, where there’s no attorney involved, are decreasing.
 
In a solid story from The Reporter newspaper in Vacaville, a Sacramento-area community in Solano County, we learn that “… in a statement issued along with a summary of the report, Justice Douglas Miller, chair of the Judicial Council’s Executive and Planning Committee, called the trend in court filings worrisome [saying] “… it coincides with two other trends that have occurred as result of budget cuts to the judicial branch: the increase in court filing fees to offset General Fund budget cuts and closure of courthouses and/or the reduction of hours at our courthouses. It’s something that we in the judicial branch are very concerned about,” Miller said in a statement.
 
One concern is that, with diminished hours, increased costs and the challenge of traveling to farther-away court houses, that people who would have normally turned to courts would simply give up. The report can certainly be read to support that claim.
 

AOC Name-Change Called ‘Superfluous’

As reported by MetNews.com, Steven Jahr is the California Administrator Director of the Courts.

As reported by MetNews.com, Steven Jahr is the California Administrator Director of the Courts.



Anyone thinking that the re-branding of the controversial “Administrative office of the Courts, or AOC” to the “Judicial Council staff” is window dressing might note comments by outgoing AOC Director Steven Jahr, who called the measure “superfluous,” according to the MetNews.
 
The MetNews notes that “… the name change announced Friday was seen by some judges as a harbinger of Jahr’s departure. At the Judicial Council meeting announcing the name change, Jahr was unusually freewheeling in his expression, saying, ‘Retiring the name AOC will produce a perceptual change, or perhaps a cultural change. Yet under the substantive law, it makes no change at all. The name is superfluous.'”

Jahr replaced William Vickrey, who, the MetNews story reminds us, “… left the AOC in September 2011 amid mounting controversy over the agency’s spending practices and a $500 million court technology project that judges and state legislators deemed a failure.”

Read the report here: Courts Director Jahr to Step Down After Two Years

Writer Recaps Court Budget Situation

Much-watched Sacramento Bee Columnist Dan Walters, whose ideas go well beyond the state capitol, has published a good recap of the state’s court situation, outlining the recent history of shifting state funding from local to state authorities and concluding that: “Bottom line: The shift to state support was supposed to bring financial stability to the courts but instead has brought much higher instability.”
 
He offers this quick history: “When the Legislature and then-Gov. Pete Wilson agreed in 1997 that the state would assume the entire cost of financing California’s largest-in-the-nation court system, judges rejoiced… it was a big win for Ron George, whom Wilson had appointed as the state’s chief justice a year earlier, and he hailed ‘a stable and adequate source of funding’ as ‘one of the most important reforms in the California justice systems in the 20th century.'”
 
Walters also observes that “… the impact is being felt mostly on the civil side of courts because criminal cases command priority for restricted judicial resources. It can take literally years for a civil case to get a trial date.”
 
It’s a good read, but also a good story to file away for newcomers to how things got this way. Read it via the Mercury News here Dan Walters: California courts sought stability, found instability

More Bay Area Court Facilities Close

More court facilities are closing and more employees are losing their jobs in the Bay Area. The ongoing budget crisis is hitting Solano County Superior Court, where officials have announced cuts that include closing clerks offices, staff layoffs and shuttering the Family Law Clerk’s Office at the Solano Justice Building in Vallejo. The family law office closing means custody matters and other issues will be heard some 20 miles away in Fairfield, according to published reports.
 
The Reporter newspaper notes that, “… in announcing the cuts, local officials quoted California Supreme Court Chief Justice Tani G. Cantil-Sakauye in her comments on the state budget’s impact on courts. ‘This is the second year of partial reinvestment in the judicial branch after five years of severe budget cuts resulting in a reduction to access to justice. And while I appreciate the work of the Governor and the Legislature in increasing branch funding, especially given the context of this budget, the state revenues, the demands and the needs – unfortunately it is not enough to provide timely, meaningful justice to the public,’ she said. 
 
The Reporter also quoted local officials explaining that the current-year funding shortfall leaves the Solano courts with an $830,000 deficit going into the fiscal year. Read the story here: Solano County Courts announce closures, furloughs, layoffs for coming fiscal year

Brown Appoints Presiding Judges

The MetNews is reporting that Gov. Jerry Brown has named Court of Appeal Justice Frances Rothschild as presiding justice of this Los Angeles Div. One, and proposed three judges of other courts for appointment to other divisions. The website says that Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Brian M. Hoffstadt will be nominated as associate justice in Div. Two, former Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Presiding Judge Lee S. Edmon as presiding justice in Div. Three, and U.S. District Judge Audrey B. Collins as associate justice in Div. Four. 
 
Read the report, with background on the newly appointed and their confirmation process, here: Brown Names Rothschild and Edmon Presiding Justices of C.A.

L.A. Presiding Judge: Expectations Not Met

There is more news from Presiding Judge David Wesley over the new state budget. The Metropolitan News-Enterprise is reporting on an email Judge Wesley sent to judicial officers saying that “… we are very disappointed in the level of support provided to the trial courts” and “… we had developed reasonable expectations, based upon our interactions with legislators, that we would find ourselves with additional resources with which to begin rebuilding our Court. Those expectations were not met.”
 
According to the MetNews, Judge Wesley explained that of the $223 million appropriated to the judicial branch, $40 million is for courthouse construction, $7 million for the appellate courts, $15 million for collaborative courts, $43 million for already-incurred expenses for employee benefit cost increases, and $30 million will go toward backfilling an expected revenue shortfall statewide.
 
“Only $86 million is scheduled for trial court operations—and even that amount will be reduced because the funding amounts for benefit cost increases and for revenue shortfalls are likely to be insufficient, with the gap made up out of funding for operation,” the judge explained.
 

Presiding Judge: Justice Rationing To Continue

Los Angeles Superior Court Presiding Judge David Wesley say the just-passed California budget will not require additional staff reductions, but will also not replace previous cutbacks. The judge is being quoted in published reports saying that “… the California courts have suffered five years of reductions in state funding, and many courts have reduced their workforces by as much as one-quarter, with no lessening of their statutory and constitutional obligations. We are being forced to ration access to justice.
 
He added that “… people trying to do the right thing and pay a traffic ticket, find themselves stymied by long lines and antiquated technology… crime victims, and the law enforcement officers acting as witnesses in their cases, are burdened with long travel times because the local courthouse was closed.”
 

California Chief Justice: Budget Doesn’t Even ‘Tread Water’

California Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye, who has said that justice system budget cuts have created a new civil rights issue by limiting court access, is taking a softer tone in the wake of this year’s state budget, judging by published reports. For example, over the weekend the L.A. Times reported she “…  said Friday the new state budget will mean “more disappointment, service reduction and delay for those who need our courts.”
 
But she also thanked the governor and lawmakers for their efforts. The Times noted that the budget “… contains less than half the money Cantil-Sakauye said would be needed for trial courts “just to tread water” after years of courthouse closures, layoffs and other cutbacks… court employees are still being furloughed, and services to the public have been slashed. Court users have reported waits of as many as eight hours at clerk windows, and closures have forced some residents to drive several hours to get to the nearest open courthouse.”
 
The chief justice also said, according to the Times, that “.. she was grateful that Brown and the Legislature had added funds for specific court programs and were helping to solve the long term effect of employee benefit costs.” Read the story here: New California budget fails to ease court woes, chief justice says

Budget Losers Now Learning The Score

Court system leadership may be fairly silent about this election-year budget deal, but the people actually dealing with ongoing shortfalls are starting to figure out that they were left out. Take child welfare courts, for example, where officials had expected modest increases, as noted in the Chronicle of Social Change website: “The California State Assembly and Senate had both signed off on a modest pot of money earmarked to help children’s legal representatives reduce caseloads that have grown to more than 400 children per lawyer in some counties… the state would have doled out $11 million in funding over the next year to help lower caseloads in child-welfare courts, followed by $22 million in the second year and $33 million in the third year. However, that money vanished in the final version of the budget that was sent to the Gov. Jerry Brown (D) for approval on Sunday [June 15].
 
You can hear discontent rising, but we are told many individual operations are being told to hold their fire because they might be among those lucky few getting some of the modest increases. But as those promises fade, it will be interesting to see what happens. Read some reaction here: California Rejects Bid to Restore Funding for Child Welfare Courts