While not as prestigious as a crystal gavel award, Judicial Council Watcher is going to be looking for stories, people, places and events that promote or detract from change.
First up on the walls of shame is Mr. William Vickery and his sidekick tonto Mr. Ron Overholt and the balance of the AOC directors that turned their backs on ARRA funds.
Someone gave you all entirely too much power and made you accountable to no one.
Since you all figured that having 5 billion dollars of penalty assessment flesh to take out of the average Californian with no transparency or accountability strings attached was better than having over 6 billion dollars that required that you be both transparent and accountable, you should all tender your resignations, for the loss of those federal funds was far more costly than all of the financial shenanigans of Bell, California. Why major media has not honed in on this and why the citizens or even the two judges associations have not run you out of office is beyond me. You all have outlived your welcome and its time for you to all move along. I could go on and on about firing whistleblowers, $150.00 to change a lightbulb, $1,000.00 to lower a flag to half-mast and another $1,000.00 to raise it the next day or overcharging the local courts for the services you provide them that makes you cash rich and them cash poor but I’ll spare you the drama. The number one reason every AOC director should tender their resignations is that they wasted an opportunity to fund their ambitious agenda with over a billion dollars that would have and could have been handed to them to fund it.
I’d like a hall of fame recipient. Know anyone who has worked towards transparency and accountability in the judicial branch? Tell us their story.
Judicial Council Watcher 
JusticeCalifornia
December 2, 2010
Hi Judicial Council Watcher
Over the Thanksgiving weekend I had occasion to go through some old records, and found a list of goals I had made in mid-October of 2006. Some were lofty goals to be sure, related to attaining truth and justice in the judiciary and were not anything one person could accomplish alone. At that point I had been practicing in Marin County for almost 8 long years. A few days later, in late October 2006, someone forwarded me the information on the Judicial Council’s then-upcoming November 2006 Summit of Judicial Leaders that was to take place in San Francisco, with a tip that one key subject would be how to handle judicial critics. Being rather naive but quite optimistic, I called up the Judicial Council’s point person/information officer Lynn Holton and left a message telling her that as a court critic I had a lot to say about what was going on in the branch, and wanted to attend. She called back, [politely] alarmed, and said that speakers were already selected, and members of the press were invited, not members of the public. I was lucky to be able to obtain a press pass (with a promise to write some articles for the little local free paper), and signed up. When I arrived, I was greeted by security who pleasantly took me aside and told me the “rules” about attending. I was then taken to the press table. Ms. Holton was gracious and the next few days were enjoyable and extraordinarily enlightening.
The point of this story is, I realized at that Summit that the Chief Wall of Shamer was and is (and I know this will be controversial) Chief Justice Ron George. He clearly was and is — for better and worse– the master architect of the judicial branch as we know it today. There were already significant rumblings of discontent and revolt back then, and as far as I could tell the Summit was in large part designed to lay out a plan about how to deal with silencing court critics, rather than with remedying the subject matter of the criticism. (BTW, at that Summit Darryl Steinberg advised the assembled luminaries of our judicial branch to “build as big a wall as possible and play defense” and indeed that is what we have seen.)
Anyway, after that 11/06 summit I began researching a bit, and it became clear to me that Ron George had to go if there was any hope for positive change. It seemed impossible back then. He was at the top of his game. 4 years later, Ron George is [almost] gone. I believe that this amazing turn of events was made possible by all those (and there are SO many — court employees, judges, litigants, advocates, members of the press and others), who have had the courage to stand up to the massive, unregulated judicial branch and say “this is wrong”. People have done it in many ways, in many venues, over the past years. Many have paid a steep price for doing so and many are being actively threatened right now.
But let’s get to the Hall of Famer part. I believe that whomever was responsible for AOC watcher deserves an award, because that provided a forum to compare notes and discuss what has been going down.
And thank you Judicial Council Watcher, for this forum, and for writing.
It is quiet right now. But a lot of things are percolating, the results of which will not be known for a while. We have to be patient.
Also, many are cynical that with the new chief we will witness “meet the new boss same as the old boss”, but personally I am withholding judgment. I believe she is getting a free pass right now, but it is the end of an era, and the holidays. We all know she is going to have to step up and show what she is made of very soon after she assumes her new post in January. Change is inevitable, and she can choose to be part of an old problem, or part of a welcome, reunifying solution. She needs to rid herself and the branch of her tarnished, problematic advisors from the George era (Overholt, Vickrey, Turner, Fuentes for starters– feel free to add suggestions. . .) She has indicated that obtaining court funding is a priority, but the reality is if she wants credibility with and support from the legislature, ethical members of the branch, court employees, advocates, and the public, she is going to have to take immediate, visible, substantive steps to a) eliminate branch corruption, mismanagement and waste; b) maximize the funding the branch already has for the benefit of the public, not the bloated AOC bureaucracy and branch buddies, and c) show she has what it takes and is willing to make necessary changes to unify the branch. She is presently being heralded as finishing “the house that George built” but that is not a good thing– she should not forget that George tried to get his name on the building he has been working in for years, and failed miserably. There was good reason for that. A lot of documented injustices have gone down in that building, and naming that building after a key architect and enabler of those injustices would have been an insult to everyone entering and leaving that building. (Again, I know that is controversial, but this is a belief shared by many).
Let’s see what happens.
Wendy Darling
December 4, 2010
Speaking of Daryl Steinberg … how many of you are aware that Steinberg and the new Chief Justice-elect went to law school together and were in the same law school class? The political scuttlebut around Sacramento is that Steinberg was a bit concerned last summer about what effect the erupting fissures, imploding dissention, rapidly growing scandal, and disintegrating credibility over at 455 Golden Gate Avenue and the Judicial Branch/AOC would have in the November election, especially with the hearings before the Assembly Accountability committee and the increasing demands for an investigation into the Judicial Branch and the AOC. The crafted “political solution”?: Steinberg was apparently a direct/prominent participant in (1) brokering a deal for Ron George to suddenly announce his resignation (“to spend more time with my family” or “know when to run”, take your pick) rather than face an ugly retention election and in exchange for the Legislature’s (Steinberg’s) assistance in putting a lid on a scandal like the city of Bell being exposed in the Judicial Branch/the office of the Chief Justice/and the AOC and heading off any investigation and (2) a mutual agreement to put the new Chief Justice-elect (and his law school classmate) forward as the candidate to replace Ron George on the November ballot. So much for a “free choice” of the people to elect qualified candidates of their chosing to State Consitutional Offices, in particular the office of the Chief Justice of the State of California. So much for transparency, accountablity, fairness and ethics in the judicial branch.
Consequently, many of us aren’t expecting things to change much, if at all, at 455 Golden Gate Avenue and in the judicial branch and the office of the Chief Justice come January. Many of us are expecting that things will just get worse and more deeply hidden and secret vis a vis a “reorganization” at the AOC after the new Chief Justice takes office. Some of the names on the doorplates outside certain offices may change, but inside those doors nothing will actually change, especially just giving superficial lip-service to transparency, accountablity, fairness and ethics in the administration of the judicial branch and the AOC. The real motto of judicial branch administration: Say one thing, but do another and make sure you don’t get caught. If you do get caught, make sure you have friends in high places, like the State legislature.
AOC employees don’t even think about filing complaints or voicing any kind of concern any more. They are simply too afraid. The most recent person who dared to file an internal complaint promptly got fired, as usual, and it has been repeatedly reinforced by practice that this is what AOC employees can expect to happen to them should they think about doing anything similar. If judicial branch adminstration consistently silences employees in this manner, why would anyone think that the new Chief Justice-elect, or anyone in a position of authority and power at 455 Golden Gate Avenue, would be concerned one little bit about what the public thinks? The assumption is, and will continue to be, the public doesn’t really pay much attention or have a very good understanding about how the California judicial branch is administered, so they can pretty much get away with anything, even breaking laws they are supposedly responsible for enforcing. And so far, they have been right.
The only real effect the past year has had in the administration of the judicial branch, the Office of the Chief Justice, and the AOC is a grudging realization that they have to find new, secret, and creative ways to continue doing what they have been doing and do so without getting exposed or caught. Chances are good the new judicial branch administration will be as successful in this effort as the last one was.
Instead of The Emperor’s New Clothes, come January it will be The Chief Justice’s New Clothes. Same old story, with the same result.
JusticeCalifornia
December 4, 2010
So Wendy, we are going to see what happens come January. Is Chief Justice C-S a strong, unifying trailblazer/survivor or a retro tow-the-line George kiss-up follower? Let’s see. At present, for now our new CJ has a clean slate for certain of us, and way more power than Steinberg, a known bought-and-paid-for retro George-era lobbyist.
Meanwhile, right now gotta love that the Guv appointed a DOJ lawyer to the Marin bench. James Chou.
Don’t know much about him, but I truly hope he is a legal straight arrow, amidst our decades old, historically corrupt Marin bench cronyism/politics — and what many believe are the current vicious and problematic leftovers therefrom (read: Duryee/Adams/Wood/Turner/Freitas McCarthy /and assorted associates).
Hey, you know what? Someone ought to ask the Judicial Council and Mary Roberts/John Judnick and co. to investigate the legalities of the Duryee/Dufficy/ Sutro/Adams/Wood/ Freitas McCarthy/Fiduciary Resources Marin County financial extravaganzas that have reportedly been going down since what– like 1992? That Judnick report would be seriously entertaining.
🙂
JusticeCalifornia