Strong NBC Report Getting Some ‘Legs’ Online

July 30, 2013 By

Good news: The NBC San Francisco affiliate investigative report on the court backlog (see July 24 post below) is getting some increased attention online and the reporter, Stephen Stock, is continuing the conversation on Twitter. The Twitter conversation even includes some high-profile judges. 

Recent Tweets include “CA ct backlog: collection filings can take anywhere from 5 months to 32 months!!! depending on which court” and “court backlog DEFINITELY affects tenant/landlord disputes!”

Stock and the “Bay Area Investigative Unit” took a look behind the usual reporting on numbers and “official voices” and reported on the stories of actual people. They highlighted a mother who has been waiting for her day in court for three years – over custody of her children. 

This is the first story we have re-noticed here, and if you check it out you’ll see why. See it here (and note that the written text leaves out some of the good parts from the video; they are slightly different).
Filed Under: Community, Courts Budget Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

After Layoffs, L.A. Courts Hiring Again – Judges That Is

July 29, 2013 By
After laying off more than 100 justice workers over the past month and eliminating hundreds more positions, the Los Angeles Superior Court has announced a half-dozen new hires for some $178,789-per-year jobs. Gov. Brown announced the appointment of six new judges last week, including two Superior Court commissioners, one former public defender and two prosecutors.
 
In one of the ironies of the justice rationing system, judges are protected in their jobs. Yet some have complained that they are actually not that effective due to staff cutbacks. Most judges begin their time on the bench after a governor’s appointment, and while they then face “election” most never face serious opposition.
 
The new judges are Loyd C. Loomis, Nicole C. Bershon, Beverly L. Bourne, Rupa S. Goswami, Curtis A. Kin and Teresa T. Sullivan. You can read more about them here.
Filed Under: Community, Courts Budget Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Gov’s Appointment of South Asian Woman Makes Superior Court History

July 19, 2013 By
It’s making the rounds that Gov. Jerry Brown’s July 12 appointment of a South Pasadena resident to the L.A. Superior Court made a bit of history. Rupa S. Goswami, 46, is the first South Asian American woman ever named to the California judiciary, according to multiple sources.
 
The new judge has worked at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Central District of California since 2001. She fills a vacancy created by the retirement of Judge Gary E. Daigh. While Superior Court judges are elected, most begin service via a governor’s appointment and few face serious political challenges after they are appointed.
 
There’s a good profile on the historic move at the India West news website: Read more here!
Filed Under: Community, Courts Budget Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Law Firm Lists Some Effects From Ongoing Court Cutbacks

July 12, 2013 By
Until the mainstream media returns its spotlight on the cuts in civil court funding, which we can assume will happen once the failing system causes a high-profile incident, those involved in the justice community continue to note the demise. One of those is the L.A. law firm of Girardi-Keese, which uses its website to list “only a few” of the effects.
 
They list: In Stanislaus County, parents must wait 17 weeks for a family court mediator; more than 100 courtrooms have closed statewide, more than 50 in Los Angeles County alone; paying a traffic ticket in San Francisco can take four hours; more than 2,600 court employees have lost their jobs.
 
The firm of course calls for changes. See their efforts here.
Filed Under: Community, Courts Budget Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Closing Of Local Courthouses Amounts To Theft

July 11, 2013 By
Closing local courthouses amounts to theft, says the noted left-leaning reporter James Preston Allen, publisher of the San Pedro-based “Random Lengths News” newspaper. To support the claim, he turns to both the state public records law and some old fashioned arithmetic.
 
Writes Allen: “In April of this year, this newspaper filed a public records request with the Los Angeles Superior Court and found that the total monies collected from fees and fines at both the Avalon and San Pedro courts amounted to over $4.5 million per year. In fact, in fiscal year 2010-11 the total collected was a whopping $4,885,772. It would seem that of this gross amount, someone might figure out how to keep the courthouse doors open. But no, this is not the reality. The reason why the court can’t afford to keep doing business is that out of all these revenues collected, the State of California takes 54 percent, the county takes 37 percent and the cities receive 6 percent. And the court? In 2010-11, the court received a paltry one percent,or $48,857.52.” 
 
The writer, in his “At Length” column, says that he is “… personally and profoundly amazed by the indifference shown by the business community, most of the Council District 15 neighborhood councils and the legal profession who have all acquiesced to this abridgment of the public’s right to fair and equal access to the law. Not to mention the loss of 50 well paid jobs and requisite traffic to the court that generates business in the area.”
 
His headline is “Theft of the Courthouse” and you can read it here.
Filed Under: Community, Courts Budget Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Judicial Council Planning Open Meeting, Will Stream Talks

July 8, 2013 By
 
They will call it “historic” this week as the state’s Judicial Council holds an actual public meeting that’s even set for streaming over the Internet. The Monterey Herald is among those heralding the event, calling it “… part of a broader effort to increase transparency in the state’s Judicial Council, which sets policy for the country’s largest court system and has been criticized for keeping its committee meetings and even agendas out of the public eye. A ruling defining the extent of public access to the council’s meetings is expected in coming months.” Increased public involvement was thought by many to be part of a deal that increased courts funding, but Gov. Brown apparently removed such provisions from the final budget.
 
Like every other California county, Monterey has court issues. Along with operational cuts, the raid on construction funds meant that $49 million worth of improvements, including “… three courtrooms in a 47,200-square-foot building; moving Salinas Valley civil suits to the facility; and adding a self-help center, a jury assembly room, children’s waiting room, holding cells, an alternative dispute resolution center, attorney interview rooms and witness waiting rooms” were “delayed.” 
Filed Under: Community, Courts Budget Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Governor, Judicial Council Dismiss ‘Open Government’ Provisions

July 1, 2013 By
 
In a likely blow to an already tense relationship, the California Judicial Council has successfully side-stepped an “open government” provision of the state budget that would have required that the group’s meetings be public. The Judicial Council, which is the administrative office of the justice system, had come under fire during the recent state budget process for its spending practices and for conducting most of its decision-making process in secret. Labor groups, in particular, argue that too many judicial admin decisions are made without public comment.
 
Those concerns earned provision to open Judicial Council process as part of a budget bargain. But last Friday, reports Courthouse News Service, “… after lobbying by California’s Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye, Governor Jerry Brown on Thursday ‘blue penciled,’ or eliminated, that transparency provision.”
Filed Under: Community, Courts Budget Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

‘Hell Week’ Ends With Hundreds Of Friday Firings

June 14, 2013 By
 
One employee at the Stanley Mosk Courthouse called this “hell week” as hundreds of Los Angeles Superior Court workers braced for layoffs. The L.A. Daily News reported that 539 employees will be impacted, and broke the number down: “The move will result in 177 layoffs, 139 workers who will be demoted with pay cuts, 223 who will be transferred to new work locations and some positions that will remain unfilled, a court official said.”
 
Mary Hearn, a court spokesperson, told the newspaper that “… there will be delays in getting hearing dates and there will be much longer lines… we have prided ourselves on being the largest neighborhood court ever in a county the size of Los Angeles County, because no matter where you lived you didn’t have to go far if you had court business to attend to. But with the closure of these court houses … we’ve also had to reorganize the work because now we’re providing service in fewer locations than before.”
 
She also singled out eviction cases and small claims courts as examples of court service cuts. Evictions, called “unlawful detainer cases,” that have been heard in 26 courthouses will be heard in only five. Small claims cases went from 26 sites to two sites.
 
You can read Kevin Smith’s excellent Daily News story here.  
Filed Under: Community, Courts Budget Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Balanced budget? ‘Too little, to late’ for L.A. County court

June 12, 2013 By

 

While the Governor and legislators celebrate their $96.4 billion budget deal, workers at L.A. County court are waiting for their pink slips.

According to an L.A. Times story today: “The Los Angeles County Superior Court plans to eliminate more than 500 jobs by the end of the week in a sweeping cost-cutting plan to close a projected $85-million budget shortfall for the next fiscal year.” The story also includes a breakdown of the layoffs.

Photo credit: Al Seib/L.A. Times as part of the L.A. Times coverage of the L.A. Court layoff story

Photo credit: Al Seib/L.A. Times as part of the L.A. Times coverage of the L.A. County Court layoff story

As part of his deal with legislators, the governor agreed to restore $63 million to the courts in the budget that will take effect July 1– well short of the $100 million the Legislature wanted.

“We are glad that restoration of trial court funding has begun,” said L.A. County Superior Court presiding judge, David Wesley, in a statement. “But it is a shame that it is too little, too late, to stop the awful reductions in access to justice that state funding cuts have brought.”

Read the full story here.

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

Budget deal reached, but with compromises

June 11, 2013 By

Gov. Jerry Brown and lawmakers led by Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg and Assembly Speaker John Perez have reached a deal. The full Senate and Assembly must approve the budget by a midnight Saturday deadline.

The deal does not come without compromises. The Mercury News reports that legislative budget committee chair Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, and vice chair Assemblyman Bob Blumenfield, D-San Fernando Valley, both said at a legislative budget committee meeting late Monday that they agreed to Brown’s lower financial estimate “to reach a deal.”

“As all budgets are acts of compromise, this budget would be no exception,” Leno was quoted as saying in the story.

One of the compromises has hit the judicial budget. According to the story, $63 million will fund trial courts, less than the $100 million the Legislature wanted.

Read the Mercury News story here.

 

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