California

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

June 23, 2014 By CCM Staff

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

Filed Under: Community, Courts Budget Tagged With: California, California Budget, California Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye, california court cuts, california courts, California State Budget, California Supreme Court, Chief Justice

Train, Not Courts, Wins In State Budget

June 16, 2014 By CCM Staff

So, maybe people can find a way to take the bullet train to far-flung courts? The California budget approved this week grants hundreds of millions of dollars in funding, but the courts have fallen well short of their requests. The Los Angeles Times report included this: “The new trial court budget is simply insufficient for those who need access to a courthouse,” Contra Costa County Presiding Superior Court Judge Barry Goode said. “Crime victims, law enforcement, those suffering from domestic violence, families in trouble and other court users will continue to have to travel long distances and endure long waits for justice.”

Read the Times report here: California bullet train deal: Hundreds of millions of dollars

Filed Under: Community, Courts Budget Tagged With: California, California Budget, california court cuts, california courts, California State Budget, California Trains, Gov. Jerry Brown, train

Secret Deals May Mean More Court Money

June 11, 2014 By CCM Staff

They are the most important decisions being made for people of California, so of course the negotiations are going on in secret – but the “leaks” are that courts are about to get a “modest” increase over previous drafts of Gov. Brown’s proposal, according to published news report.

The Contra Costa Times reports that this year’s deal-making is going nicely, saying that “… the knockdown, drag-out partisan fights, stretching on for months, are history. These days, state budget negotiations are downright cordial.” And the paper adds that “… according to Capitol sources briefed on closed-door budget negotiations, the administration of Gov. Jerry Brown and Democratic lawmakers have quietly reached deals on funding prekindergarten, pumping more money into the state’s beleaguered court system and funding levels for the state’s controversial bullet train.”

On courts, the report also says that “… after proposing a $160 million increase in spending for California’s courts, Brown has reportedly agreed to another modest bump in funding for the judicial system, whose budget was hit hard at the height of the state’s financial crisis.”

Read the report here.

Filed Under: Community, Courts Budget Tagged With: budget, California, california courts, court budget, Gov. Jerry Brown

Train, Not Courts, Lead Budget Talks

June 4, 2014 By CCM Staff

With the June 15 state budget deadline nearing, spending talks are apparently focused – not on replacing lost court funding – but on Gov. Jerry Brown’s plans for the $68 billion-with-a-b bullet train from Los Angeles to the Bay Area, according to the Los Angeles Times and other sources.

Writes the LAT: “… the governor faces another challenge as he tries to secure new funding from pollution fees to keep the project rolling. His effort is emerging as one of the most hotly contested elements of this year’s budget, providing leverage to Democratic lawmakers who have their own eyes on the money.”

You can keep up with the negotiations, but don’t expect any court funding updates, here: Bullet train funding is bargaining chip in state budget debate

Filed Under: Community, Courts Budget Tagged With: California, California Budget, california court cuts, california courts, California Rail, California State Budget, California Trains, Gov. Jerry Brown, high speed rail, train

Court Funds Tied To Worker-Pension Increases

May 28, 2014 By CCM Staff

Photo: gov.ca.gov.com

In case anyone needed the top budget issue explained, reporter Katie Orr at Capital Public Radio makes it clear: “At the most basic level, California’s budget allocates money to state programs for the year. But Gov. Jerry Brown also wants to use it to push his agenda.” She notes that “… Brown is proposing a funding increase of $160 million for the trial courts this year, but wants court employees to contribute more to their pensions.”

Other experts equate tying funds to pension contributions is like using federal money to increase the age for legal consumption of alcohol and other issues. She does not include an immediate response from labor or employees who might think it odd to tie their pensions to keeping courts open.

The story is here: Gov. Brown Links Budget Dollars To Department Reforms

Filed Under: Community, Courts Budget Tagged With: California, California Budget, california courts, court budget, Gov. Jerry Brown, pension, SEIU, state budget, union

NYT Shines Light On Civil Detainee Labor

May 27, 2014 By CCM Staff

The New York Times has published a detailed report on how civil immigration detainees are being used for cheap or free labor in the facilities where they are being held, benefiting not only government agencies but for-profit companies that operate in the facilities. California is one of the states with multiple detention centers, and the report notes that “… near San Francisco, at the Contra Costa West County Detention Facility, immigrants work alongside criminal inmates to cook about 900 meals a day that are packaged and trucked to a county homeless shelter and nearby jails.”

The NYT notes that the federal government has become the largest employer of potentially illegal immigrants: “Last year, at least 60,000 immigrants worked in the federal government’s nationwide patchwork of detention centers — more than worked for any other single employer in the country, according to data from United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement, known as ICE. The cheap labor, 13 cents an hour, saves the government and the private companies $40 million or more a year by allowing them to avoid paying outside contractors the $7.25 federal minimum wage. Some immigrants held at county jails work for free, or are paid with sodas or candy bars, while also providing services like meal preparation for other government institutions.”

The report includes the government response of “… the federal authorities say the program is voluntary, legal and a cost-saver for taxpayers. But immigrant advocates question whether it is truly voluntary or lawful, and argue that the government and the private prison companies that run many of the detention centers are bending the rules to convert a captive population into a self-contained labor force.”

This is the kind of story that might illustrate the difference in rights people have in criminal vs. civil cases – it is hard to imagine people being held in de facto labor camps if they faced criminal charges, because a different set of rights kicks in. Read the NYT game-changing story here: Using Jailed Migrants as a Pool of Cheap Labor

Filed Under: Community, Courts Budget Tagged With: California, cheap labor, Civil Courts, criminal courts, detainees, ICE, illegal immigrants, immigrant rights, immigration, Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, labor costs, migrant workers, slave labor, undocumented workers

Divorced? You Might Want To Double-Check That

May 19, 2014 By CCM Staff

With California divorce courts slowing to a snail’s pace, some citizens who want to re-marry are finding out that they can’t – because clerks have not yet processed required documents for a judge’s signature. And now Ted Rall, one of the more famous cartoonists contributing to the Los Angeles Times, has issued both a cartoon and a column mocking the sorry state of our courts.

He suggests switching it all to the Internet, using a lie-detecting algorithm and delivering results via robots and drones. He also solidifies his optimist cred by noting a positive side to the mess: Every cloud has a silver lining. Because so many courthouses have closed, some Californians are automatically getting exempted from jury duty: “In San Bernardino County, the Superior Court has stopped summoning jurors from Needles, making the guarantee of a jury of one’s peers elusive. Because of court closures in the High Desert, a trip to court from Needles can take some residents 3 1/2 hours.”

It’s a fridge-worthy cartoon and column: If our courts are broke, how can Californians get divorced? An idea.

Filed Under: Community, Courts Budget Tagged With: California, California court, court budget, divorce, divorce law, political cartoon, Ted Rall

Brown Budget Targets Employee Pensions

May 15, 2014 By CCM Staff

Court-community reviews of Gov. Brown’s new budget are mixed, with state Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye terming it “encouraging” in a statement but labor advocates worried about plans to increase court employees contributions to their pensions. Meanwhile, along with a $60 million increase from his previous plans, Gov. Brown is framing the budget as a two-year process, meaning some real decisions might come after his Nov. re-election bid.

CCM staff photo

Discussions are no doubt being held to figure out what the next four weeks will bring. But the Contra Costa Times is among those noting lawmaker support for more courts funding, reporting that “… the chief justice had backing from state legislators, who recently proposed restoring more than $200 million in court funding in the upcoming budget year. Assemblyman Bob Wieckowski, D-Fremont, and the judiciary committee chairman, said Brown’s courts budget is still ‘far short’ of the hundreds of millions of dollars it needs to handle its caseloads and keep courthouses open and running.”

Missing from the discussion so far: re-opening any of the closed courts or re-hiring any of the nearly 4,000 court workrs laid off over the past few years.

Read the CC Times report here: California courts get a boost in governor’s budget.

Filed Under: Community, Courts Budget Tagged With: AFSCME, CA Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye, California, California Budget, california court cuts, california courts, court rationing, Gov. Jerry Brown, pensions, SEIU, union

More Courts Charging Fees For Online Records

May 14, 2014 By CCM Staff

More California courts are joining Los Angeles in charging people to look at civil court records online, raising concerns among some public access groups and others. Starting April 23, Alameda County Superior Court charges $1 for each of the first five pages of a civil court record downloaded online, with the cost dropping to 50 per page after that and capped at $40 total.

Los Angeles Superior Court fees start $4.75 for each record searched. Teresa Ruano, spokeswoman for the state’s Administrative Office of the Courts, says that “… there’s a budget crisis in the courts. Revenue is part of the solution, a small part of the solution.”

You can read the AP story in the Greenfield Reporter here.

Filed Under: Community, Courts Budget Tagged With: California, california court cuts, california courts, civil court, court rationing, Legal news

Fresno Op-Ed Is A Civics, Courts Lesson

May 7, 2014 By CCM Staff

The Fresno Bee is running an opinion piece arguing not only that our federal courts are in a crisis, but that the real problem is a “dumbing down” of the education process. Daniel O. Jamison, an attorney with the Dowling Aaron Inc. firm, writes that “… we are at risk of losing the judicial branch. The reason is largely the failure of education. Increasingly, legislators and members of the executive are drawn from a public unschooled in civics. The result is ignorance of the needs and role of the courts…”

He notes that the lack of judges means that many non-criminal (meaning civil issues, like bankruptcy) federal court cases in the Fresno area are redirected to Sacramento, a distance that effectively “closes” the courthouse doors to many seeking civil justice. It’s a compelling argument that the real problem is that people don’t understand how our three branches of government work – an argument we will hear more as the state budget debate gets more attention over the next month.

Read the Jamison opinion here.

Filed Under: Community, Courts Budget Tagged With: California, Congress, constitution, constitutional crisis, Dowling Aaron, federal courts, partisan politics, partisanship, political crisis, Senate