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.

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County Jails Strain to ‘Balance’ State Budget

February 28, 2013 By
 Another way to get to a “balanced” state budget? Shift prison costs to county jails. And a new Associated Press report documents that California counties are now housing more than 1,000 inmates with sentences of a year or more that would have been in state facilities before Gov. Brown’s new policies.
 
The state’s sheriff’s association is pushing back, noting that costs are not just for housing but recreation, health care and education formerly provided by the state. And the L.A. County Jail is holding 35 percent of those long-term prisoners, many for violent crimes and/or drug convictions. Along with other agencies, you can add this to the trend of local officials pushing back against state cuts that only shift costs to county and municipal jurisdictions.
 
See the story here.
 
Sheriffs also must provide the inmates with education, treatment programs, rehabilitation services and recreation, which adds to their costs. – See more here.
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