“They operate in committees and the rest of the body doesn’t necessarily know what’s going on. And here they are trying to run an 1100-person bureaucracy”
Quote from Assemblymember Charles Calderon
Basic management is a blend of both art and science. The art being getting people to be more effective than they would be without your management, the science being the techniques used to achieve that goal. We’re going to touch on the issue of management by committees that meet once a month. It’s unrealistic that our recently appointed SEC committee, the accountability committee or even the judicial council itself could manage a 1,100 person bureaucracy.
To manage an 1,100 person bureaucracy requires an effective, full time management team. This full time management team needs to take ownership of their activities. When they and their teams are successful, they should be rewarded. When they fail or don’t provide honest services, they need to be held accountable. Some measures of accountability are of a private nature, some measures of accountability, such as asking for the resignations of those who spectacularly fail, may be of a more public nature.
What the public and the rest of the judicial branch sees by way of the evidence of spectactular failure presented thus far are things like:
- You can add over a hundred change orders to a project such as CCMS, causing it to balloon in costs by hundreds of millions of dollars. You can describe your colossal failure to plan an “iterative process” as opposed to a plan to fail. You are rewarded by being permitted to keep your $150,000.00 + per year paycheck, your pension and get a shiny plaque of positive affirmation acknowledging AOC and Judicial Councils appreciation for your contributions in promoting access to justice.
- You are permitted to lie to the legislature about how much you spent on what will likely be the worlds most expensive, privately developed public software program. You are permitted to string council members along and not give them straight answers as to costs, both in terms of past costs and future costs.
- You are permitted to hire a consulting firm from overseas and feed them a bunch of lofty assumptions that will never come to fruition due to your previous failure to plan. That consulting firm will advocate you wasting more of the public’s money because that is the analysis you paid them to produce.
- You’ve been overpaying unlicensed, unqualified contractors for years while ignoring complaints of the same for nearly as long as they have been working for you. During the entire time that you have personal knowledge of their lack of qualifications, overcharging and lack of a contractors license, you look the other way. When you are caught using them, you deny you’ve been caught for three years. Only because someone threatens to take the matter public do you take action and file a sham lawsuit against the unlicensed vendors with the Attorney General’s office, when you typically and historically have relied on outside counsel. In fact, you’ve never turned anything over to the AG’s office before this incident. Your real reason for going to the AG’s office is to pre-empt a department of justice investigation into your illegal activities under attorney/client privilege and to obstruct justice. When you turn the matter over to the AG’s office, you falsify the amount of damages to a reduced amount so that your kickback scheme doesn’t completely unravel and disclaim the existence of the company you’ve been doing business with for the previous 5 years.
- You’ve been hired to head an HR department. One of the first things that happens after you take over is your alleged associate embezzles more than a hundred grand from your organization and you proceed to work with others to cover it up. Then you blow over 60 people out the door because many won’t willingly agree to violate the law or overlook a lack of qualifications. You don’t perform or require criminal background checks or employment background checks. You don’t perform credible candidate interviews.
What you have in the AOC is a team of people whose interest is to grow the organization and the layers of management between the top and the bottom so that they can justify higher pay in newly created positions.
Just a few years ago, “Senior Manager” wasn’t a title at the AOC. Today, most divisions have several senior managers whose sole purpose is to manage one or two managers below them. Some senior managers have zero managers below them. As one entry in our private message window recently pointed out, the organization could benefit from a reorganization, a level-setting of titles and the removal of layers of management between the grunt doing the work and the person directing the agency.
All directors and assistant directors should step down and the wholesale elimination of all senior managers should take effect. Create a position of division manager because “director” implies independence.
There is no independence in the AOC group of directors. If you wish to keep directors, make them independent and appointed from the (democratically elected) Judicial Council from the trial courts. Being a director is not normally a full-time job in most companies or agencies, save the executive director.
Current directors are tasked with being division managers, nothing more.
There’s a small group of people that have shephearded the unprecedented growth in the AOC who were in it from the start of Lockyer-Isenberg. Most of these people have no previous management experience and no formal training. Their qualifications consist of working in a lower grade capacity for a certain amount of time. They could not pass an exam for their positions and lack the educational background. Their claimed value is “institutional knowledge”. They now run the AOC organization and for years have been adding additional layers of management to boost their positions and pay. In some cases, they’ve hired staffs of people and had them sitting around doing little to nothing just so they could justify the management positions they were creating for someone.
If the SEC committee is really intent on doing its job, then one of the questions they should ask and really look at carefully is how everyone with the title of manager or above obtained their job, where they came from to get to that position and why they were hired for that position as opposed to another candidate. In most cases, these positions were handed out as loyalty bonuses and have little resemblance to promoting competence within the organization.
Now about the SEC committee- An analysis of the membership of the SEC committee would cause one to come to the conclusion that they’re not as impartial as they may seem. In fact, many of the committee members could be easily led to believe they potentially have something to lose in advocating for a less bloated/management trimmed/function trimmed AOC. About half of them are in a race for their own courthouses and rely on AOC’s various services as opposed to hiring people locally. Others are “and now it is time that you scratch my back” appointments of individuals who are tainted themselves. Most are advocates of the AOC and their various functions. There is not a critic amongst them.
We’re working on a “potential conflicts of interest” piece that we will be amending to the bottom of this post for our new SEC committee.
Isn’t it time for some professional management and some accountability at the AOC?
_______________________________________________________________
Nathaniel Woodhull
April 10, 2011
Once again, JCW hits the bulls-eye!
Having been a part of many organizations during my lifetime, in both the public and private sector, I have never seen an institution organized or run like the Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC).
The AOC website gives the following explanation for their existence:
“The Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC) is the staff agency of the Judicial Council, which has policy-making authority over the state court system.
The agency is based in San Francisco and maintains three regional offices. Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye serves as chair of the Judicial Council. William C. Vickrey is the Administrative Director of the Courts, and Ronald G. Overholt is the Chief Deputy Director. The agency is organized into nine divisions in San Francisco, one division in Sacramento, and three regional offices, with a staff of more than 750 serving the courts for the benefit of all Californians.”
Regional Administrative Directors of the three “regions”, each of them who is paid more than Superior Court Judges, routinely tell Presiding Judges that the AOC is there to help and support the trial courts. They are…really????
With the dawn of each day the AOC seemingly creates some new department, sub-department, committee, subcommittee or advisory group. While each of our trial courts is forced to freeze hiring and even lay-off existing staff, the AOC merrily hires away; while claiming that they are not doing so. Oftentimes they use the rouse of hiring “contract” workers, not employees, many of whom somehow morph into regular employees down the road. Each sub-group or entity is branded with its very special AOC “title”. Even the United States military does not use the number of acronyms and initialsms that the AOC does. It makes my head hurt just trying to read any of their nonsensical publications, each of which results in the elimination of a forest. Most AOC publications now comes with their own “list of abbreviations or acronysms.” The following is a partial list from a 105-page report titled: “SAN BERNARDINO COURTHOUSE FOR THE SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN BERNARDINO: Final Initial Study and Mitigated Negative Declaration”: § Section; AB Assembly Bill; ADOC Administrative Director of the Courts; AOC Administrative Office of the Courts; AQMP Air Quality Management Plan; BMP Best Management Practice; CRHR California Register of Historical Resources; HRCR Historical Resources Compliance Report; ITE Institute of Transportation Engineer; LOS Level of service; MGD Million gallons per day; NAHC Native American Heritage Commission; NPDES National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System; PM10 Particulate matter less than 10 microns in diameter; PM2.5 Particulate matter less than 2.5 microns in diameter; ROG Reactive Organic Gases; SBIA San Bernardino International Airport; SCAQMD South Coast Air Quality Management District.
From a practical standpoint, I see incredible waste by people trying to justify their existence making many things “new & improved”. For example, Domestic Violence Prevention Act (DVPA) orders from 1997 were about 4-pages long. Succinct, easy to read and complete. Last time I looked, the DVPA order packets were about 13-pages, including multiple pages of mindless drivel in 9 point type that no one could read or understand. Family Law forms are re-bundled every six months, requiring that local courts and practitioners print copies of new forms that are not any better than the old forms. But this type of activity keeps many AOC staff attorneys employed…each making about $200 per month less than a Superior Court Judge.
My suggestion, the SEC committee should go back to the AOC organizational chart from 1990-1996. Any position added since that time should be required to be justified; and not just by saying that the AOC has assumed statewide responsibilities since the passage of the Lockyer-Isenberg legislation. A hard look should be given to any new administrative hires and attorney hires. If the trial courts are facing lay-offs and cut backs by the end of the 2012 budget cycle that will make them about 52% of the size they were in 2000, the AOC administrative structure should, at the very least, be reduced by the same proportionate size.
wendy darling
April 10, 2011
Well put. Well said. All true. Unfortunately, the Judicial Council and the AOC could care less.
If change is going happen, if accountability is going to happen, if anything is going to happen … all roads lead to Sacramento. Next stop: the Assembly Committee on Accountability and Administrative Review, and the hearing on AB 1208.
Long live the ACJ.
antonatrail
April 10, 2011
Great post, JCW! Very powerful. It should be required reading for all California judges. Nathaniel Woodhull’s comments also very powerfully on point which should be required reading — for all judges and CA citizens.
Mrs. Kramer
April 10, 2011
What is the history of this? When did governance of our judicial system begin to go awry? When did it cross the line to what appears to be corruption?
wendy darling
April 10, 2011
The very first chapters of the California Judicial Branch’s twisted version of The Emperor’s New Clothes probably began early in the career of Ronald M. George in the California Attorney General’s Office and then as a judge in the California superior courts.
But it didn’t really start getting cut and tailored until about 1998-2000 when, with George as the architect of judicial branch “unification” (“reorganization”), the State Legislature enacted all of the Trial Court Acts, including, The Trial Court Unification Act, The Trial Court Funding Act, and The Trial Court Employment Protection and Governance Act.
The State Legislature left it to George, the Judicial Council, and the AOC, the responsibility to also put into place The Trial Court Bill of Rights. As we all know, this didn’t happen.
It is up to you, and each of us individually, to determine where, along this path, things began “to go awry,” where the “leadership” of the judicial branch lost all sense of appropriate direction and crossed the line into “what appears to be corruption.” There is also the possibility that that was the intended direction to begin with.
All roads lead to Sacramento. Long live the ACJ.
Nathaniel Woodhull
April 10, 2011
Just when you think they could not possible blunder any worse than they already have, look at what the folks at 455 Golden Gate Avenue are doing now. I am going to paraphrase Chery Miller’s article so as hopefully not to violate copyright laws. Look for Monday’s full story in The Recorder.
=======
AOC Senior Staff Attorney Donna Clay-Conti sent out an email, on company time and with the company computer, endorsing and seeking assistance in getting 2nd District Justice Laurie Zelon appointed to the Judicial Council. The email said: “Justice Zelon would like your suport” and provided a link to her online nomination. Many people were incensed that a staff attorney at the AOC was overtly trying to subvert the appointment process.
Ms. Zelon is chair of a panel on the Judicial Council’s Access and Fairness Advisory Committee. Looks like Ms. Clay-Conti is the staff attorney for that Committee. Mary Roberts, AOC’s General Council, suggested that Ms. Clay-Conti exercised “poor judgment” and apologized for her actions.
Ms. Zelon was appointed by Gray Davis to the LA Superior in 2000. She stayed there long enough to have a cup of coffee before being elevated to the 2nd District Court of Appeals. She has been a good earner for the various Judicial Council committees she has served on. Rather than an apology, maybe someone should look into whether the staff attorney’s efforts were in violation of PC section 424(a)1.
The level of arrogance and disregard for ethical and legal process within the AOC is mind numbing. Any person with a good moral compass would immediately let it be known that they are not interested in serving on the Judicial Council given the actions taken by Ms. Clay-Conti…but I’m sure Ms. Zelon’s compass was demagnetized many years ago.
wendy darling
April 10, 2011
Sadly, Judge Woodhull, this kind of conduct is not even surprising from the AOC’s Office of General Counsel and its attorneys.
Mrs. Kramer
April 10, 2011
Thank you. That is what I figured. Sometime around ’98 to 2000 is when politics really began to influence our courts. That is the same time period that the US Chamber of Commerce changed from an organization that was to promote the everyday business man to the most powerful lobbying org representative of large corporations. Alot of things changed in the US around that time. The marketing of conceptual spins to achieve goals in the interest of big business really began to come into play. So when did Justice Huffman become involved with the Judicial Council? From where did he come to make the judicial political scene? What is his connection to ex-Chief Justice George? From where did Bill Vickery come?
Its ironic, isn’t it? The Republican mantra is that less big government and decentralized control of money and decisions is the best path for a viable society. Yet here we have a situation where more big government is being promoted with only one, centralized control group. I am gleaning so much valuable information from this web site!
wendy darling
April 10, 2011
Bill Vickrey came from … the Utah State Prison system.
antonatrail
April 10, 2011
Mrs. Kramer: you may want to read the AOCWatcher dot wordpress dot com site. Heavy, bedtime reading. You will not sleep afterwards, however, but will be stark-staring at your ceiling hours afterward. Then peruse JCW’s site top to bottom. (apologies to CJ Sock-it-to-CACitizens! for stealing the top to bottom quote)
courtflea
April 10, 2011
Good post JCW. The really sick part is most of the people working at the AOC, no matter the title, don’t know s**t from shineola about the court system.
From today’s SACTO Bee (kinda lukewarm but at least the press is keeping it in the limelight):
http://www.sacbee.com/2011/04/10/3541281/dan-walters-a-judicial-fight-may.html
Judicial Council Watcher
April 10, 2011
I’m not sure this SacBee reporter read Mr. Calderon’s letter. Giving the AOC time to come to the table is a godfather offer. They’ve got about a week. He’s not going to shelve a bill with political momentum behind it. The AOC isn’t going to listen to their critics, the chief justice has her fingers in her ears and is saying lalala I can’t hear you and this bill will make it as part of the year end package.
The post itself was the brainchild of all of you whose facts contributed to it.
wendy darling
April 10, 2011
The Sacramento Bee article quotes Calderon, in reference to the current Chief Justice, as saying: “Calderon, while accusing George’s AOC of attempting “to emasculate its critics, particularly Alliance judges, through new spins, whisper campaigns and threats,” says he’s willing to delay action on the bill to give her a chance to work out diffdieerences with the rebels and “control the massive AOC bureaucracy.”
To any members of the ACJ out there, is this accurate? Is Calderon going to let AB 1209 die?
And given the poll results of the CJA survey in which, quote, “a resounding majority of the state’s judges declared their dissatisfaction” with current judicial branch governance, perhaps it might be time to stop labeling the members of the ACJ “rebels.”
From a different perspective, given what has come to light in the months since the ACJ was formed, perhaps it’s time to start referring to the ACJ as patriots.
Long live the ACJ.
versal-versal
April 10, 2011
Now thats an interesting twist. AOC lawyers lobbying for Judges to get appointed to the JC. Thanks Woodhull for the heads up on that. Makes one wonder if that hasn’t happened before. It may explain why some Judges are ” selected” . The implications of this are serious. Once again we see a bureaucracy acting in its own interests not the publics. Ms Roberts owes everyone more than a tepid apology. This is one more example of why a complete house cleaning is in order at 455 Golden Gate.
courtflea
April 10, 2011
Wendy, as I recall, the whistleblowers and the ACJ were referred to as the Jedis against the “death star” of the AOC, on the AOC Watcher blog. Yes they are patriots. Sorta like that movie “Patriot”, in my flea mind. You know, fought the fight, hated the blood letting, wanted to stay out of the next mess, but things got so bad, they had to fight for what they believed in no matter the consequences. The risk is high. But the personal rewards will be great ( I say personal because publicly you all are being so abused). Anyone that is brave enough to risk their careers and reputation for such a cause are true heroes, in my mind. Real Sgt. Yorks. Do what they have to do, and I thank all of them for it. Battles have been lost, but you are in for the long haul and will eventually win the war on behalf of all of us that believe in you. May the force be with you ACJ.
wendy darling
April 10, 2011
In the American colonies, judges, and others in the legal profession, were among the first to oppose and resist enforcing laws handed down from The Crown (King George) that they knew were illegal and which violated basic due process. Many of these same colonists would later be instrumental in helping form the due process provisions of the U.S. Constitution and The Bill of Rights.
In their time, King George and the English Crown called them “rebels” and traitors. History remembers them as among the patriots of The American Revolution.
Tomorrow, April 11, by the way, marks the 150 year anniversary of the two-day attack on Fort Sumter in 1861 and the beginning of the American Civil War.
Given the fact that you have State attorneys in the AOC’s Office of General Counsel making phone calls in order to overtly subvert the appointment process for the Judicial Council, and doing so at taxpayer expense and being paid with public money, and the AOC’s own Chief Counsel viewing that as nothing more than “poor judgment,” one can only wonder what the “next shot heard round the California judicial branch” will be.
Long live the ACJ.
lando
April 10, 2011
The hits just keep on coming . The video that J Bruiners made when all the CCMS AOC committees got reorganized said CCMS was going to be deployed in 60 days if my memory is right. It has now been 60 days and I still don’t see CCMS in whatever V version its sponsors say it is ready to be in. Now incredibly it is reported J.Bruiners is saying CCMS is only 1.7 million from completion. Huh? I guess those multiple billion dollar figures the State Auditor was talking about are at best an illusion. I’m sorry but I can’t and don’t believe anything anymore about the CCMS spin. You Tube the AOC’s own TV network and find their propaganda piece made some time ago that claims they were just so close at deploying CCMS. A huge majority of California Judges have indicated they have no faith in this project. Is it any wonder? The CJ needs to take action on this. I would start by asking J Bruiners to step down and suspend all further funding of this wasteful project.
Judicial Council Watcher
April 11, 2011
This December 1 2009 video is a classic. Our favorite parts are those played by Paul Robinson of Deloitte Consulting at 50 seconds in and at 4:45. We really like the 4:45 segment, it’s our favorite.
The anticipated delivery date? “Will be ready for release after 5 months of testing in 2010” or May, 2010. It is now over a year and millions of dollars overdue.
When anyone else buys a product, they get a warranty that the product will be free of defects. When defects are found, the AOC pays to get those defects fixed. At the rate of a million dollars a week…
Nearly a year ago, CCMS coding errors was deemed so severe that its release date was pushed back. As recently as December 2010 this program still had “over 900 coding errors”
Michael Paul
April 12, 2011
According to the CCN video, the application was completed last year and tens of millions of dollars ago. If the product failed to pass acceptance testing nearly a year ago, why does the taxpayer bare the responsibility for fixing it?
In December 2009, they were giving CCMS glowing reviews and citing near completion pending acceptance testing. Discussing completion in terms of dollars until completion – well, I’d like to see that contract language. Justice Bruniers is dealing with one of the most savvy consulting firms in the world. They’re not a software company. They’re a consulting company. They get paid to consult and write software based on the customers requirements. The icing on the cake is that the customers requirements keep changing. Above me somewhere is mentioned a simple DV form that was once four simple pages that anyone can understand that today is 13 pages of unnecessary crap that not even a lawyer can understand.
Process drives function. As all of those attorneys in the AOC update their various forms twice a year, it’s a sure bet that CCMS process will need to be modified to drive the function of new forms, new procedures, etc. To top it off, the institutional knowledge for this application is not rooted in Deloitte. The institutional knowledge for this application is rooted in the H1B visa program.
courtflea
April 10, 2011
V-V, how do you think the E&P committee gets names for 3 nominees to be forwarded on to the CJ to “select”? This attorney only foolishly got caught. Everything, everything, everything, that goes to all committees is based on AOC staff recommendations, which are all approved by BV or Ron O. Pleeze, you don’t want to have a nominee to the Council that has an opinion! You want only those that will toe the line….who has time to read those binders anyway…go with the staff recommendation!!
Any AOC employee that has had a moral compass is long gone or is totally stiffled in fear of losing their source of income. There is no “ethics or law” to follow in the AOC sorta like the wild west but wrapped in a pin striped suit. There are only the directives you get from above and we all know the results of not toeing that line.
David A
April 11, 2011
Worth noting that a few years back, E & P, responding to Justice Huffman’s objections, killed an independent consultant’s report (a report commissioned at considerable expense) that had the audacity to recommend all JC advisory committees be re-evaluated for relevancy/redundancy (per California Rules of Court), and that the committees be re-organized, and/or eliminated where prudent. Anyone who has ever seen the joke that passes for an advisory committee work plan would recognize why that kind of review makes sense. Too bad the report never got past E&P and AOC “Directors” and “Senior Managers.”
wendy darling
April 11, 2011
Published this afternoon on Courthouse News:
California Judges Pass Proposal to Control Bureaucrats at Conclave, By MARIA DINZEO
Long live the ACJ.
Judicial Council Watcher
April 11, 2011
Reading, it appears the CJA is trying to buy the AOC enough time to get to the next legislative year by taking a neutral position on the survey, other than the confidential comments which I don’t know how they intend to share if they’re confidential.
http://www.courthousenews.com/2011/04/11/35687.htm
Nathaniel Woodhull
April 11, 2011
Under the administration of HRH George, many judges chose not to renew their memberships in the CJA, as it was self-evident that CJA had become a wholly owned subsidiary of the AOC; this despite the heroic efforts of a vocal minority. At that time, back when it appeared the State was rolling in dough, judges got their 8.5% equity salary increases promised by HRH and this payoff resulted in the Mize/Friedman mantra that “we must speak with one voice” (that of HRH). The last CJA President with a set was Eric Taylor; and despite his exceptional professional qualifications, it was made clear that by standing up to HRH and the Vickrey machine, Eric would never be elevated to the Court of Appeals (assuming that Governor Brown doesn’t buck this long standing trend of doing the bidding of the CJ when it comes to appellate appointments.)
This latest “position” taken by the CJA shows that the pattern continues. First, they appoint a committee they can laud and say is “diverse” and includes people with “contrary” opinions. Then, once they come up with the membership’s poll on AB 1208, the “management” of the AOC, I’m sorry I mean the CJA, includes the spiked push-poll question #($)4. Despite their best efforts, 47% of those members who responded (only about 40% of the total judiciary) showed support for AB 1208, while 42% of that same pool opposed or couldn’t decide what position to take. Including the membership of ACJ and those not a member of either organization, the numbers are probably about 60+% of the judiciary being in favor of AB 1208.
Based upon the results of their survey, the CJA Board decided not to take a position on AB 1208. Bet your bottom dollar that if the results were reversed, (47% opposed and 42% in favor,) the CJA Board would have issued a press release talking about how much their organization opposed this awful piece of legislation.
Any CJA member should formally ask Mr. Davis if his travel to Sacramento to confront Assembly Member Calderon about AB 1208 before it was formally introduced was paid for by the CJA members. On multiple occasions he professes that his meeting with ASM Calderon was “personal” and not in his capacity as the President of CJA. Despite this, the information I have received is that he twice refused to answer the question……hmm.
Please, each of you, keep fighting the good fight!
Judicial Council Watcher
April 11, 2011
I don’t believe a whole lot of people dispute the benefits of speaking with one voice but as Judge Lampe so aptly pointed out, that one voice must be found and people must be given a voice to find it.
The dissatisfaction expressed in the oversight of the AOC in the survey was overwhelming, yet we hear rather timid commentary coming out about addressing it – as if the AOC had wrote it for them or negotiated what would be said.
If this is the voice of the judiciary, the judiciary needs a new voice.
Michael Paul
April 11, 2011
~just laughs~
courtflea
April 11, 2011
the CCMS video, very good. Pravda could not have done beter. Just as a catty aside, Sheila C. needs to fire her hair dresser and her plastic surgeon. I have seen her since the late 80’s and she is now unrecognizable. has the CCMS debacle driven her over the edge or what? it is just really weird. I’d comment on the guys but they are all nearly bald 🙂
Regarding AOC staff and E&P, they have killed so many things. One was the Court Executive Officer’s Advisory Committee’s decision to change the committee’s composition to be more representative of the trial courts. BV and Ron O were present when the committee members made this decision. The disgusting thing is as you know, this was done without any democratic review or even review by the JC. Just J Huffman not wanting the change. Bahhhh! May J Huffman experience the proverbial what goes around comes around.
The CJA decision? I shall reserve my opinion on that one. However, I applaud the judges present that did not let 1208 die.
wendy darling
April 11, 2011
If nothing else, it’s probably good to know that censorship, whenever possible, will be employed and practiced by the current “leadership” of the California Judicial Branch in anything involving in internal branch governance, administration, and management, including internal misconduct. It’s really not possible to square that with “transparency,” but it is, however, “reality.”
Long live the ACJ.
courtflea
April 11, 2011
NW: as long as I have a bone in my body I will always fight the good fight. What you all don’t know is I have given nearly all I have for it, in order to do so, and not just to the branch but on a more micro level. Being ethical and taking responsibility have no value. The only time when I will give up (other than lacking bones) is when I no longer have any value to give to the fight.
Rock on NW and ACJ.
lando
April 12, 2011
So the CJA Board won’t take a position on anything despite their memberships overwhelming vote. The CJA was once the voice of judicial independence. It had a first class judicial education arm and an in house ethics program that helped thousands of Judges. Then as part of their need to control all, CJ George and Mr Vickrey took control of CJA. They took over judicial education and with the full consent of CJA’s leaders wiped out an honorable and effective judicial ethics program. To their credit , many Judges saw what was happening and resigned their CJA membership. The then low point in CJA history occurred when Jim Mize and Terry Freidman ran the CJA into the ground and allowed AOC leadership to sit in on every CJA Board meeting. More Judges left the CJA. Thats the history and context that explains the latest CJA Boards unwillingness to stand up and represent their membership. 62% of CJA Judges voiced concern about the current JC leadership. Another almost 80% of CJA voiced their unhappiness about the the failed CCMS project. Thats huge. Yet the CJA Board refuses to act. Its time for CJA members to ask their Board to resign and elect a new leadership that has the courage to act and speak on behalf of the overwhelming majority of its members.
Mrs Kramer
April 12, 2011
Court flea,
Know exactly what you mean. Evil flourishes when good men standby and do nothing. I am giving a internet radio interview next Monday evening for a small station out of Wisconsin. It is a program that is dedicated to inequities in society that are permitted to continue because of indifference and lack of dilligence by elected, appointed and hired government entities –whose sole functions are to do their damn jobs for the public good.
They tell me that since they have been interviewing people who are reporting serious breaches of ethics within the CA legal system as it pertains to interests of industry taking precedence over public health and worker safety, their audience has greatly increased. They are up to about 7000 listeners.
I am intending to speak of Justice Huffman and Justice McConnell (and four others in the Fourth District Division One Appellate Court) being willing participants in a malicious, libel litigation that benefits the interest of the affiliates of the US Chamber.
Among other interesting aspects of their opinions, they rewarded the use of criminal perjury by an author of fraudulent medico-legal policy for the US Chamber. The criminal perjury was strategically used to establish needed reason for malice over the first public writing exposing how it became a fraud in US health policy that moldy buildings do not harm. (I was able to knock the fraud out of federal policy by getting a federal GAO audit – but the Chamber still rules the day in private sector policy)
The ramifications of these justices’ actions are aiding with the continuance of this fraud in private sector health policy and in the courts, while knowing full well what their actions have done has helped to literally destroy the lives of thousands in California and from across the US.
Now, a lower court is being used (abused) to try to gag me from writing and speaking of what these justices have done to aid the fraud to continue by being willing participants in a litigation that has been carried out by criminal means. Fat Chance that I will be gagged by these politicians disguised as distinguished justices using the courts for their own best interest.
Its billions of dollars saved for the affiliates of the US Chamber affiliates and thousands of lives devastated by their actions. These justices, who are at the helms of California’s legal system, need to be held accountable for practicing politics, not law, in a manner adverse to the public’s best interest. Their bullying tactics and above the law attitudes make them a serious threat to democracy itself.
It is a very sad statement of the condition of our legal system when even judges feel they must remain anonymous members of a organization that is trying to rid those who would retaliate against their detractors. If judges are not permitted to practice rights guaranteed to all US citizens under the First Amendment of the Constitition and to freely speak the truth in the state of California without fear of retribution, then who in our society is?
Will let you know when I have more info of the show. Its call in friendly!
Michael Paul
April 12, 2011
I’ve never seen any company or government agency structured or operated quite like the AOC is myself. The lowest ranking person in my technical services group was a technical analyst. From this position I’ll work my way upwards to the executive director.
Technical Analyst or Senior Tecnhnical Analyst reports to
Supervising Technical Analyst, who anywhere else would be considered a manager.
The supervising technical Analysts (who work in the capacity of managers) report to managers.
The managers report to a senior manager.
The senior manager reports to an assistant director
The assistant director reports to the director
The director reports to the executive director
The executive director reports to E&P
E&P reports to the Chief Justice
That’s 7 layers of management from the grunt on the ground to the top of a 1000+ person organization. That’s still 5 layers if you never leave the AOC. For the grunt on the ground, if one follows the policies and procedures, the chain of command upwards comes to an end at your director. Never before in my entire working career have I witnessed an organization whose upward chain of command structure ended 3/4 up the chain of command.
Interdepartmental communications (getting things done) and proper etiquette in the AOC generally consists of moving things up one chain of command, over and down the other chain of command as if directors were international diplomats in the league of nations.
As I worked there for 8.5 years, I saw this politicization get progressively worse with the added layers of management. The added layers of management needed purpose and the purpose they found was to guide interdivisional communications in an increasingly insular fashion or rather, request that such communications occur in that fashion.
Supervisors and those below them manage and perform the work. Those above them, as JCW points out are added layers of management.
I recall 4 people moving over from working at the old CCTC/Siemens directly into AOC IT management and supervisor positions, much to the chagrin of those who had worked hard in the hopes of being promoted into these positions some day.
I question the use of consultants by the IT department whose companies and individuals stayed on the payroll for the entire time I worked there while telling other consultants (like me) that they could only employ them as a consultant for 3 years and they either have to hire you or let you go.
antonatrail
April 12, 2011
JCW: Could we have a ping back to “Who’s on First” with Abbott and Costello here?
Judicial Council Watcher
April 12, 2011
I can’t seem to be able to embed this in the body of the post. The first skit speaks to the AOC’s accounting practices, the second is their organizational structure and the last is the classic who is on first skit.
antonatrail
April 12, 2011
Thanks for the clarification. I thought that the second skit was the preview of an upcoming AOC retirement bash …
Nathaniel Woodhull
April 12, 2011
Sometimes I think the AOC is run like M&M Enterprises… the prophet for profit (remember Lieutenant Milo Minderbinder????)
JusticeCalifornia
April 12, 2011
Indeed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milo_Minderbinder
versal-versal
April 12, 2011
In the many anti-AB 1208 communications I’ve seen Terry Freidman’s name is among those listed. As pointed out here in many posts, Mr Freidman has consistently catered to the whims of the JC and AOC at the expense of his then fellow Judges and the public. What amazes me is that he is still on the stage. He resigned as a Judge over a year ago and doesn’t serve as an assigned Judge yet he remains on the JC and is among the most vocal opponents of reform along with supporting the now failed CCMS project.. The fact that he was allowed to remain on the JC really speaks volumes about the continued insular and anti-democratic nature of how our branch is governed.
Judicial Council Watcher
April 12, 2011
How much is Mr. Friedman paid for his work is what we’re curious about. And what are the sources of those funds? Is this altruism for the good of the branch? Is he paid by an outside consultancy, the AOC, the Judicial Council, the CJA?
Under what circumstances specifically did he step down from the bench because we can’t find anything on the internet about it, though it has not been an exhaustive search…
Mrs Kramer
April 12, 2011
I have a question. The US Chamber of Commerce and the Manhattan Institute paid two owners of a corporation called Veritox, Inc. to author their position statement on mold in 2003, called “A Scientific View of the Health Effects of Mold.”
They told the two phds that they wanted them to write something specifically for judges. What they wrote to “educate” judges is “Thus the notion that toxic mold is an insidious secret killer as so many media and trial lawyers would claim is ‘Junk Science” unsupported by actual scientific study”.
I have often wonder HOW the “Scientific View” of the US Chamber was able to get to the judges so they could be “educated”. Does AOC put on educational events for judges? Or do they somehow play a role in supposedly keeping them current on science and litigation?
When I told Justice Huffman and the other two in oral argument of the matter and that it was nothing but a marketing campaign and “You, your Honor, were the target market.” He did not say a word. Just glared at me. Then they all got up and walked out. I have it all on audio tape.
Judicial Council Watcher
April 12, 2011
Mrs. Kramer,
If you view legal journals and publications, you’ll soon discover that there are a myriad of subject matter experts that are willing to testify to their own beliefs for a price. They’re called professional witnesses. In the legislative arena, they’re often referred to as lobbyists. In either case, they exist to influence a constituency for a fee. It is part of our capitalistic democracy that free speech can be purchased.
Does it make it right that these things have an undue influence on things like public policy, courthouse construction / immediate needs project lists, public health, child welfare, consumer safety or even what amount of debt we pass along to our grandchildren every time a bond is sold?
No. It doesn’t. But this is why we have a representative democracy here in America and where you can exert the greatest influence of all is not in the courts but in your local community and with your local politicians.
What we won’t pretend is that these systems aren’t flawed and in some cases, broken because of professionally paid mouthpieces in the pseudo-science community and lobbyists. With that being said, this isn’t the best forum for that argument.
JusticeCalifornia
April 12, 2011
Mrs. Kramer, I don’t know about mold, but your judicial education story is uncomfortably familiar.
It sounds very like the JC/AOC memo (judicial “education”?) that apparently went out telling family and juvenile courts to suddenly take children away from protective parents– male or female– WITH NO HISTORY OF ABUSE–and give those protective parents and their children only supervised visits with each other– or no contact at all. Often the only magic word a mediator, evaluator, minor’s counsel, therapist, judge or anyone else related to the case needs to say in order to justify this result is “alienating”.
If this happened in third world or nazi/lebensborn-wannabe countries– children suddenly and brutally taken away from longtime caretaker/protective parents WITH NO HISTORY OF ABUSE (a la the book/movie 1984)– our country would jump in and accuse the perps of all kinds of atrocities.
But it is happening right here, right now, in the USA with the endorsement of family and juvenile courts nationwide. And some of us are witnessing very interesting targets: extraordinarily bright children of pro pers, immigrants and others WITH NO HISTORY OF ABUSE who are unable to protect their rights. Many super-intelligent children are being de-railed physically, emotionally and intellectually by being taken suddenly and completely away from intelligent, protective and caring parents WITH NO HISTORY OF ABUSE– against their will –and being placed with parents or others with documented histories of abuse/mental illness/addictions.
These formerly very promising, intelligent children are forcefully and unequivocally being taught that might equals right. And if you complain or protest it will get worse.
And necessarily– many highly intelligent, loving, protective parents in this country –men and women–are being emotionally and intellectually de-railed, distracted and destroyed by having their children suddenly and wrongfully taken from them.
Those of us witnessing this horrific but increasing and ever-so-predictable family/juvenile court outcome query– is this social research? Social experimentation? Social engineering?
Think about it. Whatever it is, it is taking place, right here, right now.
Mrs Kramer
April 13, 2011
Yes. I know of a case where a twenty year mentor teacher had a workers comp claim against a CA school district for being sickened by mold, etc, in her class room w/her child being sickened at the same school. She ended up in front of a judge having to defend herself from child abuse charges for claiming they were sickened by the school and had to agree to psychological evaluation or CPS would take her child. (even with physician reports confirming her claims of illness). The county attorney’s office was pursuing the CPS case, along with being involved in the workers comp case of the school district. Long story, but she and the child now live in Europe. She is afraid to speak of it, even from there, until the child reaches 18.
So how does one get access to educational materials that have been put out by AOC..while using my tax dollars to “educate” judges?
JWC, saw your “not the best forum” comment. Would you prefer I not ask these questions about AOC on this forum? Don’t want to be a rude guest. Is there some place better for me to ask them of those in the know?
Thanks,
Sharon
Judicial Council Watcher
April 13, 2011
I don’t think education on a wide variety of public policy issues is something the AOC incorporates into its judicial education curriculum and perhaps I wasn’t necessarily clear about that. The people who educate these judges on these issues are the judges themselves, witnesses and attorneys. The “not the best forum comment” was related to the professional witnesses that you oppose. The cause of my comment meant to point to the real problem, not necessarily one you may perceive.
With respect to many of the family court issues, we consider them part and parcel of the problem, yet it is not court ordered ACOEM mouthpieces testifying or making recommendations in these cases and as you’ve pointed out, there is irrefutable evidence that mold causes health problems.
lando
April 12, 2011
Thanks to a number of You for commenting on former Judge Terry Freidman’s role in supporting the JC/AOC and remaining on the JC. To obtain some powerful “insights” into the history of Mr Friedman please check out the archives in the metnews.com If you scroll down to the end of the metnews archive page and click on Judicial elections you will find some powerful editorial comments about Mr Friedman’s 1994 campaign for Superior Court Judge. Most interesting is the editorial from June 17, 1996 entitled “Judge Terry Friedman-Who’s He Trying to Kid “.
JusticeCalifornia
April 12, 2011
Sorry JCW, just gotta say it like it is.
Some of the nation’s worst and most infamous child custody perps–to wit, Marin County’s Kim Turner and Verna Adams– are now advising our current micro-mini-and-getting-smaller-by the-minute-mini-mimi cj.
mini mimi cj cs — you who shamelessly exploits your immigrant heritage
while shamefully depending upon and riding shotgun with some of CA’s most historically and ethnically biased court personnel–
shame on you.
JusticeCalifornia
April 13, 2011
You know, one of the great things about this blog is that it prods us to think about and investigate things we would ordinarily not think about or investigate.
I googled “judicial education in California”. I invite everyone to read the following 1996 bulletin on “judicial education”.
http://jeritt.msu.edu/pdf/Bulletin1996vol7-3.pdf
For purposes of my discussion on family law, this was an interesting quote:
“Judge Patrick J. Morris, chair of the CJER governing committee asserted that, “through this affiliation, judges and judicial branch staff will be better able to
join forces in an educational process which focuses on the leading edge social issues so important to the administration of justice, as well as on the issues and
implications of substantive law.””
And this is also an interesting bulletin, confirming that judges are indeed by design “target audiences” who will be imprinted with CJER-driven policies and education:
http://jeritt.msu.edu/Documents/Introduction%20to%20Curriculum%20Development.pdf
If you go to the CJER website, you will see that as a rule only members of the “target audience” may attend education programs. “Based on a variety of considerations, including maintaining an effective learning environment, participation in education programs is limited to individuals from the target audience for which the course was designed.”
And hey, I bet a lot court employees will want to sign up to take the Meyers Briggs test offered by the AOC. . . . .hurry, you can take it April 20 or May 18. .
Imagine the power of having the ability to secretly educate (indoctrinate?) the largest judiciary in the Western World– and to export this education nationally and internationally. Heck, the AOC isn’t just setting policy here, it is helping set policy worldwide via “judicial education”. It doesn’t surprise me at all that this turn of events took place shortly after Ron George was appointed to the Supreme Court (1991), and Bill Vickrey came on over to California (1992) from the Utah prison/court system. And it kicked into high gear in 1996– the year RG became Chief Justice.
As I have REPEATEDLY suggested — judicial/court education programs should be available to the public online, so that everyone can see what judges and court personnel are being taught. This creates accountability (it allows the public to question the validity of what is being taught, and the social and other “policies” being implemented), and a level playing field– the public (especially litigants and lawyers) will know what the bench and court appointees/employees are being taught is “right”.
Mrs Kramer
April 13, 2011
JCW,
Okay, now I understand why you wrote what you wrote and are not seeing the relevance of the situation to the JC/AOC. You are confused because I probably was not clear.
This is not a mold case situation. The ACOEM/US Chamber mold statement authors are not serving as expert witnesses in the case. They are plain ole plaintiffs in a strategic libel litigation who just happen to be expert witnesses for a living.
This is a libel litigation in which the plaintiffs used criminal perjury to establish false reason for the defendant’s malice in furtherance of their business interests. They could have been plumbers for a living and the law is still the same that a plaintiff can’t use criminal perjury to make up a libel law needed reason for malice while strategically litigating.
What makes this case relevant to 455 Golden Gate Ave, is that two of the justices to have overseen this case and are clearly evidenced to have willfully chosen to ignore irrefutable evidence of a plainiff’s use of criminal perjury while strategically litigating are Justice Richard Huffman, Chair of the Exe Comm, JC & Justice Judith MConnell, Chair of the CJP.
As a result of their willful participation of rewarding a plaintiff’s criminal perjury used while strategically litigating, billions of dollars of insurer fraud continues in courts throughout the US because that is the plaintiff’s business they aided to continue by aiding with his strategic litigation against the first person (me) to expose HOW that fraud was marketed into policy for the purpose of misleading the courts; and who all was involved including the US Chamber and ACOEM.
This is not a mold case. Its a strategic litigation case for the purpose of illicit busines that has been aided to continue by the Chairs of the JC and CJP.
All the Fourth had to do was acknowledge the irrefutable evidence that the plaintiff was using perjury to make up a reason for a defendant’s malice and the whole charade would have collapsed like the house of cards it is. Nope. They CHOSE to aid it to continue – which serves the interest of the US Chamber of Commerce affiliates and harms the public.
Could have been that these guys sell bad plumbing material that I called them out for and they used perjury while trying to shut me up…with Huffman and McConnell helping them by rewarding the their perjury and it would have been the same thing.
Does that make more sense of why this is relevant to 455 Golden Gate Ave and the future of judicial ethics in the state of CA?
Judicial Council Watcher
April 13, 2011
Mrs. Kramer,
I can see how that aspect is certainly of interest, has anyone tried to exhaust the CJP process with respect to these allegations?
JusticeCalifornia, interesting reading – I agree the public should be entitled to know what the AOC is teaching judges, especially when I hear the horror stories from litigants indicating a judge indicates he lacks judicial discretion to do something due to the judicial council’s policies, when most know they have that discretion.
Mrs Kramer
April 13, 2011
“I can see how that aspect is certainly of interest, has anyone tried to exhaust the CJP process with respect to these allegations?”
Yes. They refused to investigate their chair and the chair of the JC, for ethics violations of rewarding criminal perjury in a strategic litigation involving billions of dollars and thousands of lives.
Which ties the offices at 455 Golden Gate Ave together in a quagmire of deceit and incestuous deliberate indifferences.
Here is the serious danger to us all that is illuminated from the situation:
Two justices sit in the same court, oversee litigations and issue opinions in San Diego and have been tight allies for years.
One controls all the money for the CA courts via the JC.
The other controls what judges do not punished for ethics violations via the CJP , including themselves and the justice who controls all the money, their close ally.
Their opinions issued sometimes are over the same litigations, as is with my case.
Have been in communication with the Bureau of State Auditors regarding lack of action of the CJP. Have to get the documentation to them of what this dynamic duo has done while:
i.) breaking the law by rewarding a plaintiff’s criminal perjury to establish malice in a strategic libel litigation;
ii.) aiding the US Chamber affiliates with interstate insurer fraud by the aiding with the strategic litigation carried out by criminal means; (have documentation showing that they know this is what they have done by rewarding the perjury. showed them one case with a $25M insurer policy and two deceased infants that their actions aided the false concept of “could not be” to flourish in the case)
iii.) covering up for each other in opinions written (first McConnell 2006 ignoring the evidence of criminal perjury, Huffman 2010 ignoring the evidence of the perjury and the evidence that McConnell ignored the evidence – in 2010, Huffman could not acknowledge the evidence of perjury without acknowledging that in 2006, McConnell ignored it that she had aided the fraud to continue in policy for four years. McConnell, as the presiding justice, determines who gets assigned what cases in the Fourth District Division One); and
iv.) the broad adverse implications for the CA judicial system as a whole from their actions of two influential justices who control the money and oversee ethics covering for each other in legal opinions written from the same bench; with
v.) the CJP refusing to take action against the two well positioned justices, while being evidenced of their aiding with a strategic litigation that aids billions in interstate insurer fraud. .
SF Whistle
April 13, 2011
Mrs. Kramer—
Please—understand the CJP is a total joke—a deadletter address for complaints to be sent and die—
Is it me or does this new JCW site suck???—sorry—