The reason this amendment is necessary
California’s judicial branch has undergone massive change since the late 1990’s with the Lockyer-Isenberg State Trial Court Funding Act of 1997 and the Trial Court Consolidation Act (Prop 220) of 1998. The resulting bureaucracy that was created at the state level to oversee these changes is unparalleled. The Administrative Office of the Courts (commonly referred to as “THE AOC”) has grown from a couple hundred employees to over a thousand.¹ Countless committees and subcommittees have been formed in the Judicial Council – a body that only meets a few times per year – to work with and/or oversee AOC staff.
The Chief Justice and members of the Judicial Council are charged with overseeing the bureaucracy that is the AOC and are constitutionally charged with making policy recommendations to local trial courts. Historically, this body that only meets a few times per year and had previously only dealt with defining the rules of court and approving judicial branch forms and has been mostly appointed by the Chief Justice was suddenly charged with managing a multi-billion dollar budgets as the ostensible branch leadership under a mantra of speak with one voice and non-existent dissent. Sadly, this has led to gross examples of mismanagement and an incredible waste of public funds. ² Today these bodies consistently expresses that they are both transparent and accountable but in reality, the Judicial Council is little more than a social club whose exclusive members have pledged their allegiance to speak with one voice beside the Chief Justice and don’t speak for either the trial courts nor the electorate they serve.
The purpose of this constitutional amendment is to promote democratic reform, transparency and greater accountability through the election of council members that are not charged with speaking with one voice. An elected judicial council would be sent to San Francisco as trial court representatives and representatives of the constituencies they serve. Public monies are precious. People spending public funds should understand and appreciate just how hard-earned that money is. Public funds should only be spent when necessary and only in a way that promotes public confidence in those who are spending that money. Long time insiders and political cronies that are appointed by the Chief Justice, some of which are re-appointed in perpetuity, should not be the decision makers because the don’t represent the people or the trial courts. Experienced judges accountable to the people that elected them to serve should be the only decision makers.
This amendment sets forth that to be able to serve as an elected member of the Judicial Council that a judge must have either 1) ten years of experience being a judge or 2)has completed a full term as a presiding judge in their court. These requirements ensure that these representatives have the experience and ability to understand the issues that they will be confronting. Their selection will be made via a basic democratic process and that they will be elected by a majority vote of their judicial branch peers. There shall be one elected representative for every 3.5 million people in any appellate district with a minimum of one elected representative for the smallest of appellate districts. Representation shall remain proportional to the population in each of the six appellate districts.
This amendment was crafted because repeated public calls for democratization of the judicial council have fallen on deaf ears for over a decade. In fact, a prior chief justice publicly declared that any effort to democratize the council would be considered “an act of war”
Democracy is the cornerstone of our Republic. Ask yourself, why would anyone in power within the judicial branch oppose democracy?
Overview of Appellate Districts & Proposed Representation
Appellate District One (1DCA)
5 divisons
20 justices
Serves the counties of: Alameda, Contra Cost, Del Norte, Humboldt, Lake, Marin, Mendocino, Napa, San Francisco. San Mateo, Solano and Sonoma Counties
Total population: 8,810,346
Total proposed Judicial Council representatives per 3.5 million people: 2
Appellate District Two (2DCA)
8 divisons
32 justices
Serves the counties of: Los Angeles, San Luis Obispo Santa Barbara and Ventura Counties
Total population: 11,419,674
Total proposed Judicial Council representatives per 3.5 million people: 3
Appellate District Three (3DCA)
1 divison
11 justices
Serves the counties of: Alpine, Amador, Butte, Caleveras, Colusa, El Dorado, Glenn, Lassen, Modoc, Mono, Nevada, Placer, Plumas, Sacramento, San Joaquin, Shasta, Sierra, Siskiyou, Sutter, Tehama, Trinity, Yolo and Yuba Counties
Total population: 3,835,738
Total proposed Judicial Council representatives per 3.5 million people: 1
Appellate District Four (4DCA)
3 divisons
25 justices
Serves the counties of: Imperial, Inyo, Orange, San Bernardino, San Diego and Riverside Counties
Total population: 10,523,470
Total proposed Judicial Council representatives per 3.5 million people: 3
Appellate District Five (5DCA)
1 divison
10 justices
Serves the counties of: Fresno, Kern, Kings, Madera, Mariposa, Merced, Stanislaus, Tulare and Tuolumne Counties
Total population: 3,511,951
Total proposed Judicial Council representatives per 3.5 million people: 1
Appellate District Six (6DCA)
1 divison
7 justices
Serves the counties of: Monterey, San Benito, Santa Clara, and Santa Cruz Counties
Total population: 2,514,350
Total proposed Judicial Council representatives per 3.5 million people: 1
Proposed constitutional amendment to Article 6, Section 6: Judicial Council
Existing Language:
SEC. 6. (a) The Judicial Council consists of the Chief Justice and one other judge of the Supreme Court, three judges of courts of appeal, 10 judges of superior courts, two nonvoting court administrators, and any other nonvoting members as determined by the voting membership of the council, each appointed by the Chief Justice for a three-year term pursuant to procedures established by the council; four members of the State Bar appointed by its governing body for three-year terms; and one member of each house of the Legislature appointed as provided by the house.
Proposed Language:
SEC. 6. (a) The Judicial Council consists of the Chief Justice and one other judge of the Supreme Court, three judges of courts of appeal, 10 judges of superior courts, two nonvoting court administrators, and any other nonvoting members as determined by the voting membership of the council, each appointed by the Chief Justice for a three-year term pursuant to procedures established by the council; four members of the State Bar appointed by its governing body for three-year terms; and one member of each house of the Legislature appointed as provided by the house; and 11 judges of the superior courts shall also serve as voting members on the council. They shall be democratically elected from among their peers and will serve three year terms.³
________________________________
Nathaniel Woodhull
March 9, 2013
Thanks for posting this JCW! I hope that this starts a conversation that will result in the passage of this proposed amendment, or something close to it. Democratizing the Judicial Council is the only answer.
Nathaniel Woodhull
March 9, 2013
I greatly appreciate the support of JCW and all those who contribute to this site. This Constitutional Amendment was drafted, having kept in mind the opponents “bogeyman”, that LA will “control” the Judicial Council if an alternative followed a per capita system. That is why the decision was made to follow the appellate district formula. Those of us intent on changing the system should not get bogged down on minutia. I hope that the Alliance and CJA will pick up this rallying call and ask the Chief why such a change should not be implemented.
My guess is that those defending the current system will say something to the effect of… well, the idea of a democratic Judicial Council is fine, but right now we need to focus on the emergency at hand, namely funding for the Judicial Branch as a whole.
The reality is that we are only facing this crisis because of the complete ineptitude of HRH-1 and HRH-2 in how they have pursued this entire funding process and their view that they should always be given Card Blanche when it comes to such funding. At least HRH-1 knew when to “declare victory” and get out of Dodge. His replacement (HRH-2) is completely unaware and ill-equipped to understand the issues at hand, but we have to deal with who is at the helm.
I would urge all of you to contact anyone and everyone that you know and ask them to support this Constitutional Amendment.
I have left all I have on the field of battle. The reality is that I may never see the goal of democratization of the Judicial Council realized. That having been said, I have served the public for well over forty-years, I would hate to see that my personal sacrifices and demise are in vain. What is important is what is best for the people of California. “God save us all”
Nathaniel Woodhull
March 10, 2013
I hope that the Alliance and CJA pick-up this proposed amendment and forward it upon the field of battle. The contents alleviate all of the expressed “concerns” over such a proposal.
Thanks,
Nate
Michael Paul
March 9, 2013
This initiative makes oodles of common sense and simultaneously strikes a balance that should serve to address the concerns of most. Representation based on proportional population serves us well with other elected officials and makes sense here as well. Moreover representation can be altered to effect future population trends. The elected representatives become accountable to both the people they serve and the courts they represent.
Count me in on writing large checks in support along with funding an internal media campaign to make it happen or even walking the halls of the legislature and worst case – walking the precincts of my district gathering signatures.
Democratizing the judicial council IS the only answer failing the feds kicking in their doors.
unionman575
March 9, 2013
“Democratizing the judicial council IS the only answer failing the feds kicking in their doors.”
Although the door idea would suit me just fine too!
Agreed!
😉
JusticeCalifornia
March 9, 2013
unionman, I like the idea of the feds kicking in the doors as well. An all-out top leadership corruption exposure blowout would undoubtedly serve the public very, very well.
JusticeCalifornia
March 9, 2013
The biggest takeaway from the JC telecommuting vote? The cj and her handpicked jc have put the SEC recommendations on the shelf, thereby demonstrating to the world that they do not in any way, shape or form respect or represent the views of the members of the branch. Just re-read Bill Girdner’s article to see how obvious this is to branch outsiders. http://www.courthousenews.com/2013/03/05/55450.htm
Members of branch “top leadership” have attacked the integrity and livelihood of court employees who have reported branch waste and mismanagement. They have attacked the integrity of judges seeking to eliminate branch waste and mismanagement, reportedly calling them “clowns”, “ants on a trail” and more. They have attacked the integrity of lawmakers seeking to eliminate branch waste and mismanagement. They have admitted to not being beyond any sort of manipulation, and “whispering into the ears” of bar members to do their bidding.
By so many accounts, it would appear that members of branch “top leadership” believe they can do whatever they want to because “no one can dare stop them”, and attack just about everyone who does not tow the party line, “speak with one voice” and/or or support patently flawed branch debacles.
This combative, circle the wagons, “build as big a wall as possible and play defense” strategy has resulted in placing the branch in what many say is the worst financial position it has ever experienced; alienation of members of all three branches; an extraordinarily deep divide within the branch; a complete breakdown in employee morale; a complete breakdown of public trust and confidence in the courts; and outrage by members of the public paying for the pain and suffering the branch is heaping upon them.
A lot needs to be done to fix what ails the branch, but certainly democratization of the Judicial Council is a logical first step.
Additionally, consistent with the Judicial Council’s own logic, there should be representation of the public on the Judicial Council as well. The Judicial Council says of its strategic goals: “The judicial branch will deliver the highest quality of justice and service to the public. In order to remain responsive to the varying needs of diverse court users, the judicial branch will work with branch constituencies to better ascertain court user needs and priorities.”
see http://www.courts.ca.gov/4632.htm
R. Campomadera
March 9, 2013
Sign me up as a supporter of proposal to democratize the Judicial Council and let me know what I can do to assist its reaching the ballot.
wearyant
March 9, 2013
What R. Campomadera said! ;-D
Lando
March 9, 2013
General Woodhull’s proposal is outstanding. The argument he makes for democratizing the Judicial Council is totally compelling. I would specifically add the litany of Judicial Council /AOC failures: CCMS , Long Beach , midnight boosts to AOC management retirement packages, muti millions in rent for certain Appellate Justices to work in a tower, and a telecommuting Swiss lawyer, to Woodhull’s arguments in support of the democratization proposal. The “insiders ” at 455 Golden Gate shudder when they see these proposals. Why? They know the electorate has no reason to be against bringing democracy to the largest judiciary in the world. The “overlords ” at the crystal palace know they are vulnerable to losing their perks and power especially when they would have to explain why they have never accepted responsibility for any of their waste of now billions of hard earned taxpayer dollars. The General’s idea to balance elected Judicial Council membership by proportional population takes all the air out of the straw man argument the” insiders ” always raise , that if you elect a Judicial Council, LA will take over the California courts. I hope the ACJ and CJA both make it a priority to give full support to Woodhull’s proposal. Hopefully each organization will circulate this balanced , specific and well thought out idea to their members so that we can finally cast aside the failed oligarchy created by HRH 1 and perpetuated by the current failed regime who patrol the dark hallways of 455 Golden Gate .
The OBT
March 9, 2013
Wow a concrete and specific reform proposal that would put an end to Ronald George’s oppressive self centered and misguided legacy. A legacy that now includes the complete failure of stable funding to the trial courts who struggle every day just to keep their doors open. Former CJ George’s punitive tactics, favoritism, wasteful spending all will be cast aside if the General’s proposal becomes law. I guess we now know what CJ George so feared when he stated any call for democratization would be an “act of war”. Now we need to act on the General’s proposal. I agree with Lando that the CJA and Alliance need to act and should act in concert. In addition all of us need to get behind General Woodhull’s proposal, and we need to organize some type of meeting to plan a strategy to get the plan on the ballot. Thanks General . You have taken our great fight to end a dictatorship to the next level. I for one sure appreciate all the time and effort you have put toward creating meaningful reform and like many here I will be there to get this on the ballot and passed in the 2014 June primary.
Wendy Darling
March 9, 2013
“Wow a concrete and specific reform proposal that would put an end to Ronald George’s oppressive self centered and misguided legacy. A legacy that now includes the complete failure of stable funding to the trial courts who struggle every day just to keep their doors open.”
And a legacy that now includes his hand picked “replacement” and biggest sycopohant singing his praises as “the great Ron George” while the integrity of the branch lies in ashes at her feet.
Still serving themselves to the detriment of all Californians.
Long live the ACJ.
Lando
March 9, 2013
The “insiders” at 455 Golden Gate are sure not having a good month. First J McConnell and J Horn were finally thanked and excused from further tormenting the hard working trial judges of California. The Judicial Council blundered again by failing to end a telecommuting policy that was so abused that a AOC lawyer was allowed to work from Geneva for two years. This week, a fair balanced and specific call for bringing democracy to our branch has finally emerged. It sure looks like the ” overlords ” at the crystal palace will now have to justify in an election what they fear most , their many abuses of taxpayer funds and their unwillingness to ever accept any responsibility for any and all of it.
unionman575
March 9, 2013
Here’s the word from the streets of Kern County…
😉
http://www.bakersfieldcalifornian.com/local/x738927226/Budget-cuts-other-factors-causing-court-delays
Saturday, Mar 09 2013 08:00 PM
Budget cuts, other factors causing court delays
BY JASON KOTOWSKI Californian staff writer jkotowski@bakersfield.com
State budget cuts — and a host of other factors — are resulting in lengthy delays and stretching resources at Kern County Superior Court.
High-dollar civil cases used to take about 12 months to go to trial, said county Court Administrator Terry McNally. Now they’re averaging about 15 months, with more complex cases pushed back 18 to 24 months.
There are five court reporter vacancies, which have at times forced staff to pull court reporters out of civil courts and put them in criminal courts because of Constitutional requirements guaranteeing a speedy trial in criminal cases, McNally said. Recently, attorneys in a civil case involving Aera Energy LLC were authorized to bring in their own court reporters.
And even criminal cases have seen delays. Just recently the preliminary hearing for John Swearengin, the Kern County Sheriff’s deputy charged with two counts of vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence, was postponed to the end of this month.
Kern County Superior Court is down about 115 positions from last summer, McNally said. The state slashed $9.9 million this fiscal year from the county court system, and next year they’re expected to lose $3.5 million to $3.7 million.
“Before all is said and done, I’d forecast we’ll have about 150 vacancies (this year),” he said.
The cutbacks are playing out in varying degrees throughout the state. Chief Justice of California Tani G. Cantil-Sakauye is scheduled to deliver her “State of the Judiciary” Address before a joint session of the California Legislature at 4 p.m. Monday.
Kern County Presiding Judge Colette M. Humphrey said she understands the difficult times the state has been in over the past few years.
“However, the courts have given back more than their share in our reduced budget allocations,” Humphrey said. “Any additional reductions will result in a serious, adverse impact on service levels and a commensurate lack of access for people to their local courts.”
Defense attorney David A. Torres noted that, while the county has seen some pretty big cuts, things could be a lot worse. Kern County hasn’t closed any outlying courts the way Los Angeles and Fresno counties have done.
Torres is on the State Bar of California’s Board of Trustees and The Bench-Bar Coalition, and receives updates regarding the cuts’ impact on counties throughout the state.
He said Fresno County no longer has any outlying courts in operation. No matter where a person lives in the county there’s only one court location to which they can respond, meaning significant driving times and hardship for some residents.
“We haven’t been pushed to that because of the way our local judiciary and administrator have run the courts,” Torres said.
He called Kern County “a model of efficiency” in how its courts are run.
Michael C. Lukehart, another local defense attorney, laid part of the blame for court delays on prosecutors. He said there’s a natural tendency on the part of prosecutors and law enforcement to prosecute to the maximum capacity of the courts’ ability to handle cases.
It’s not a new tactic, Lukehart said, but it’s having more of an impact on the courts now that resources have been cut. The budget isn’t so much the issue as is societal priorities, and there’s more money in prosecution, he said.
“You can devote an infinite amount of resources to the courts and they will be filled up immediately with aggressive prosecutors,” Lukehart said.
Chief Deputy District Attorney Mark Pafford said he doesn’t agree with Lukehart, and that prosecutors examine every case on an individual basis before deciding what, if any, charges to file.
Pafford said he’s noticed the complete opposite happen on certain cases in that defense attorneys won’t settle at readiness hearings and instead wait until after a case gets sent to trial in the hope that the judge will negotiate with them. Pafford said the position of the district attorney’s office is that they offer their best deal at the preliminary hearing.
Still, Pafford said he doesn’t think it’s possible to pinpoint any one reason for the delays. While budget cuts have slashed resources, caseloads have continued to increase.
Pafford said 500 more cases were sent to the prosecutor’s office this January and February than were in January and February of last year, and last year the numbers had spiked from 2011.
“Crime’s still going up,” he said.
The Sacramento Bee reported earlier this year that there have been about $1.2 billion in total general fund cutbacks statewide since 2008, including $475 million from trial courts. The Bee said the Administrative Office of the Courts estimated in October that trial courts statewide were operating with about 250 fewer judicial officers than needed. Judicial officers includes justices, judges, commissioners and referees.
The Judicial Council, the policymaking body of the California courts, voted in late February to approve a plan that delays 11 more courthouse construction projects pending restoration of court construction funds in the state budget for fiscal year 2013–14.
“We are seeking the return of all or a portion of those funds that were raised from court users for the express purpose of building court facilities,” Justice Brad Hill, chairman of the Court Facilities Working Group and Administrative Presiding Justice of the Court of Appeal, Fifth Appellate District, said in a news release. “We understand the difficult fiscal environment the state is in, but further delay will imperil our vital infrastructure and compromise the safety of those citizens who use our courts.”
unionman575
March 10, 2013
http://www.seiu721.org/2013/03/all-out-to-save-our-courts.php
All Out to Save Our Courts
March 14 Rally to Save Our Courts
Tip the Scales for the 99%
A handful of judges want to permanently close eight LA County courts that serve our communities. Their plan will eliminate jobs and public services and hurt our families. Come to a mass rally and mock trial to Save Our Courts.
Thursday, March 14
11 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Stanley Mosk Courthouse
111 N. Hill St., LA 90012
(Corner of 1st and Hill)
How closing courts will hurt working families:
• Longer lines and waits for court dates
• Higher costs and more travel time
• More unfair fees, bench warrants, points on licenses and car impounds
😉
Here is the flyer: http://www.seiu721.org/Courts%20RALLY_Flyer%203.14.13.pdf
wearyant
March 10, 2013
Yes!! Go, Team, GO! I’ve gotta figure out a way to get there …
wearyant
March 10, 2013
Arnella Sims, YOU ROCK, girl! Yes! Get those apathetic masses riled up!
carl
March 10, 2013
Why ten years? To eliminate most minority judges and those judge with new and better ideas?
Nathaniel Woodhull
March 10, 2013
Carl,
Thanks for the post and I understand what you are attempting to express. The 10-year experience factor is NOT for the reasons you cited at all. The current Chief Justice has expressed that she actually finds it “easier” to work with newer judges and that is why she wants them involved in decision making. There is a reason for that and sadly, it is one of the reasons why we have had such a lack of change. Many them are highly reliant upon AOC staff because they are too new.
The problem is that without the benefit of understanding the history of how we got here and/or without having had the experience of being a Presiding Judge, you cannot truly appreciate the excesses and problems with the top down management style of the AOC or Judicial Council.
The Judicial Council and AOC operate from the premise that the trial courts don’t know what they are doing and they (the AOC) need to “fix” everything.
Many of us work with newer judges on a daily basis. We value their input and views. That said, it takes years to fully understand the multitude of operations that we are called upon to deal with. Perhaps that doesn’t apply in two judge courts, but it does in mid-size or large size courts. Something often becomes evident very quickly with some new judges; that is that they have no appreciation or understanding of institutional knowledge and the cause and effect of certain decisions. This is exactly the problem with many of the AOC’s mandates. Most good judges start from the premise that for the first five years of their service they keep their eyes open, ears open, and mouth shut. (Or as my grandfather said, ‘don’t be an alligator, all mouth and no ears.’)
Understanding that these judges will need to win a popular election by their colleagues, experience will come into play. That is not to say that the “10 year” requirement has to be the end result, it was a starting point for discussion. The key is to “democratize”.
Nat
carl
March 11, 2013
Nathaniel,
Thanks for response, but not buying it. Reform is good. You don’t need to “fully understand the multitude of operations” to know FAILURE. Moreover, since the current judiciary does not represent the populations harmed by the FAILURE new ideas are needed. You start from a premise that the 10 year requirement brings more intelligence and it does not. Cut that the service requirement to 5 years or eliminate it entirely because those with other experience may be able to actually change things — as needed. Moreover 5 seats should be received for courthouse users. Why? Because the public getting a first hand look.. will be empowered to stop the self dealing. And, state bar members should not be elected from the general body of lawyers. Why should JC have democracy but ignore the same with the state bar?
carl
March 11, 2013
I mean the state bar members SHOULD be elected from general body of lawyers.
Robert Turner
March 10, 2013
What a great post. I would love to see this happen.
There have been huge problems for CA Courts under the current model and these reforms are desperately needed. It is the m
Robert Turner
March 10, 2013
Meant to say. It is the most essential change and will set the proper tone for the additional reforms needed. Very exciting proposal. I hope it comes to be.
unionman575
March 10, 2013
http://www.presstelegram.com/news/ci_22760545/critics-say-los-angeles-superior-court-consolidation-will
Critics say Los Angeles Superior Court consolidation will affect poor most
By Greg Mellen, Staff Writer
Updated: 03/10/2013 04:54:10 PM PDT
LONG BEACH — Poor and disabled residents will be the hardest hit when the Los Angeles Superior Court system begins its consolidation and realignment on March 18.
Under the new plan, single courthouses will do the work of many in certain areas. People filing small claims cases, facing eviction or those involved in other civil actions will face long commutes and likely longer wait times when they go to court.
“We’re expecting this to be catastrophic for low-income tenants, particularly disabled tenants,” said Barbara Schultz, directing attorney for the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles.
Residents who could once file paperwork and have cases heard in up to 26 courthouses countywide will now have to travel to so-called “hubs.”
For example, those who would normally file small-claims cases in Long Beach, Norwalk, Bellflower or San Pedro will have to travel to Downey, one of the six hub courthouses for small claims. The hub court is determined by the zip code in which the person filing lives.
Schultz says for many low-income residents, that means taking public transportation long distances.
The Long Beach courthouse will soon be a hub for landlord-tenant disputes, and will now handle unlawful detainer filings from 10 courthouses.
The number of filings is expected to more than quadruple from about 4,000 cases annually to 17,000, according to Ronnette Ramos, the managing attorney for the eviction defense unit at the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles.
Tenants facing or fighting evictions will be traveling to Long Beach from as far away as La Habra Heights, Whittier, Vernon, Pico Rivera, Gardena and Manhattan Beach.
Mary Hearn, the director of public information for the Los Angeles Superior Court, said there will be a modest increase in staff for the unlawful detainer cases and acknowledges it may be difficult to have all cases heard within statutory time limits.
Tenants failing to answer unlawful detainers have five days to answer or face default judgments against them, which clears the way for eviction.
Bruce Menke, a lawyer who handles unlawful detainer cases, jokingly refers to the consolidation as “the nightmare on the horizon,” he said.
Although he said there is certainly room for efficiency in the process, he isn’t optimistic and worries it will burn out the personnel.
“Based on the information I have, I don’t think it’s going to work,” Menke said.
Schultz fears the new system will lead to even higher default rates and more people on the streets looking for housing.
“I know community groups and service providers are very concerned for the disadvantaged,” Hearn said. “We’re very cognizant of the negative impacts. These decisions were not made in a bubble.”
Local attorney Doug Otto said lawyers would have to make adjustments and predicted there would be inevitable delays because of larger court calendars, but said those concerns were minor compared to the issues faced by low-income litigants.
The consolidation was first announced in November as part of sweeping plans that also include closing courthouses on June 30, including in San Pedro, and elimination of 500 or more jobs to close a projected budget deficit of $56 million. About $652 million in budget reductions have been ordered statewide.
The number of layoffs after attrition and retirements is not yet known, Hearn said.
She also noted that in the past seven to eight years about 1,000 jobs have been lost and further cuts may be in the offing in the next fiscal year.
Torrance Superior Court Judge Stuart Rice said at some point the courts will not be able to handle further cuts.
“We tried to do more with less for a while,” Rice said. “This is three or four years in a row of substantial cuts. It’s unsustainable.”
The consolidation will be phased in over the next 2 ½ months. Unless litigants are notified that their case is being transferred, existing small claims cases (under $10,000), limited collections cases (under $25,000), and limited unlawful detainer cases (evictions under $25,000) will be processed in the courthouse where they were filed.
Information can be found online at http://www.lasuperiorcourt.org.
Staff writer Larry Altman contributed to this report.
________________________________________
greg.mellen@presstelegram.com, 562-499-1291
😉
Lando
March 11, 2013
Carl, Why would judges seeking democracy seek to exclude minority judges or anyone with ” new and better ideas” ? Honestly the idea here is to change a governance structure that is currently an oligarchy. Carl, please study the votes of the Judicial Council over the last decade. Aside form the Assistant Presiding Judge of LA who automatically sits on the Council there are very few other votes that involve any dissent. If they do, the dissenters historically amass no more than two votes. Why? Because one person the CJ is responsible for the appointment of this body. When HRH 1 was in power all appointees had to meet the express approval of J Huffman, the same J Huffman that called a non voting Judicial Council member a ” clown” for expressing a dissenting view.
carl
March 11, 2013
Lando.
Don’t follow you. Nothing you have said deals with the 10 service requirement. The requirement itself is an exclusion. You can change the governance structure without that requirement. Or is it, democracy is “only in the eyes of the beholder” or “those who was the supplant another failed system”. Objectively, no rationale is put forth for this requirement.
wearyant
March 11, 2013
Hon. Wesley would be the lone dissenter in the JC wilderness too during his term and a couple JC members would joke about “going Wesley,” similar to “going Postal,” I guess, when they dissented in discussions. These discussions usually end in happy, conforming unanimity.
Here’s for “Going Wesley.” I say, Thank You for your service Hon. Wesley!
De-fund the AOC! Long live the ACJ!
courtflea
March 11, 2013
N. Woodhull, thank you for your awesome work. I too will contribute whatever is necessary to help see this through. I do like Lando’s idea of listing the grievences, sort of like in the declaration of independence….i.e. the CJ/JC “tyranny, injuries”to the branch and ” usurpations”. we all should read the declaration of independence,if you have not done so for a while, it still sounds great today.
unionman575
March 11, 2013
http://www.govtech.com/Three-IT-Firms-Approved-to-Update-California-Case-Management-Systems.html
Three IT Firms Approved to Update California Case Management Systems
March 11, 2013 By Maria Dinzeo, Journalist, Courthouse News Service
Rising out of the ashes of a failed IT system for California’s trial courts, three private companies have been chosen as premier providers in the lucrative business of selling software to the far-flung courts of the biggest state in the nation.
The move to private vendors comes in the aftermath of the crash-and-burn of a half-billion-dollar, publicly funded software project driven by the Administrative Office of the Courts, the central bureaucracy that sits above the trial courts.
Called the Court Case Management System, the software was abandoned last year after a host of courts rejected it as cumbersome, labor-intensive and crash-prone. In addition, state legislators were highly critical of the project’s daily drain of hundreds of thousands of dollars from public coffers.
Sacramento Superior Court — one of the few courts that installed CCMS only to became a leading critic of the software — announced last week that three private companies have qualified to sell what is likely to be many millions of dollars’ worth of case management programming to California’s 58 trial courts.
Sacramento County and Santa Clara County Superior Court have taken the lead within a group of IT workers from 13 trial courts called the California Information Technology Managers Forum. The forum also includes tech staff from courts in Orange, Humboldt, Alameda, Mariposa, Riverside, Fresno, Kings, Kern, Merced, San Diego and San Mateo counties, according to a list provided by the administrative office.
They vetted and OK’d Texas-based Tyler Technologies, New Mexico-based Justice Systems Inc. and Thomson Reuters’ LT Court Tech.
As an example of the sums involved, San Luis Obispo Superior Court, a relatively small court in California, recently agreed to pay Tyler $3.1 million to buy the Odyssey case management system that allows for electronic filing. Tyler was chosen despite pricing its software substantially higher than the competing bidders, based on the company’s willingness to sell rights to the system outright rather than licensing them on a yearly basis.
Tyler has been winning a big number of contracts in the last couple years with courts in Texas, Indiana, Nevada and now California.
Robert Oyung, the chief information officer of Santa Clara County, said the vetting of the software vendors was a collaborative effort by the technology forum members. He said all courts were invited to review the top six proposers, but eight courts were responsible for rating, or scoring, the applicants.
Sacramento Judge Trena Burger-Plavan noted that staff from the Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC) also jumped into the scoring.
“In terms of the scoring,” said Burger-Plavan, “I know that the AOC participated and all courts were able to provide feedback on the vendor proposals and demonstrations that were presented.”
She said the forum’s evaluators were anonymous. “Each submitted votes after receiving input from participants throughout all the courts and the AOC.”
Judge James Herman of Santa Barbara, the former chair of the CCMS internal committee on the governing Judicial Council and a consistent promoter of CCMS, is now the chair of the Judicial Council’s technology committee and also chair of the committee’s technology task force.
He said in an interview that the individual trial courts don’t have to go with any of the three chosen ones. The trial courts can also use a model RFP, an invitation to bid on a project.
“This is an RFP that all courts can use, are not required to use, but can save the expense of building your own RFP,” said Herman. “Smaller courts can look to this as a template.”
As with the old CCMS system, he said courts will still be able to choose a distant, common server to host court information. “Most courts might like offsite so they don’t have to buy the hardware. A group of courts could also work in consortia and share a server.”
During the failed effort to develop a uniform, statewide software, some courts became distrustful of storing their data on a remote site. Tech staff in San Diego, Orange and Santa Barbara counties all expressed reservations about giving up local control over court information.
Herman also stressed the need for buying new software — quickly.
“There are about six courts who have a need to replace their case management systems. We have a lot that are 30 years old. We have situations where courts are still on county mainframe systems and counties are saying we’re upgrading our mainframes and the cost will be ‘x,’ which the courts can’t afford.”
Some judges, while supportive of the efforts by the trial court-based technology forum, are skeptical of court officials and other judges with past connections to the controversial CCMS project, some of whom are on Herman’s task force and will be trying to convince lawmakers to fund the new software systems.
“I can just imagine the Legislature breaking out in laughter when they say, ‘Let’s see, you have the $2 billion boondoggle and the same ship of people are here asking for more money for technology,’ ” said Judge Andy Banks of Orange County Superior Court.
His court currently uses an older version of CCMS, and has not shown any inclination toward switching to any of the new vendors. While Orange County has been held up as a shining example of CCMS’ success as an IT system — and the court is currently leading a push toward electronic filing in California — a survey of court personnel was highly critical of the software.
“It depends on who you talk to,” said Banks. “There are those people deeply wedded to the AOC and to the idea that CCMS is really a Ferrari in the garage, and if we could fuel it it would be wonderful. I would say the majority of judges in Orange County don’t think it’s a great thing, a lot of our clerks don’t like it. But the official position of the people in power is to promote it and say, ‘We think it’s great,’ and then there are the rest of us who say this thing has been a boondoggle and a waste of money.”
Herman with the Judicial Council’s technology committee and task force assured, “Every member of that task force was carefully selected because they represented an important constituency in the branch.”
In an email, he added, “I want to emphasize that there is limited and dwindling funding for technology. We can’t keep courthouse doors open without functioning case management systems and more efficient business practices. And both the executive and legislative branches have made it clear that there will be no technology funding without a technology plan in collaboration with the courts.”
Judge Steve White of Sacramento said he supports the trial court-based forum, separate from the technology committee. He also commended Oyung in Santa Clara County and Heather Pettit, Sacramento County’s technology manager, who are leading members of the forum.
“Many courts tried to do this from the beginning and they were told they wouldn’t get funding and had to go the AOC way or they wouldn’t have anything. Because it wasn’t allowed to work, it was a factor in the debacle that CCMS turned out to be,” said White, who is head of the Alliance of California Judges, a reform group that often compared CCMS to the Titanic — enormous, expensive and doomed.
But he said if courts are putting proposals together on their own, there should be no problem.
“It doesn’t present a problem if the AOC isn’t driving the agenda and this is done by the local courts,” he said. “In a sense they popped into the side car as we put this together. We have very talented people like Heather and Rob who really know how courts work and what courts need. They have advanced initiatives that are entirely different from CCMS because they’re affordable and they’ll work. As long as the AOC is riding in the sidecar and not driving it, it doesn’t matter to us. But if they are playing the role of central planners instead of just getting out of the way, that’s when it’s a problem.”
wearyant
March 11, 2013
Listening to Tani do her thang. Gee, now the California judicial branch is only 16 years old?! Huh? So we’re all to give them time to “get up to speed” on life and governance or what? She’s fighting uphill now, trying to spin the SEC report and how you should check online to see all the recommendations have been “completed.” Boy, glad I have a wine cooler here to stave off the pain of the upcoming migraine I always get after listening to this crap from the crystal palace. Oh, now we’re talking about “making democracy work.” Hahahah. Didn’t know Tani was a comedian. Teensy Tani talks of Gideon v. Wainwright. Wasn’t that a Florida case? Aren’t there plenty of California cases to speak of? Wow. Good try, teensy Tani, but no cigar.
wearyant
March 11, 2013
Well, as a very wise person proclaimed some time ago, she’s no Felix Frankfurter. It’s apparent to this unwashed commoner and layman (laywomen?).
MaxRebo5
March 11, 2013
I listened as the Chief mentioned the the trial courts are 80% the CA Courts budget and the AOC is 5% of the budget. I liked her nice and easy math. Going with her numbers I say the trial courts should not have to take additional cuts till the AOC is 1% of the budget and the JC is democratized.
If those two things happened then the branch would truely have done all it could internally to preserve “access to justice.” But with an un-essential 4% of the CA Courts budget tied up in admin staffing in San Francisco there is still waste in CA Courts that needs to be shifted to the local levels to preserve essential services at for the trial courts. Once the AOC is cut dramatically then go to the legislature asking for money. Gotta walk the walk Chief.
Wendy Darling
March 11, 2013
Even members of the State Legislature know that branch “leadership” behaves like a bully. From today’s Twitter Feed at Capitol Accounts, at The Recorder, the on-line publication of CalLaw:
Capital Accounts@CapitalAccounts
Summing up State if Judiciary speech: We’re more efficient, transparent & thrifty. But we need more money.
Chief Justice provides prepared text of speech to media. But it only vaguely resembles what she’s actually saying.
At the chief justice’s State of the Judiciary. Assemblyman tells CJ’s mother, “I hope she doesn’t beat us up too much.”
https://twitter.com/CapitalAccounts
Long live the ACJ.
unionman575
March 11, 2013
Chief justice urges reinvestment in Calif. courts
By JUDY LIN
Associated Press
Published: Monday, Mar. 11, 2013 – 4:02 pm
Last Modified: Monday, Mar. 11, 2013 – 5:06 pm
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California’s top judge urged lawmakers on Monday to ensure equal access to justice by reinvesting in a court system that has been hit with years of budget cuts.
Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye said California has cut more out of its judicial branch than any other state. She noted that the court budget has been reduced by more than $1 billion over the last five budget years.
California spends about 1 percent of the state’s general fund on its court system while other states typically spend 2 percent. She said a penny on the dollar was not sufficient to provide proper justice.
The cuts have resulted in fewer courtrooms, higher fees and delayed repairs and construction on a number of buildings.
Since she was sworn in two years ago by former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, Cantil-Sakauye has been trying to make the case for restoring the courts’ funding. California’s system, which includes 58 trial courts, six courts of appeal and the Supreme Court, has about 2,000 judicial officers and 18,000 court employees.
This year, Gov. Jerry Brown’s proposed budget takes $200 million from court construction funds as a way to postpone additional cutbacks. He also proposes delaying repayment of a $90 million court construction loan.
Brown’s finance spokesman, H.D. Palmer, said the governor has tried to maintain stable funding for the courts throughout the recession while other areas such as public schools and universities have endured deep cuts. Palmer said state grants to seniors and the disabled have been cut to their lowest levels since 1982 and that the state’s welfare-to-work program has been cut to 1987 levels.
“What we have been able to do through a combination of fees and transfers is to keep operations stable,” he said of the court budget.
Last month, the state judicial council voted to delay 11 courthouse construction projects in case none of that money is restored this year. The contingency plan comes after the council voted in January to indefinitely delay court construction in Sacramento, Nevada, Los Angeles and Fresno counties while money is being spent to replace a Long Beach courthouse damaged by an earthquake.
Some state lawmakers have suggested restoring some of the money.
During a stop in Sacramento last week, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy said the political branches of government have an “absolute obligation” to make sure the judicial branch can function. He said trial courts have no way to control the number of cases coming in.
“You simply must give to the courts the resources that they need or you’re undercutting the rule of law for which we stand,” Kennedy said. “I think it’s a very important obligation that legislators have, and they have to find the resources.”
unionman575
March 11, 2013
http://www.courts.ca.gov/21245.htm
Working Group Cuts Budget of New San Diego Central Courthouse
FOR RELEASE
Contact: Teresa Ruano, 415-865-7740
March 11, 2013
Court Facilities Working Group Cuts Budget of New San Diego Central Courthouse
Working group cancels tunnel to Central Jail
SAN FRANCISCO—Because of funding and budget constraints, the new courthouse project for downtown San Diego will proceed without simultaneous construction of a tunnel connecting it to the Central Jail, the Judicial Council’s Court Facilities Working Group announced today.
Specifications for the tunnel would have driven up the tunnel cost to an estimated $25 million, and the working group decided it was too costly. “Circumstances are such that we simply can no longer afford it, and we don’t have the cash upfront required to move forward with this aspect of the project,” said Justice Brad R. Hill, chair of the Court Facilities Working Group and Administrative Presiding Justice of the Court of Appeal, Fifth Appellate District.
The San Diego courthouse, the largest project to be funded under the Senate Bill 1407 court construction program, will provide the Superior Court of San Diego County with a full-service, consolidated facility for criminal, probate, family court, and small claims. The current downtown courthouse is on an active earthquake fault, is overcrowded, and has numerous deficiencies in security and physical condition. The new courthouse will contain 71 courtrooms in 22 stories. It will be located on 1.4 acres in downtown San Diego bounded by West C Street, Union Street, West B Street, and State Street.
“Given our current program funding limits, we appreciate the court’s willingness to scale back this project’s costs,” said Justice Jeffrey Johnson, chair of the working group’s cost-reduction subcommittee and Associate Justice of the Court of Appeal, Second Appellate District, in Los Angeles.
The project is currently in working drawings. The construction manager at risk, Rudolph and Sletten, Inc. is scheduled to begin subcontractor bidding in July 2013. The bond sale for construction is expected in fall 2013, and construction is scheduled to begin before the end of 2013. Completion is scheduled for 2016.
###
Now these guys could dig a tunnel…
😉
Michael Paul
March 11, 2013
Regarding the tunnel: Everyone should have saw that coming on the heels of the million dollar (what was paid to study a) long beach tunnel to nowhere.
The other shoe will drop when the AOC announces, as Unionman puts it, that they will “wrap that old, dead courthouse in cyclone fence” because SB1407 funds are used to build things, not to tear them down. Money will need to be appropriated to actually tear down the old dead courthouse. Ask Justice Hill, I’m sure he’ll happily volunteer what it’s going to cost (somewhere in the eight figures) to demo and haul away an asbestos laden courthouse.
Carl: The purpose of this post is what you’re currently engaged in – a discussion about democratizing the judicial council. Tossed out there for your consideration is ten years as a judge or 2 years as a P.J. I can’t possibly see how that might disadvantage any minority judge as it stands It seems perfectly reasonable to require some amount of time as a sitting judge before you sit on the leadership team. You have to serve ten years as an attorney to be a judge don’t you? Let’s reduce the requirement to “one full term” which would be six years following an election. Personally, for the sake of a continuing dialogue on the subject, I have no problems with “one full term” in place of ten years. That could be as little as six years and it means that you probably had to get re-elected to serve on the judicial council and shape branch policy.
Every job typically has time in service requirements associated with it. I don’t believe, and I mean no disrespect by this, “a rookie on the bench” has gathered the institutional knowledge to properly represent the needs of many constituent courts besides their own.
Then again, you could probably lift that time in service requirement entirely because those constituent courts would know little to nothing about the leadership skills of a rookie on the bench unless they made their mark as an APJ or a PJ.
Back to the purpose – the purpose of this post is to open a dialogue. Personally, I would like a council member to spend some minimum amount of time as a judge before becoming council member. Even the current council typically has some new judges sit as non-voting members so it’s not an alien concept.
Possible changes? Yes, I do agree that it would be nice to ELECT attorneys to the judicial council. I also agree that maybe justices should be elected to the council as well. Members of the public? No. I prefer to have people on the council that have skin in the game per se…. and not as a vexie or a frequent flyer. Justice partners? Maybe, as non-voting members.
JusticeCalifornia
March 13, 2013
Michael, rarely do we have occasion to disagree, but I have to disagree regarding members of the public–they should be represented on the Judicial Council. The public certainly does have skin the game. The public pays for EVERYTHING. The branch is ostensibly here to serve THEM. They are the ones “top leadership” keeps saying they need all that money for. They are the ones who suffer directly and most from the waste, mismanagement and corruption in the branch, and diversion of funds to projects other than court basics. I don’t think random members of the public would or should qualify for the JC– but members of the public representative of court users would be able to provide valuable input and perspective.
wearyant
March 13, 2013
You made very good points in your post, Michael Paul. Thanks for continuing the dialogue. Especially the “one full term.” Rookies are great for their enthusiasm and energy, but there’s just nothing like someone who has walked that walk for awhile and observed and felt the atmosphere.
wearyant
March 11, 2013
The whole project should be delayed until a tunnel can be part of the specifications. Otherwise it’s pure insanity to go ahead.
wearyant
March 11, 2013
PostScript: Didn’t the Long Beach courthouse fiasco teach the powers-that-be anything? You need the tunnel plan straightened out first. Any, um, who’s to pay for it.
Put Michael Paul in charge of these projects!
Michael Paul
March 12, 2013
Dear AOC,
I want Willoughby’s job. And you don’t have to pay me one dime if I can’t cut the cost of all courts being constructed (where the land has not even been purchased yet) by 25% – and a similar amount where I can intervene. I need Willoughby’s salary though when I deliver because I will have earned it.
I’ve sat in many design meetings where I watched the designers struggle to build up to the estimated amount of the construction contract and that is no way to run a railroad.
You know how to contact me. You’ve been trying to re-recruit me for years.
Alan Ernesto Phillips
March 13, 2013
Hear, HEAR!, JusticeCalifornia!!
Is it just a comfy-n-safe ‘logical disbelief’ of any possibility of wrongdoing by our Jurists-systems that has rendered the media, the Executive and Legislative branches to be so impotent in at least examining the facts in an effort HELP return to and to promote proper operation of law and to protect and defend our Constitutions? (In a way I know what that’s like.)
But what do I – the outsider – know? I do know that I’m not alone in having No Confidence in our Judiciary or local courts. The highly-degreed, erudite and sophisticated ones don’t want to genuinely listen to what We the lay, indicator-species have to say anyway… now do they…
[Today is DAY 732 since 19-year veteran ASSIGNED “judge” JACK “the Family-ripper” HALPIN, Presiding Judges, the AOC, the JC, et al, ILLEGALLY abducted my then 14 year old daughter. Yesterday was her 17th birthday, still no contact allowed for my youngest daughter now 10, and me… No Abuse, No Neglect, No examination of my evidence, and NO involvement from the overseers: Best Interests of the Children?!]
Read “Logical Disbelief”:
http://www.blindbulldog.com
Wendy Darling
March 11, 2013
You know, it’s not realistic to cry poverty when you dine on caviar and lobster, hand out SWAG bags, and claim to have a Ferrari parked in the garage. Published today, Monday, March 11, from The Recorder, the on-line publication of CalLaw, by Cheryl Miller:
Cantil-Sakauye Laments Budget Cuts in Address to Lawmakers
By Cheryl Miller
SACRAMENTO — Citing the 50th anniversary of the landmark Gideon v. Wainwright decision in a speech to the Legislature on Monday, Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye compared the effects of five years of budget cuts to the pre-Gideon practice of denying criminal defense lawyers to the poor.
Full article requires subscription access: http://www.law.com/jsp/ca/PubArticleCA.jsp?id=1202591795457&CantilSakauye_Laments_Budget_Cuts_in_Address_to_Lawmakers&slreturn=20130211215025
Long live the ACJ.
Wendy Darling
March 11, 2013
Published today, Monday, March 11, from The Sacramento Bee:
California chief justice says state is ‘on the wrong side of history’
California Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye implored the Legislature on Monday to better fund the court system tying the issue to a basic guarantee of justice.
In her second State of the Judiciary speech, Cantil-Sakauye spoke repeatedly of the landmark Gideon v. Wainwright case, in which the United States Supreme Court established the right to counsel for defendants who couldn’t afford a lawyer. Ongoing cuts imperil the Gideon precedent that all Americans get a fair chance in court, Cantil-Sakauye said.
“To have your day in court, you need a court room,” Cantil-Sakauye said. “And I must say that what we once counted on, that courts would be open and ready and available to deliver prompt justice, is no longer true in California.”
As yawning budget deficits became commonplace over the last few years, the court system was repeatedly asked to absorb deep cuts. Cantil-Sakauye has spoken often about the consequences for an overburdened justice system, a central theme of her State of the Judiciary speech last year.
Cantil-Sakauye’s speech on Tuesday contained similar warnings. She invoked a list of slated courthouse closures and pointed to reduced staffing, buildings fallen into disrepair, heightened court fees and longer delays for cases. The Judicial Council, which sets policy for the court system, has voted to delay more than a dozen construction projects in recent months.
But the ground has shifted since 2012. Now that the voters have ratified Proposition 30, a ballot initiative that increases the California sale tax and raises income taxes for the state’s wealthiest residents, an expected surge of new revenue appears to put California on firmer fiscal footing.
Given that sunnier budget outlook, Cantil-Sakauye has urged Gov. Jerry Brown to restore some funding to the judicial system. Brown’s 2013-2014 budget proposes a $200 million reduction and asks the courts to offset it by dipping into judicial reserves.
“I worry that California is on the wrong side of history in funding justice, and I believe that if we do not reinvest in justice, you will see or will continue to see services to the public from the courts are cut or eliminated or deeply restricted,” she said.
Some judges have assailed the court system’s centralized authority, the Administrative Office of the Courts, for acting with a heavy hand and spending inefficiently. A May 2012 report commissioned by Cantil-Sakauye echoed those calls for reform, saying the AOC has “become dysfunctional in many ways” and strayed from its primary role of administering California’s trial courts.
Cantil-Sakauye pointed to some of the progress the AOC has made, citing a costly computer system project officials decided to scrap, a series of open meetings and a review of trial court funding. But she said that tightening up practices can only go so far.
http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/2013/03/in-state-of-the-judiciary-chief-justice-warns-california-on-the-wrong-side.html
Long live the ACJ.
wearyant
March 11, 2013
“Cantil-Sakauye pointed to some of the progress the AOC has made, citing a costly computer system project officials decided to scrap, a series of open meetings and a review of trial court funding. But she said that tightening up practices can only go so far.”
Citing a costly computer system project officials decided to scrap? Huh?! Does Teensy Tani see that disaster in any way as progress? Jeez. And she continued to pour her support into that damnable CCMS mess even beyond the very end! She made it clear she would continue to support that mess ad infinitum. The legislature heard her. And it’s clear that public funds going to the third branch is routed to the JC/AOC/CJ where that odious agency takes a huge cut to support their lavish lifestyles. The legislature does answer to the people and perhaps they are finally deciding not to throw “good money after bad.” The AOC goes on interminably without any notice or care about the suffering of the common folk and the trial courts. They have even increased in their bloated number!
De-fund the AOC! Long live the ACJ!
Wendy Darling
March 11, 2013
It’s called “economic sanctions,” Ant. Economic santions, as in: you have been given every opportunity to clean house. You have chosen not to do so, and have cited “co-equal branch of government” and “separation of powers” as your justification. But that doesn’t mean we have to continue funding your poor judgment. That’s the big, loud message from Sacramento to branch “leadership” and administration that apparently everyone can hear except 455 Golden Gate Avenue.
Still serving themselves to the detriment of all Californians.
Long live the ACJ.
Wendy Darling
March 11, 2013
Please excuse the typo, re: Economic sanctions, as in . . .
Long live the ACJ.
unionman575
March 12, 2013
The power of the purse is being wielded now big time.
Lando
March 11, 2013
The CJ’s speech to the legislature is Exhibit 1002 in the case for General Woodhull’s proposal to democratize the Judicial Council. What I am continually amazed at is the none of the “overlords” at 455 Golden Gate ever associates any of their repeated and numerous public policy failures with why our branch budget has been so radically cut back.To claim the JC and AOC have cleaned up their act also rings hollow given the vote just last week to reject the SEC recommendation on ending telecommuting. The bottom line is that the “insiders” at the crystal palace by never accepting responsibility for the waste of billions have lost their way and credibility with those that fund the courts. Wendy is absolutely correct as it sounds like the legislature and Governor appear to be saying ” that doesn’t mean we have to continue funding your poor judgment”. Democratize the Judicial Council so we can restore fiscal integrity, open and available courts, common sense and credibility to our branch of government.
Wendy Darling
March 11, 2013
The State Legislature knows that the state budget situation didn’t create the problems and lack of integrity in branch “leadership” and adminsitration – it just unmasked them. And the members of the State Legislature also know at this point that “more money” isn’t going to fix what is really wrong with the California Judicial Branch, and that it would just be throwing good money after bad, and the equivalent of political suicide.
Today was just the latest example of the hypocrisy that is so emblamatic of 455 Golden Gate Avenue.
Long live the ACJ.
Michael Paul
March 12, 2013
The Chief Justice is totally missing the boat on cause and effect. She ignores the cause and decries the effects. She has made judicial branch directed budget cuts an effortless no-brainer with nary the least bit of contrition,
Re-framing epic failures like CCMS into resounding successes of Ferrari’s being parked in a garage wins you the no confidence vote.
Declaring progress on a reorganized AOC while re-arranging the deck chairs of the same senior management team wins you the no confidence vote.
Permitting the AOC to launch a classification and compensation study without imposing a reorganization and some material pay cuts on wages and benefits of the future senior management team first wins you the no confidence vote.
Tossing out other judicial council election related ideas: If you were to elect appellate justices it seems to make sense that you could divide those elections up as well by mating districts 1 and 3, districts 5 and 6 and districts 2 and 4 based on geographical representation.(North, Central, Southern) The mated regional districts could then vote on the appellate justice they would like to send to the judicial council. The one other supreme court justice could be elected by a vote of other supreme court justices.
The state bar could make available elections to the Judicial Council themselves with two attorneys coming from south of the grapevine and two from north of the grapevine, which is an approximate geographical/population division.
Nathaniel Woodhull
March 12, 2013
HRH-2’s speech to the Legislature is like if Hitler had survived the war and testified that his exploits really helped Germany and its people because they are so much leaner now. Please give me more money so I can try it again.
MaxRebo5
March 12, 2013
A new bill for more money for CA Courts:
http://rotwnews.com/2013/03/12/donnelly-introduces-bill-to-boost-judicial-system-budget/
That didn’t take long. The Chief wants more money from the general fund and no cuts to the AOC where 800+ administrators and attorneys staff the Judicial Council. Targeted cuts to the AOC are needed to the CA courts to restore the branch reputation as a fiscally well run institution but the Chief won’t do it and she controls the Judicial Council.
The state is currently in the black but that is only because the public agreed to temporary tax increases with Prop 30. What happens when the baby boomers retire in mass and the state has billions of dollars in unfunded pension liabilities to pay to state workers, the tax increases expire at the same time, and the Federal Government is also making cuts. It can’t be good math and this is all in a short window (seven years). Court leaders and the other branches of CA government should all see this coming and recognize a change has to occur. The court’s budget can’t grow unless the economy is growing and dramatically expanding the general fund .
Instead the courts will still be there every year saying they need more money from the general fund regardless of the fiscal reality. t is not a sustainable system. The CA Courts deserve stable funding but should also live within their means. The days of ever expanding CA Courts budgets should not have happened but with Ron George/Vickrey at the helm durring a housing boom that’s what the branch became addicted to. We’d all love an ever expanding budget but that’s unrealistic in the real world. We know we have a boom/bust economy (dot coms, housing, stock market?)
It is time for more responsible leadership in CA Courts. One where leaders actually step up and make the tough choices to cut non essential services. That should start at the top with AOC cuts.
Nathaniel Woodhull
March 12, 2013
Max,
You have hit the nail on the head. HRH-2 and her minions within the Crystal Palace represent everything that is wrong with California. I have attended meetings over the years where I was chastized, sometimes pleasantly and sometimes not, for pointing out that we were being asked to spend taxpayer dollars on programs that didn’t make sense or were not cost-effective. It was pointed out that I was voicing the wrong “mindset”. It should not be viewed that they are spending taxpayer dollars, rather budgeted money was being spent on “valuable” programs that would enhance access to justice. (Most of these things had nothing to do with access to justice, rather AOC access to control over local trial courts.)
Sacramento has never seen a tax dollar or other form of revenue that they didn’t want to spend. They fund ongoing programs (i.e. salaried employees) with one-time money. The AOC is worse than the State generally because those in control truly believe that they are over-worked and underpaid! Hence the class and comp study that is being commissioned, the outcome of which has already been decided. I predict that there will be a recommendation for immediate re-classifications with a 7-12% salary increase for many. This reality flies in the face of their belief that somehow they should also be exempt from the new pension laws and that their having paid an extra 20-35% toward executives compensation by way of the employees’ pension contributions is just fine.
California in general is in a rapid state of decline. Why do you think more and more businesses are fleeing California. As America “greys” and the pension problems come home to roost, it is going to be ugly for those who remain. Either cities and counties will declare bankrupcy in efforts to free themselves from pension obligations or the tax burden on those who remain will be unbearable.
Legislators that I talked to said they weren’t even listening to HRH-2’s address, (those who were even there) nor do they have any confidence in her abilities to manage the Branch.
I wish it was 1995 again, when our doors were open and we were able to creatively and collaboratively work with our local justice partners to develop programs that actually did enhance the public’s access to justice.
Taxpayer
March 12, 2013
Why not ask the judges to comply with California Constitution Article VI section 18 and 21 and resign because they are being paid as county employees. Doesn’t public employment result in a resignation? The taxpayers harmed by the court closures and corrupt conduct are not provided disclosure and agreeing to consent. How can you talk about funding without resolving this issue?
courtflea
March 12, 2013
Taxpayer. say what?
MaxRebo5
March 13, 2013
I am not sure what Taxpayer is refering but my best guess is he is refering to the extra judicial benefits counties pay judges. Here is a story I found on the topic where Yolo County was considering ending it to save money.
http://davisvanguard.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3596:letter-from-california-judges-association-opposes-elimination-of-extra-judicial-benefits&Itemid=94
According to this second link judges also were mostly exempt from the pension reforms done last year for state workers. The article says the state has 3 billion dollars in unfunded liability for judges retirement alone.
http://calpensions.com/2012/10/15/judges-and-pensions-classic-conflict-of-interest/
Pretty nice deals for the folks at the top. Not nearly so nice for the 500 LA employees about to be laid off. Been there and feel for you. The judges are safe from cuts and thanks to the Chief so is the AOC. That leaves the trial court staff who are low on the totem pole to feel the full pain of the cuts.
I wonder if it will ever come down to funding judges pensions or courthouses with staff in them. Perhaps it already has?
wearyant
March 13, 2013
Thanks for the translation of Taxpayer’s post, Max! 🙂 You are probably right on. I too was puzzled as Courtflea.
Lando
March 13, 2013
Woodhull you and I both have left lots on the field of battle over the course of decades.. The great Jackson Browne once asked : ” Doctor, my eyes have seen the years And the Slow parade of fears without crying Now I want to understand I have done all that I could To see the evil and the good without hiding You must help me if you can. ( Here we go. Ronald George, his enforcer J Huffman, any call for democratization of the Judicial Council would be tantamount to and act of war, dissenters labeled as “clowns” or lowly ” ants on a trail” , half a billion wasted on a failed case management computer system that J Bruiners claimed was ready to be deployed, thirty AOC “managers ” who never contributed anything to their retirement which was unheard of in California, telecommuting lawyers from Europe and the midwest, a Long Beach courthouse that will cost millions in rent, allowing the CJP through J McConnell to torment the lives of hardworking trial Judges just trying to do the right thing every day, massive courthouse closures and layoffs of thousands of dedicated court employees, incredible amounts wasted on the opulent crystal palace at 455 Golden Gate including the William C Vickrey conference Center , Justice Harry Hull, , and much much more.So I must ask, Doctor,my eyes tell me what is wrong Was I unwise to leave them open for so long…………
wearyant
March 13, 2013
Lando and The OBT, you both hit it squarely. Thank you both! I’m gonna copy your posts and save them at the ready for when the dust tends to settle and the evil doers think we’ve all forgotten and it’s safe for them to breathe again, all the facts will be regurgitated at the JC/AOC/CJ’s feet. They’re counting on all this “blowing over” — perhaps counting on statute of limitations on crime passing by too. Well, like a mother bird, this stuff is gonna be regurgitated at their feet time and time again as long as I draw breath.
De-throwne Tani! Long live the ACJ! De-fund the AOC!
The OBT
March 13, 2013
Yes Lando . You nailed it. I think we have seen more evil than good and you left out in your litany of problems HRH 2 who is driving the branch into the ground given her lack of experience and lack of political skills including her misplaced attacks on the integrity of the legislators who fund our branch. HRH 2 is an unmitigated disaster. Her whining was poorly received in Sacramento this week.. My vote, she needs to resign so we can can save what is left of our branch.
unionman575
March 13, 2013
And the games go on:
“FAIRFIELD — Two days after lamenting funding cuts to the state courts, California Supreme Court Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye will be in Fairfield on Wednesday to break ground on a $27.5 million construction project that will result in three new courtrooms.”
😉
http://www.dailyrepublic.com/news/crimecourts/ceremony-set-for-start-of-solano-courthouse-project/
Ceremony set for start of Solano courthouse project
By Jess Sullivan
From page A3 | March 13, 2013
FAIRFIELD — Two days after lamenting funding cuts to the state courts, California Supreme Court Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye will be in Fairfield on Wednesday to break ground on a $27.5 million construction project that will result in three new courtrooms.
A groundbreaking ceremony at 3 p.m. will commemorate the long-awaited start of renovations to the Old Solano Courthouse on Texas Street. The ceremony is scheduled to include remarks by Cantil-Sakauye, Presiding Judge Paul L. Beeman, California State Sens. Lois Wolk and Noreen Evans, California State Assemblyman Jim Frazier and Solano County Board of Supervisors Chairwoman Linda Seifert.
Cantil-Sakauye told a joint session of the Legislature on Monday in her “state of the judiciary” report that the state may be “on the wrong side of history in funding justice” and that not reinvesting in the judiciary will result in further cuts in services to the public from the courts.
The Fairfield renovation will restore the historic building with complete seismic, mechanical, electrical, life safety, plumbing, telecommunications and accessibility upgrades. The San Francisco-based architectural firm of Hornberger + Worstell, recognized for its achievements in restoration and modernization of historic structures, designed the renovation plans. The Old Solano Courthouse is the first project funded by Senate Bill 1407 to go into construction.
Completion is scheduled for summer 2014, after which the court will use the building for civil cases. For more information, visit the California court’s website at http://www.courts.ca.gov/facilities-solano.htm.
Earlier this year, the local courts cut back the closing time for public service counters from 3 p.m. to 2 p.m. During the current fiscal year, the courts have also had 12 employee furlough days.
Reach Jess Sullivan at 427-6919 or jsullivan@dailyrepublic.net. Follow him on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/jsullivandr.
At a glance
• What: The event celebrates the culmination of more than 11 years of planning for renovations to the Old Solano Courthouse. Designed by architect E.C. Hemmings, the historic courthouse is considered an outstanding example of Beaux Arts architecture, with its flat roof and expansive exterior colonnades. The 1911 building served as a functioning courthouse until the 1970s, but has been vacant since 2005.
• When: 3 to 4 p.m. Wednesday
• Where: Old Solano Courthouse Stairs, 580 W. Texas St., Fairfield.
Wendy Darling
March 13, 2013
Welcome back again, to the show that never ends. Published today, Wednesday, March 13, from Courthouse News Service, by Maria Dinzeo:
Proposed Search Fee Threatens Access to Public Court Records
By MARIA DINZEO
(CN) – A bill written by California’s Administrative Office of the Courts would impose a ten-dollar fee on every court file requested by a journalist, a fee that would inevitably limit access to public documents.
“It would be intolerable for a journalist and for press coverage in general,” said Terry Francke of the open government group Californians Aware. “The rate that you’re talking about is absolutely prohibitive.”
Judges and court clerks conceded that the fee would apply to nearly everyone who wants to look at a court file, including journalists who regularly review a large number of files in covering a courthouse.
“If you asked for 10 files and you’re a reporter, it’s probably going to be $100 in that situation,” said Santa Clara County’s head court clerk, David Yamasaki.
Sonoma’s Presiding Judge Rene Chouteau added, in reference to the press corps, “You may have a problem there.”
The fee has been put forward by the courts’ central administrative office as part of trailer bill, legislation that rides in the wake of the overall budget bill and receives little public deliberation. The trailer bill procedure has been used by the court administrative office in the past and brought intense controversy within the judiciary.
“Putting this in a trailer bill is going to strike most people as a deliberate attempt to lowball it,” said Francke.
According to the bill, a $10 fee would be levied for “each name, file or other information for which a search is requested.” The sole exception is for a person who is a party in the case where a file is requested.
The broad language of the trailer bill amends an earlier section of the state government code that applied a $15 fee to searches that took over ten minutes, tying the fee to the amount of work involved. It was rarely invoked because it normally takes less than ten minutes to retrieve a file.
“This approach completely ignores the public’s role in being able to see how the system operates,” said Jim Ewert, general counsel for the California Newspaper Publishers Association, a group that includes 850 California newspapers, large and small, from the Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Sacramento Bee and San Jose Mercury News to the Fremont Argus, Lodi News-Herald, Santa Cruz Sentinel and Bakersfield Californian.
Closed Committees
The idea for the fee rose through a series of committees closed to the public.
A working group of seven judges and seven clerks took up the idea from suggestions by individual courts, passed it along to an ad hoc committee of judges and clerks who pushed it along to a legislative policy committee made up of judges and one clerk. All those committees were closed. That last one wrote a report on proposed “efficiencies” that was summarized in non-specific terms before the Judicial Council, which is open to the press.
The report was not debated or voted on by the council.
The language imposing the fee was then pushed by bureaucrats in the courts’ administrative office over to those in the governor’s finance department who then sent it over to the Legislature as a bill that is hooked to the budget. Trailer bills proceed in a group through the Legislature’s budget committees and become part of a furious round of horse trading that accompanies the budget’s passage.
“This is an issue to follow and it’s an issue we’re vetting,” said Anthony Ellis, a spokesperson for the office of Assembly member Bob Blumenfield, chair of the Assembly Budget Committee.
“I’m really concerned because that goes back to our basic idea of the role of the courts,” said Assembly member Bob Wieckowski (D-Fremont) who chairs the Assembly Judiciary Committee. “That’s our sense of democracy, and you’re limiting it to people who are rich and who can pay for that. I don’t want that.”
Along its complex and closed path, the fee idea morphed into something different than originally proposed.
The original idea from the working group of seven judges and seven clerks was to match the fee to the amount of staff work involved, said Chouteau in Sonoma Superior Court. “The exact language was not something we had discussions about. The discussion revolved around the fact that the fee had to be reasonably related to the services provided.”
But when the legal services office within the Administrative Office of the Courts finished drafting the specific words of the trailer bill, it no longer tied the fee to the amount of work on a search – the time element in the old law had been deleted. Instead, the language tied the fee to the number of files provided, regardless of time spent.
Court files are normally kept on shelves behind clerks at a records room counter, and generally take minutes to provide. Older files are often moved to archival storage. So a few files close by can take a few minutes to find while a single file in archives generally takes much longer to track down.
A lobbyist for the Administrative Office of the Courts, Donna Hershkowitz, worked with the original working group of judges and clerks that came up with the general idea. Her name is familiar to many judges in the state in connection with another trailer bill, proposed in 2008, that would have taken away the presiding judges’ power to manage their courts and choose their head clerks.
Described by a leading judge as “the dark-of-night trailer bill to subvert the local control of trial courts,” the gambit brought a furious reaction from trial judges and a four-year quest to find who had authored the language. Last year, Hershkowitz’s name was tied to the trailer bill by a member of the Judicial Council, but she was not said to be the bill’s drafter.
An analyst who also works for the administrative office’s lobbying arm defended the fee, saying it was aimed at “data miners.” That term is not included or defined in the proposed bill.
The analyst, Andi Liebenbaum, said a data miner would ask for a list of conservatorship petitions, for example, but the information is potentially dangerous and can lead to abuse. “Because they’re public records, we can’t say no, but until we change the law to make it so a lot of this info isn’t gettable by the public,” she said, “there are people — crackpots — who are going to go to a court and try to take advantage.”
A number of people involved said court officials from Placer, Tulare and Fresno counties pressed the idea of changing the old search fee of $15 after ten minutes.
Placer County’s head clerk Jake Chatters said it has less to do with data miners than with administrative simplicity. “The original reason it came up had to do with the ambiguity of the current law and the difficulty in handling the fee,” he said. “We don’t keep a timer or stop watch for staff to determine, ‘Was it a 14 minutes or 15 minutes?’ It was an administrative clarity issue.”
`You May Have a Problem’
The new fee of $10 fee would be assessed for every file or other “information” that is asked for. Its broad language falls on the press, public, researchers and anyone, other than someone directly involved in a lawsuit, who wants to look at records at a courthouse in California.
For example, a traditional part of a journalist’s work on the courthouse beat is to check the new filings at the end of the day, looking for news. In past years, journalists could often go behind the intake counter to do that part of their job. But most California courts now require that journalists ask a clerk for the new filings, often stacked up near the intake counter.
In San Jose’s superior court, for example, journalists look over a stack of 30-40 new cases filed on any given day.
In San Francisco, that number rises to 60-70.
“If someone wanted to pull a file, that would constitute a search,” said Yamasaki in San Jose. “We would look in our case management system and find where the case is located. In the last reading of the version it says. ‘each name, file for which a search is requested.’ It’s probably just as it reads, anybody who asks for a name or file would be required to pay that particular fee.”
Asked if the proposed fee would be charged to journalists reviewing new filings, Yamasaki answered candidly, “That’s a good question.”
“So here’s what happens,” he later added. “The way it’s written doesn’t draw a distinction between who the person is. Unfortunately, if you asked for 10 files and you’re a reporter it’s probably going to be $100 in that situation.”
Reviewing a stack of the approximately 40 cases filed on a given day in the San Jose court would thereby result in a daily fee of $400 — $64,000 a year. In San Francisco, the fee would rise to $700 a day – $182,000 a year.
“You may have a problem there,” said Judge Chouteau from Sonoma. “I’m not sure we can discriminate against people asking for the records.”
Arguments in favor of the fee often rely on anecdotal accounts of data miners, but the group is not defined in the legislation and has proved amorphous in the various accounts of malfeasance that generally have to do with seeking financial gain. Researchers, for example, comb court records for debt and eviction records, looking for information for employers and landlords. But the fee is not limited to that or any other group.
“Who supposedly is causing this problem by extraordinary demands for look up? I don’t know who they’re referring to,” said Francke with Californians Aware. “They have to be distinguished from organizations or individuals whose only reason for getting the information to report something to the public at little or no cost.”
The other main argument for the fee is that court budgets have been cut to the bone and courts need the money. But the fee’s backers have not estimated any amount that would be generated by the fee and its principal effect would inevitably be to cut back on requests to see court records.
Critics of the fee point also out that the records have already been paid for by California residents through their taxes.
“These records have already been paid for by the public once,” said Ewert with the California Newspaper Publishers Association. “The taxpayers pay the salaries of all the people in the court clerk’s office that organize, categorize and take care of these documents.”
Chouteau in Sonoma’s court disagreed with that argument.
“It’s not taxation, it’s payment for a service,” said the judge. “The tax dollars go to Sacramento and the general funding for the courts has been dramatically reduced. If the funding hadn’t been decreased, some of these fees might not be necessary.”
The Orange County Connection
Among those involved in the process of coming up with the trailer bill proposal, officials from the Orange County courts had a key role.
The original working group that recommended the idea was chaired by Orange County’s presiding judge, Tom Borris. Orange County’s head clerk Alan Carlson along with Orange County Judge Linda Marks were members of the ad hoc committee that was next up the line and vetted the idea.
Orange County court officials were early promoters of the Court Case Management System, a highly controversial and now defunct software promoted by the central administrative office. Orange County has also been a pioneer in selling records online, and the court is now running an e-filing pilot project based on legislation pushed by the central administrative office.
As part of that pilot project, the court and the administrative office have now proposed rules that create a new “officially filed” definition for court documents. In that proposed definition, a document only becomes officially filed after a set of set of bureaucratic tasks are finished, a process that takes days or weeks. In Orange County, that process culminates when documents are put online for sale at a price of $7.50 to $40.
Press and open government groups say the new rule appears intended to deny press access to newly filed controversies until long after they are actually filed. In a lengthy comment, the news organizations said that, used to deny access, the altered definition would cause a “fundamental change in access to court records” and would violate the federal constitutional right of access to government proceedings under the First Amendment.
The 109-page comment was written by Rachel Matteo-Boehm, Roger Myers and Katherine Keating with Bryan Cave on behalf of the California Newspaper Publishers Association, the First Amendment Coalition, Californians Aware and Courthouse News Service. Joining in the comments were the Bay Area News Group, the Press Democrat Media Company and the Los Angeles Times.
The trailer bill’s $10-per-file fee would similarly have a negative effect on press and public access to the courts, according to the newspaper representatives.
Judge Borris noted that his court provides for press coverage of new cases without a fee. “In Orange County, we have a place the media can go to see all the cases for that day that they were filed,” he said. “Here, because of the pilot project on e-filing, within two hours, it’s posted to a particular location, at least for civil cases, for free.”
Unlike big courts such as Los Angeles and San Francisco, new complaints filed in Orange County cannot be seen on the day they are actually filed, which is the date on which they are stamped as filed.
Orange County’s new cases take one to three days, sometimes longer, to show up on computer terminals at the courthouse, first in the form of a docket summary, followed within two hours by an image of the full complaint. At that point, the documents are also online for sale. The media can then see them without paying a fee on screens in a large common room at the court, shared by the media, researchers, attorney services and the public at large.
Borris also said that in the event a person knew a file’s case number, then one would be able to walk to a clerk’s desk and ask for it. “The way I’m reading it is there’s no search if you know exactly the case number,” he said. “If you have the case name and number, you should be able to go to a clerk’s desk and they won’t charge you for it.”
That view was contradicted by other members of the working group. Yamasaki, for example, said a request for a file by case number or any other means would trigger the fee. The words of the trailer bill make no exception for searches by case number.
Borris added that another way to combat the problem of large search requests is to sell the information directly to companies who, for example, sell background checks. He added that the purpose of the fee is to drive people away from the clerk’s counter or have them pay for the time it takes to find a file.
“Orange County puts all of our cases on CDs and we sell them to anybody who wants to buy them and those companies search through for a particular name for someone who applied for a particular job,” said the judge. Referring to the $10 search fee, Borris added, “It’s trying to drive people away from the clerk’s counter, and having them pay for the service of the clerks having to do all the work, in this time when courts are laying off employees.”
Orange County’s court appears to already have been largely successful in that effort. A former background checker in Orange County, the type of researcher often described as a data miner, said that in years past roughly 15 background researchers checked the court’s records every day. Now there is only one left.
`Courts Are Not a Private Enterprise’
The push to make money from court records has prompted newspaper representatives, open government advocates and journalists to point out that the records in fact belong to the public and that the courts are constitutionally required to remain open public institutions.
“The public and press have a right of access to adjudicative court records under the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution,” said Matteo-Boehm who also represents Courthouse News. “The notion of conditioning that access on the ability to pay — and we are talking about potentially large sums of money here — strikes me as presumptively unconstitutional. It is also totally contrary to the bedrock principles, in our country, of open court proceedings and the nature of our court system as a branch of government. The public should be encouraged to observe the court system through review of the court record, as opposed to discouraged through the imposition of high fees.”
Ewert with the California Newspaper Publishers Association added, “It’s not their records, it’s the public’s records. This approach completely ignores the public’s role in being able to see how the system operates. They have created this one size fits all approach to the detriment of the public in attempting to go further than the purported problem. I understand their plight but their approach is wrong headed because it completely ignores and makes more difficult the public’s role in the judicial process.”
Linda Petersen, a writer and editor with the Society of Professional Journalists, argued that the courts are public institutions and charging $10 to look at a court file runs counter to that fundamentally open character of American government.
“The courts are not a private enterprise,” said Petersen who chairs the society’s Freedom of Information Committee. “This is an effort to produce funds for their budget, and that is not how government should work.”
“There’s no way to single out a group and make them pay for a perceived abuse of the system without hurting everyone else in the process,” she concluded. “When costs become prohibitive, then ordinary citizens or reporters can’t have access to the operation of our government. It really does have a negative effect on people’s ability to know what our courts are doing.”
http://www.courthousenews.com/2013/03/13/55701.htm
Long live the ACJ.
wearyant
March 13, 2013
“ ‘The courts are not a private enterprise,’ said Petersen who chairs the society’s Freedom of Information Committee. ‘This is an effort to produce funds for their budget, and that is not how government should work.’ ”
Excellent article by Maria Dinzeo, as usual. Thanks for posting, Wendy Darling.
There were many compelling quotes by the newspeople referring to the public’s rights and the constitution. This insanity started coming about during the (ugh) “great” Ron George reign and Team George, which continues, along with the Vickrey factor. They apparently wanted to become as sexy and smart as private enterprise rather than dull government, and, for one, renamed all positions in courts administration in line with private enterprise, such as “CEO,” “director,” “chief financial officer,” ad nauseam. Then they looked around and decided (Vickrey and Team George) they should be paid as well as private industry! It’s like children playing “house” or “dress up”! Now, approximately 16 years into this de novo experiment or dream of these wackos in government pretending they are in the hurley-burley private sector with all its refinery, drama, high salary and perks, here we all are.
Sorry for the rant. I just see this fee as a spin-off from all the machinations and misconceptions this Team George has put forth for over a decade. The public, the trial courts and line workers of the trial courts have suffered enough from this horror of Team George. When will someone with big enough man pants step up and stop this nightmare?!
Funny, the quotes from Yamasaki about the fee. He earns more than the Governor of California, from what I’ve read. $100 would be nothing more than a gnat flying about his pretty forehead.
The OBT
March 14, 2013
We need to get back to the General’s proposal. The proposal is great. I would make a friendly amendment that eligible trial Judges would have either been Presiding Judges or completed one six year term. Now to the hard part, getting this great proposal on the ballot. I think we need to set up a meeting . There are so many dedicated people here with so many good ideas I really believe a plan could be developed if we all had the opportunity to meet. I would volunteer to pay for a centrally located hotel meeting room . A meeting in Sacramento might be best as I believe the airfares are best for all state wide. Ideally of course it would be best to meet in one of California’s best places like San Diego in an opulent space but I am guessing J McConnell won’t be making her tower available to any of us.
Lando
March 14, 2013
Great idea OBT. At such a meeting we need to develop a comprehensive plan for enacting Woodhull’s constitutional amendment. Thanks to JCW and people like Mr Paul we have the tech skills to help us. I am thinking we should create our own Judicial Council Democratization webpage to start building the case. I would be happy to volunteer to provide the content for such a website. We should also create another similar page on Facebook to help educate the voters as to the unlimited reasons why they should support the Woodhull amendment. After meeting all FPPC requirements, we could then engage on online fundraising to eventually pay for a professional campaign consultant to guide the campaign to get us on the ballot. OBT’s meeting idea is great as so many here have connections to groups that can help. The downside to a meeting is that the “thought police ” at the JC-AOC and CJP could go punitive on us. The way around that might be to develop a password protected website where we could all talk about passing Woodhull’s proposal. I am sure the awesome tech minds at JCW could help us figure out how to do all that.
unionman575
March 14, 2013
Federal court case number is at this link: with optical view of the court doc’s
😉
http://www.scpr.org/news/2013/03/14/36353/legal-aid-groups-sue-la-courts-claim-cutting-progr/
Legal aid groups sue LA courts, claim cutting programs at courthouses violates client’s rights
Erika Aguilar | March 14th, 2013, 6:02am
A coalition of legal aid groups is suing the Los Angeles County Superior Court and the state for allegedly denying minority and disabled residents access to justice to by shutting down courthouses.
The lawsuit was filed in federal court Wednesday afternoon. It’s aimed at a plan set to take effect Monday that would cut court tenant dispute services in 26 courthouses throughout the county.
On Monday, tenants seeking to fight eviction cases (also known as unlawful detainers) will be forced to file their cases at five “hub” courthouses. Cases already in progress at neighborhood courthouses will eventually be transferred to one of the hubs.
Those “hub” courthouses are located in downtown Los Angeles (Stanley Mosk), Pasadena, Long Beach, Santa Monica and Antelope Valley (Michael D. Antonovich).
In the federal complaint (read below), the coalition claims the court closures “delivers a devastating blow” to vulnerable residents and “violates its obligation to make courts accessible to people with disabilities.”
In eviction cases, a tenant has five days to respond to an “unlawful detainer” filed by a landlord. If no response, the court finds in favor of the landlord by default. The same goes for tenants who don’t show up to court hearings.
“There will be no unlawful detainer courtrooms in the San Fernando Valley,” the complaint states. “Tenants from the Valley will be forced to travel to either Santa Monica or Pasadena – areas to which there is no adequate public transportation route from the Valley.”
Los Angeles Superior Court announced last fall that it would be cutting 10 courthouses by this summer in order to reach up to $85 million in budget savings.
Most recently, the LA court announced it’s closing the country’s largest alternative dispute resolution (ADR) program. That department works on small claims cases that generally can be resolved through settlement, before they reach a courtroom.
In her State of the Judiciary address Monday, State Supreme Court Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye said California’s civil courts are facing a crisis.
“We can never know how many people – due to closures and delays – will not believe justice is for them,” she said. “We don’t know how many people will give up.”
The legal aid groups involved in the federal lawsuit against the LA court system are the Neighborhood Legal Services of Los Angeles County, Disability Rights Legal Center, Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles, and Western Center on Law and Poverty.
They are asking for an injunction to stop the plan.
unionman575
March 14, 2013
http://www.dailynews.com/ci_22784961/superior-court-facing-lawsuit-over-courtroom-closures
Superior Court facing lawsuit over courtroom closures
By Christina Villacorte, Staff Writer
Posted: 03/13/2013 06:43:20 PM PDT
Updated: 03/13/2013 06:45:22 PM PDT
Several legal services organizations said they plan to sue the Los Angeles Superior Court today to force it to drop plans to stop hearing eviction cases in dozens of courtrooms, arguing that cost-cutting move would be devastating to poor and disabled tenants trying to save their homes.
Neighborhood Legal Services of Los Angeles County, the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles, the Western Center on Law and Poverty, and the Disability Rights Legal Center said the Superior Court’s plans to slash the number of courtrooms hearing eviction cases from 26 to five would force tenants to travel for several hours to fight for their rights, and many of them cannot make that journey.
“These changes will leave countless individuals and families without access to justice in cases where basic human needs are at stake,” said Neal Dudovitz, executive director of Neighborhood Legal Services.
“For these families – many of whom depend on public transport – the prospect of traveling so far outside their own community to have their day in court is tantamount to having the door to justice slammed in their face,” he added.
Plaintiffs in the lawsuit include the Coalition for Economic Survival, People Organized for Westside Renewal, Union de Vecinos and the Independent Living Center of Southern California.
The Superior Court’s “consolidation plan,” slated for implementation March 18, is intended to close a projected $56 million to $85 million budget deficit in the 2013-2014 fiscal year.
Aside from closing or “repurposing” 10 courthouses – including Malibu, West Los Angeles, Whittier and Pomona North – the Superior Court also plans to have the remaining courthouses handle only certain cases.
Currently, there are 26 courthouses handling the 70,000 unlawful detainers – eviction cases – and 60,000 small claims that go through the Superior Court each year.
If the consolidation plan goes through, unlawful detainers would be heard in only five courthouses, and small claims in six courthouses.
Maria Palomares, a lawyer with Neighborhood Legal Services, said tenants at risk of being kicked out their homes in the San Fernando Valley currently go to courtrooms in Van Nuys and Chatsworth. The consolidation plan would mean new cases would instead have to be heard in Santa Monica and Pasadena – 30 miles away.
Palomares said that for many of her clients having to make that trip is not just inconvenient but impossible. She noted many of them are poor, disabled, or homeless, and those with jobs cannot afford to skip work to spend hours commuting to the courthouse, and do not have child care options.
“The reality is that people are not going to be able to get there, given the other considerations of mental health, language access, transportation, etc.,” Palomares said. “What this will do is effectively shut the court doors for the most vulnerable people.”
Superior Court spokeswoman Mary Hearn acknowledged the consolidation plan would be a hardship but contended it was unavoidable after several years of budget cuts.
“Sadly, our court leaders are very aware of the fact that people are going to be disadvantaged by the changes, but we have no choice,” she said. “We’re just finally at the point where we’re really cutting into the bone now.”
“There’s no discretionary area left to cut – it’s only the real bedrock of the court services,” Hearn added.
Rocio Soto and her family are fighting eviction from their home in Winnetka and expect to go to trial in Van Nuys later this month.
She said if the consolidation were already in effect, she would be certain to lose the case because her six witnesses cannot make the journey to Santa Monica for the usual 8:30 a.m. court appearance, as they have jobs and children to care for, and lack transportation.
“I just ask the Lord that this consolidation not go through, that these changes not happen, that we continue to have the court in the San Fernando Valley because we need it,” she said.
christina.villacorte@dailynews.com
twitter.com/LADNvillacorte
😉
courtflea
March 14, 2013
OBT and Lando, great ideas. I agree with Lando about the punitive possibilities if we were to meet. The website idea or maybe conference calls would work. Lando the social media idea is super. I can’t help but chuckle at the thought of how much the idea of this consititutional amendment and us working on getting it on the ballot is going to really piss off the powers that be. Love it.
unionman575
March 14, 2013
Speakers at the rally accused the court’s judges of coming up with the plan unilaterally, without consulting employees and the public.
http://claremont-laverne.patch.com/articles/workers-rally-to-save-pomona-and-other-courts-from-closure
Workers Rally to Save Pomona and Other Courts From Closure
Union workers and advocates denounced the planned closures of several regional courthouses including Pomona’s.
• ByCity News Service and Patch Staff
A crowd of union workers and advocates shut down a street in front of the County Courthouse in downtown Los Angeles today as part of a rally denouncing the planned closures of several regional courthouses.
Court officials have argued, however, that they had no alternatives in light of budget shortfalls.
Linda Dent, vice president of the Service Employees International Union Local 721, called the pending closures “the dumbest thing the government has ever done.”
Responding to an estimated $56 million to $85 million budget deficit, Los Angeles Superior Court officials announced in November a series of cuts that would shutter the Pomona courthouse, which would affect Diamond Bar, Walnut, Claremont and La Verne.
Claremont’s Police Department is already working on hiring a detective that would work from the courthouse in the event the department will be forced to travel farther to file its cases.
Other courthouses scheduled to be shuttered include Beverly Hills, Huntington Park, Whittier, West Los Angeles, San Pedro, Long Beach and Catalina, as well as the Kenyon Juvenile Justice Courthouse.
Critics of the plan said the closures, scheduled to take effect July 1, will require people to travel longer distances to remaining courthouses and also increase workloads for court workers, lead to layoffs and delay cases.
“The people who are supposed to be in will be out, and the people who are supposed to be out will be in. … Courts are very important,” Dent said.
Speakers at the rally accused the court’s judges of coming up with the plan unilaterally, without consulting employees and the public.
“The court’s moving forward with this devastating plan without publicly disclosing other options they considered, why they chose this approach over others or even answering the most basic question about how much money is actually going to be saved,” ACLU attorney David Sapp said.
“Low-income people will be priced out of access to courts, and people with disabilities are disproportionately impacted,” he said. “What is an inconvenience to some results in outright exclusion to others.”
A mock trial was performed at the rally, with a man dressed in a robe ordering judges to hold public hearings, meet with stakeholders and return with alternatives to closing the courthouses.
Los Angeles Superior Court Presiding Judge David S. Wesley said earlier this year the court had “run out of options.”
He noted that the county court system has shed 800 jobs in the last three years, and in the last year was operating on a budget that had already been reduced by $100 million. He said the state’s budgeting decisions necessitated their decisions to close and consolidate courthouses.
“We are witnessing the dismantling of the Los Angeles justice system,” Wesley said. “The sustained decline in state support for the California trial courts evidenced in the governor’s budget proposal will prove crippling to our ability to provide adequate access to justice.”
Wendy Darling
March 14, 2013
Sometimes you get asked questions that don’t follow the prepared script and are hard to find the right lies for on the spot. Published today, Thursday, March 14, from Courthouse News Service, by Maria Dinzeo:
Senator Grills Court Bureaucrats on Fee Hikes and $2 Billion Project
By MARIA DINZEO
(CN) – Senate budget sub-committee chair Loni Hancock on Thursday took issue with a $10 fee the courts’ administrative office wants to assess for every public file request, and questioned why the courts’ central bureaucracy is trying to push higher fees on the public while also spending $2 billion on a new courthouse in Long Beach.
“If there were high fees for an investigative reporter the Watergate scandal may never have been revealed,” said Hancock, a Democratic senator from Oakland. “Piecemeal fee increases can add up to a real lack of access for reporters, for low income and middle income people as they seek our justice system.”
The fees have been called “efficiencies,” by the bureaucrats from the administrative office, and the senator poked fun at the obfuscation.
“Now we’re saying `efficiencies’ when what we mean is, ‘We’re increasing fees and cutting services’,” she added in an interview. “It’s very important that we have transparency in government and I’m just saying what we’re talking about.”
Hancock, added that the administrative office, that often promises transparency, appears to be working against transparency in government.
“So in the interest of transparency in a democracy as well as access to justice for all people, it’s of great concern to me to increase those fees,” she said. “Ten dollars for each name is quite a lot and there were also some duplication fees, a dollar a page. Given the size of filings that can be prohibitively expensive.”
Michelle Castro with the Service Employees International Union said her union is also concerned about higher fees.
“We want to make sure that public records are easily accessible to taxpayers and those fees aren’t so prohibitive that only those who have money can have access to them,” she said. “It’s just a bad direction we’re going in. It doesn’t seem right to cheapen the quality of services the public gets because of budget cuts.”
She added that the judiciary should look at efficiencies that “make sense,” suggesting that courts may want to look at the ratio of managers to court employees.
Hancock did agree with the argument put forward by most judges and bureaucrats in the judiciary, that the legislature needs to reconsider the amount it is willing to fund the courts.
“Watching what is happening to our justice system is a major concern,” she said. “The judiciary is literally the third branch of our constitutional democracy and it’s being whittled away fee by fee, courtroom by courtroom. We used to spend considerably more money on our courts and we need to get back to a level of funding that’s adequate.”
In the morning on Thursday, her committee heard arguments from lobbyists from the courts’ central administrative office pushing for new fines, fees and service cuts that are currently included in trailer bills attached to the 2013-14 budget.
The administrative office’s director, Steven Jahr, cast the courts’ plight in Dickensian terms. “The fact of the matter is a person who is starving will eat rotten food rather than starve to death,” he said.
Hancock chuckled when Jahr referred to the increased fees on the public as “efficiencies.”
“We’re talking about cuts here, so yeah, ‘efficiencies,’ ” she said with irony.
Andi Liebenbaum with the lobbying arm of the administrative office said the old search fee, that charged only for a search that took more than ten minutes, was too hard to enforce. “A number of courts have said it’s hard to determine when you hit that stop watch for 10 minutes,” she said. “Some courts have said what if our clerks are slow or the person walking to get the record gets interrupted?”
Senator Curren Price Jr., a Democrat from Los Angeles, said the administrators are levying more and more fees with less and less success.
“I just want to also express my concern about the way things are going,” he said. “It is troubling and I don’t know how we provide funding, I’m interested in the ideas, obviously increasing fees is a diminishing success. You’re putting more fees on a smaller group.”
Questions on $2 Billion Expense
The hearing room heated up as the discussion turned to the $2 billion courthouse the administrators are building in Long Beach.
Hancock grilled Curt Child, the administrative office’s chief operating officer, over the hefty price tag on the building, projected to shoot into the billions over 35 years. Her questioning came against the backdrop of a report last year from the Legislative Analyst’s Office, finding that the project was based on a series of overly positive assumptions that favored partnership with a private group and extended payments to that private group for years to come.
“This is going to be quite expensive,” said Hancock. “The Legislative Analyst’s Office raised specific issues over criteria being used toward the contract and unsubstantiated assumptions being made about the cost of doing it as a public-private partnership. And it turned out the LAO’s assumptions were correct. The project is going to cost considerably more than was expected. My question for the AOC is, how did you let this happen?”
Child replied, “I’m not sure we would agree with the assumptions you’ve made, because this was a process — after there was the authorization in the legislation — an extensive procurement and preparement.”
“This was measured entirely against the value for our money,” Child said. “You have to keep in mind about this contract that is not just a construction contract. It was a design, bid, build, maintain and operate for 35 years.”
“$2.3 billion over the life the contract,” Hancock said.
“Certainly there’s a life beyond that for the building,” said Child.
“For the Department of Finance, at the time that you approved the Long Beach project, did the DOF have anyone on staff that had experience in assessing these projects?” Hancock asked.
“I don’t think we had someone with particular experience,” said Brian Dewey with the governor’s Department of Finance.
“We did have some outside counsel and analysts assist with review,” another department bureaucrat interjected.
“Can you tell me their names?” Hancock asked.
Hancock asked the department to draft trailer bill language in line with the LAO’s report, saying, “We really can’t be careless with public dollars in this situation.”
Hancock said post-hearing that her research on the construction project yielded disturbing conclusions.
“There are memos questioning this project going back to 2008,” she said. “The LAO believed that objective criteria were being inserted into the request for proposals and that assumptions were being skewed in a way that was not based on data to try and show that a public-private partnership would be less expensive.”
“Up to and including just a few days before the final bid was awarded, there were addendums adjusting financial formulas in various ways because previously the public option turned out to be less expensive,” she said.
Hancock noted that the project was pushed by the previous AOC administration, but said, “The AOC ought to embrace what I’ve requested, which is trailer bill language making sure this never happens again.”
One of the many questions about the project is the central matter of where the funding will come from.
The Judicial Council contends that lawmakers promised assistance from the General Fund, rather than from SB 1407, legislation that established a separate source of funding for courthouse construction projects. In December last year, the fateful announcement came that the Long Beach courthouse would have to be funded through SB 1407 and as a result, four more new planned courthouses in Fresno, Los Angeles, Nevada County and Sacramento would be “delayed indefinitely.”
“It was never intended that the General Fund should pay for it,” Hancock said Thursday. “It’s turning out to be hundreds of millions of dollars, more costly at a time when there are four other communities that have had their court projects put on hold indefinitely.”
“If I lived in Sacramento, or Fresno, or Los Angeles or Nevada City I’d be asking some serious questions,” she added. “We don’t have a dollar to waste and every public dollar needs to be carefully accounted for, and the judiciary system is too important to waste one single dollar.”
http://www.courthousenews.com/2013/03/14/55741.htm
Long live the ACJ.
wearyant
March 14, 2013
Hot damn! Maria Dinzeo is burning the midnight oil. How I wish I could have watched this live! GREAT article.
JusticeCalifornia
March 14, 2013
I am so grateful the legislature and the press have been and are paying attention.
Checks and balances at work.
Disgusted
March 14, 2013
Another View: Court reporters needed in family court
By Matthew J. Gary
Special to The Bee
Published: Friday, Mar. 8, 2013 – 12:00 am | Page 12A
The observation of The Bee’s editorial board that family law court proceedings should have an official record is correct (“Family court needs to enter electronic age,” Feb. 14). The editorial’s conclusion that electronic recording is the solution is not.
Sacramento Superior Court did use electronic recording in family law proceedings in years past. The assertion that, “The system worked just fine back then,” however, is historical fiction.
Far too many recordings were fuzzy, muddled, inaudible and unintelligible. Imagine sitting in a large room, at a large table, with five or more people all engaged in argument. Some talk loud, some soft, some fast, some slow. Often all are talking at once. This does not lend itself to a clear and concise official record.
Court reporting by a certified shorthand reporter is far more advanced and efficient than electronic recording. Reporters produce a more precise, clear and certain record. That is what an official record should be – precise, clear and certain.
The editorial notes that litigants and attorneys, who were unable to remember what the judge’s orders were, could use recordings to refresh their memories. This confuses the issues of convenience and justice. It may be convenient for a party or an attorney to have an audio recording of the proceeding to refresh his or her memory, but convenience is not the issue.
Justice is the issue. Justice demands a precise, clear and certain official record of proceedings.
The editorial also notes that if a family law litigant wants a record of the proceedings, he or she must “purchase the services of a court reporter” at $239 for a half day. The cost for a court reporter for the vast majority of our hearings, the “30 to 40 cases a day” The Bee identifies, is only $30 and the fee can be waived for low-income litigants. The $239 reported by The Bee is for trial or long cause hearing, not for regular hearings, and that fee can also be waived for low-income litigants.
The Bee concludes its editorial with, “The lack of a record, any record at all, has become an issue of simple justice.” There should be an official record, but electronic recording is not the solution. In the family law courts and elsewhere, only skilled court reporters can be trusted to create a reliable record of trial court proceedings.
Matthew J. Gary is a Sacramento Superior Court judge, Family Law.
© Copyright The Sacramento Bee. All rights reserved.
• Read more articles by Matthew J. Gary
Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2013/03/08/5245530/court-reporters-needed-in-family.html#storylink=cpy
JusticeCalifornia
March 14, 2013
Thank you Judge Gary.
The one electronically recorded Marin family court proceeding I heard was almost unintelligible.
It is interesting that long before we ever heard of terrible budget cuts, Marin Court Executive Officer Kim Turner was insulting and firing court reporters, whom she reportedly called “pains in the ass” or words to that effect. She reportedly was telling available court reporters to sit in their offices doing nothing, rather than reporting at family law proceedings.
Court reporters make the record, and quite simply, those who make records of official misconduct are being targeted.
courtflea
March 14, 2013
Shit Senator Hancock you go!!!! She was primed, locked and loaded. Jahr Head and Child did not have a chance with her. Not that they have a chance anywhere 🙂
Wendy Darling
March 14, 2013
The Chief Justice’s recent soiree for members of the State Legislature wasn’t successful in pulling the proverbial wool over the eyes of Sacramento. Senator Hancock is fully aware of the AOC playbook, and saw Jahr Head and Child coming from a mile away. 455 Golden Gate Avenue trying to lie their way out of their bad judgment just isn’t going to cut it with the State Legislature anymore.
Still serving themselves to the detriment of all Californians.
Long live the ACJ.
wearyant
March 15, 2013
http://sbud.senate.ca.gov/sites/sbud.senate.ca.gov/files/SUB5/03142013Sub5JudicialBranch.pdf
Gosh, I would love to have heard the interchanges at this senate budget subcommittee 5 held March 14! CalChannel has three others held today, but not this one. In my futile and obsessive search I found the above link for anyone who’s interested in the agenda.
Lando
March 15, 2013
Finally someone in Sacramento asking about the Judicial Council/AOC’s latest fiasco, the Long Beach courthouse . It is the CCMS for 2013. Great to see J Jahr is just like a rehashed William C. Vickrey . Maybe something at the crystal place will be named after him when he exits. As Wendy has observed the more things change at 455 Golden Gate , the more they remain the same. Woodhull’s proposal is the way to reform. Thanks Ant for supporting my ideas about moving forward to get democracy for the branch on the ballot. What do all the other great bloggers here think ?
The OBT
March 15, 2013
Rumor has it that J Miller has been reappointed to the Judicial Council. While J Miller is a decent enough person, he has failed to reform the Judicial Council or AOC in any really meaningful way. His reappointment represents all that is wrong with having an oligarchy running things at 455 Golden Gate Ave as the “insiders” are only about preserving their power at the expense of the public and trial courts. Lando’s right, we need to focus on how we can get the General’s call for reform on the ballot for the 2014 June primary. Any ideas ?
JusticeCalifornia
March 15, 2013
http://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/ballot-measures/how-to-qualify-an-initiative.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_California (check out amendments and revisions)
We all need only look at where the branch is today, after 17 years of George/Sakauye “rule”. George was appointed Chief Justice in March of 1996. Is the branch better off, or worse off, now? LOL.
Many of us who are posting here have, for almost two decades, been watching the steady decline of our once-proud and respected branch – even as branch funding steadily rose. We have observed and documented the arrogance, tyranny, corruption, mismanagement, cronyism, retaliation and/or waste that have infested the branch at the highest branch “leadership” levels–on the public dime—and at the expense of service to the public.
Many of us know our way around the legislative halls because we have had to go to the Governor and Legislature to ask them to put a screeching halt to egregious branch debacles, because branch “leadership” took part in, protected, supported and perpetuated those debacles.
The CA Judicial Branch is reportedly the largest in the world. It purports to be an example to the world. It has some of the finest legal minds in the world.
The branch deserves ethical, competent, qualified, experienced, respected, credible, responsive leadership, dedicated to service to the public.
Ron George purposefully engaged the branch in politics and questionable projects and policies, at great cost to branch credibility.
The unintended result? Well, politics makes strange bedfellows. As the branch faces ongoing strife and disaster under current leadership, we should all put aside our differences to the extent we can and do what we can to bring about a positive, democratic change in the governance structure of the branch. We have the opportunity to do that, and we should take it.
And, for the public’s sake, the executive and legislative branches have a checks-and-balances duty to take part, and do its part, in cleaning up the judicial branch.
The CA legislature is intimately aware of many problems in the branch. They have done what they could to clean up financial waste and mismanagement. . . .but thus far they have not been able to help change branch governance so that it operates in a transparent, democratic and representative fashion. This may present an opportunity for them to help get the branch back on solid ground.
wearyant
March 15, 2013
Great post, JusticeCalifornia. Thanks for the links. I’ve got my 20+ years old walking shoes (they’re broken in! :-D) ready to go. I’m sure I can find a clipboard around here …
MaxRebo5
March 15, 2013
I’m with you Justice California. Thanks for the links. The real challenge from my perspective is getting the signatures Your links says:
Petitions proposing initiative constitutional
amendments must be signed by registered voters. The number of signatures must be equal to
at least 8% of the total votes cast for Governor at the last gubernatorial election. (Cal. Const.,
art. II, § 8(b); Elections Code § 9035.) The total number of signatures required for such
petitions is 807,615.
For us to get 807,615 signatures would require full time volunteers to gather them. I say lets go for it and hopefully good people will see this as a worthy cause and help. Judges and attorneys who have been silent might quietly fund the effort, unions would have someting to rally their members to get behind and support, and it would be positive action instead of being critics. I like it.
JusticeCalifornia
March 15, 2013
And it would appear the other option, or the concurrent goal, would be to get support from 2/3 of the legislature. The legislature has been watching the branch train wreck for years now.
Funding is necessary, and so is a savvy, credible political consultant. The AOC is in the process of hiring a full time OGA lawyer/lobbyist to operate out of Sacramento. It would be interesting to know how many people the AOC has on the payroll to lobby for Judicial Council priorities and positions, and it will be interesting to see how they argue that the present system is working just fine (hahahahahah) and that democratization of the Judicial Council would be a bad thing.
JusticeCalifornia
March 15, 2013
And if this is a serious endeavor, Lando’s ideas about coordinating this effort are terrific. A plan of action has to be created, and it is probably not a good idea to present it in advance, chapter and verse, to current “top leadership”. which we know opposes democratization and diverse viewpoints.
courtflea
March 15, 2013
I think that one of our first steps should be to invite those to the table that could help us most in the signature gathering which would be court employee, court reporters, and research attorneys unions to get them on board with the concept. Heck, the court reporters have a very strong lobbyist in SACTO, why can’t we use his expertise? Maybe if the group is so inclined make it worth the reporters wile to pay a portion of the lobbyists cost in exchange for supporting their efforts.( The only concern I have is how much do we want to “politicize” the process by making alliances that may hamstring a democratic JC? Just thinking out loud here.) I’m sure the rest of us would help in the signature gathering or donate money to hire folks to do so. Taking to the public would be easier than getting 2/3rds of the legislature. Up here in my red neck of the woods democracy is a very powerful motivator especially when you apply it to government. Beat a few bushes up here and a few consitutionalists are sure to pop out 🙂
courtflea
March 15, 2013
whats the saying? all politics are local? one playing card in this drive should be bring back local control and representation to the trial courts
Wendy Darling
March 15, 2013
I’ve got pens, a clipboard, and comfy walking shoes ready to go.
Long live the ACJ.
courtflea
March 15, 2013
what I was trying to say is we know what this is about but a good way to sell it to the public is local control vs. some vast bureaucracy in the big city that does not give a shit about what locals think is best for their court.
courtflea
March 15, 2013
me too Wendy!!
courtflea
March 15, 2013
last one from me sorry! but another potential mine of signature gatherers is retired court employees. Lets not forget interpreter unions either.
wearyant
March 15, 2013
Speaking of interpreters, anyone know of the status of the federal inquiry into the court interpreter situation?
unionman575
March 15, 2013
Full steam ahead Ant.
wearyant
March 15, 2013
And may the good guys win and prosper! Yeah! 😀
MaxRebo5
March 15, 2013
These are the final words of the State of the Judciary Speech from earlier this week by CA’s Chief Justice:
Let me finish by telling you the rest of the story of Mr. Gideon. Mr. Gideon walked out of that courtroom a free man. He went on to live nine more years as a law-abiding citizen. However he died at the age of 61 of cancer. On his gravestone is a quote from a letter he wrote to his attorney. It says,“Each era finds an improvement in law for the benefit of mankind.” That’s the faith Mr. Gideon had in government to provide an improvement for the benefit of mankind.
And so as you the decision makers sort through all the pressing needs of the state, I urge you to re-invest in justice, I urge you to think about the judicial branch and the forum for justice that it provides to interpret and enforce the laws you pass. Think of Mr. Gideon; justice for all.
My reply to the Chief and message to the Legislature is if they really want to provide an improvement in the law for the benefit of mankind they will democratize the Judicial Council ASAP. This Chief is not leading progress for the CA Courts. She stands in it’s way.
wearyant
March 15, 2013
I’m happy to put my money where my mouth is. I’ll reinvest in our judiciary — which the current CJ is destroying piece by agonizing piece — by supporting democratizing the Judicial Council and any recall of teensy Tani that may be mustered. Let’s find out how to get a passworded website to discuss concrete ideas. The AOC ironically has a veritable army against us funded by public funds — our taxes we’ve paid! A link off the ACJ would be great, but they may have to separate their cause from ours, I don’t know. WordPress? Hushmail?
Disgusted
March 15, 2013
HERE THEY GO AGAIN, THIS “EDITORIAL BOARD.”
Editorial: State courts need reform and dollars to ensure justice
By the Editorial Board
Published: Friday, Mar. 15, 2013 – 12:00 am | Page 10A
Gloomy. Very gloomy. That’s the state of the judiciary in California as laid out by Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye to a joint session of the Legislature on Monday.
Over the last five difficult budget years, the Legislature has cut funding for the courts by $1 billion. Traditionally the judicial branch – the 58 county Superior Courts, the six Courts of Appeal and the state Supreme Court – received 2 percent of the general fund budget. Today, spending on courts accounts for just 1 percent of the general fund. “Equal access to justice for 38 million Californians,” the chief justice warned lawmakers, “cannot be had for a penny on the dollar.” She is right about that.
According to the chief justice, since January 2010, 22 courthouses have closed across the state, 114 courtrooms have been shuttered, 30 courts have reduced their hours of operations, and more than 2,600 court employees have either been laid off or left and were not replaced.
Scores of specialty courts for veterans, the homeless, people with mental illnesses and drug addicts have gone by the wayside.
The result – access to justice, particularly the civil side of justice, has been dangerously curtailed.
In Sacramento County, for example, more than a quarter of the courthouse workforce, 230 people, has been laid off or left and not been replaced since 2008. Family law litigants seeking to divorce or settle child custody and support matters can wait up to seven hours to file documents.
Help that used to be available to assist those litigants, 70 percent of whom come without lawyers, has been slashed to the bone. Help with forms, telephone responses and via email is nearly gone. Twenty-five counter service windows have been closed and the hours reduced for those that are left. Even janitorial services have been cut to the most basic level.
If civil litigants are wealthy, they can pay for private mediation. But for the indigent, stuck in overwhelmed and understaffed public courts, it can take as long as five years to schedule a trial. For injured plaintiffs waiting for relief, justice delayed that long is a gross injustice.
The courts themselves are not blameless in this budget crisis. A badly administered statewide court case management system wasted hundreds of millions of dollars before the Administrative Office of the Courts junked it. While Cantil-Sakauye has cut AOC staffing by 30 percent over the last year or so, it had grown top-heavy even as trial courts suffered devastating reductions.
The governor’s latest budget does not seek to cut more general fund support for the courts, but it doesn’t restore past cuts, either. It redirects court construction funds in a way that delays critical repairs and courthouse replacements.
Meanwhile, common-sense reforms, such as replacing expensive and inefficient court reporters with electronic recording devices, have not been implemented. The Legislative Analyst’s Office says that change alone would save the courts $100 million a year, but influential labor unions have kept that cost-saving reform bottled up in the Legislature for years.
Starved of funding and stymied in efforts to reform its own operations, the state of the judiciary is perilous. As Cantil-Sakauye told lawmakers this week, “What we once counted on – that courts would be open, available and ready to dispense prompt justice, is no longer the case in California.”
© Copyright The Sacramento Bee. All rights reserved.
Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2013/03/15/5264331/state-courts-need-reform-and-dollars.html#storylink=cpy
unionman575
March 15, 2013
The Bee has truly become an AOC mouthpiece. They are a worthless POS over there at the Bee. I don’t mean proof of service folks. 😉
Michael Paul
March 15, 2013
This editorial board is clueless, I’ll give them that.
wearyant
March 15, 2013
“Meanwhile, common-sense reforms, such as replacing expensive and inefficient court reporters with electronic recording devices, have not been implemented. The Legislative Analyst’s Office says that change alone would save the courts $100 million a year, but influential labor unions have kept that cost-saving reform bottled up in the Legislature for years.”
A blatant LIE! OMG! Are editorialists allowed to just make things up?! Something is definitely screwed up at the SacBee. Unbelievable.
Oh, and the mention that teensy Tani cut the AOC by 30 percent? Another big jaw-dropper. What the hell? I’m so sick of the lies, lies by these greedy AOC bureaucrats. They can’t be allowed to lie to the public like this …
Delilah
March 15, 2013
Guess our posts crossed in cyberspace, Disgusted.
wearyant
March 15, 2013
Great minds think alike! 🙂
Delilah
March 15, 2013
The SacBee is at it again.
http://www.sacbee.com/2013/03/15/5264331/state-courts-need-reform-and-dollars.html
Is it just me? Or doesn’t the below paragraph make it sound as though the courts statewide were responsible for the CCMess money-sucking waste of $$$ until the AOC came along on a white horse and “junked it” of its volition? Talk about a total rewrite of history and the omission of a few “minor” details as to the Herculean effort of OTHERS to expose and put an end to that fraud. Or maybe I just can’t see straight anymore cuz we’re too far down the rabbit hole.
The courts themselves are not blameless in this budget crisis. A badly administered statewide court case management system wasted hundreds of millions of dollars before the Administrative Office of the Courts junked it. While Cantil-Sakauye has cut AOC staffing by 30 percent over the last year or so, it had grown top-heavy even as trial courts suffered devastating reductions.
A rebuttal letter to at least a portion of this latest opinion piece has been delivered.
BTW, count me in as being ready for mobilization!
Michael Paul
March 15, 2013
unbefreakinglievable.
Judicial Council Watcher
March 15, 2013
JCW commented on that article, though we left out defending the court reporters since everyone else was doing such a swell job on that.
Delilah
March 15, 2013
Bravo! to your comment, JCW! Grounded in reality and telling it like it is. Thanks.
Wendy Darling
March 15, 2013
No, Delilah, it’s not just you. Reading the Sac Bee editorial was like reading a modern day installment of The Emperor’s New Clothes.
You just can’t make this stuff up. Really.
Long live the ACJ.
JusticeCalifornia
March 15, 2013
flea I think we must be neighbors. . . .
Re it being hard to get support from 2/3 of the legislators. . . . .I am just curious as to how exactly legislators would be able to argue against democratization of the Judicial Council? By saying the current system has served their constituents and the branch well? By saying its perfectly ok for 2000 judges to be “ruled” by a former gambling barmaid and her handpicked pals against their collective will-(Exhibit A is the recent vote on telecommuting employees)? I don’t think so.
I think their constituents are probably mad as hell about the fees, fines and penalties they are coughing up to fund branch travesties (CCMS, Long Beach, court maintenance, overpriced construction etc.) promoted by the Judicial Council, the absence of court reporters, the unconstitutionally “assigned” retired judges who have served for decades, reduced court hours, closed local courts, and much more.
I think loyal court employees who have dedicated their lives to the branch are sick to death of what has happened to the branch, and the bizarre politics and machinations that are fattening up the few and taking down the many.
And honestly? I don’t think the legislature is going to like being tasked with keeping this inexperienced cj and her inexperienced staff appeased or in check for 10 more years, as the branch becomes more and more divided. On its face it would be far easier and much more in line with the beliefs of the American people to step in and help mend this horrible rift by helping get this issue on the ballot and letting the people decide.
Other thoughts out there?
unionman575
March 15, 2013
“I think loyal court employees who have dedicated their lives to the branch are sick to death of what has happened to the branch, and the bizarre politics and machinations that are fattening up the few and taking down the many. ”
You nailed it Justice.
😉
courtflea
March 15, 2013
Justice CA I am just concerned that the AOC will continue to suggest that a bunch of rogue judges and employees, nazis, communists, criminals, unions, know nothings, you name it are behind the amendment and scare off politically jittery legislatators out there afraid of anything but the status quo and particularly republicans which as we know are not friends of unions. We can’t underestimate that kool aide drinking administrators, judges and justices have friends in SACTO too. We need a secure website!
wearyant
March 15, 2013
“We need a secure website” Agreed, Flea.
The JC/AOC/CJ thugs have declared war on the truth with this strange pact with SacBee. Hey, SacBee, doncha know that the elitists you are prostituting yourselves for refuse to move to Sacto because they feel Sacto is beneath them? They want Frisco. They want Brie, Grey Goose martinis, lobster and caviar.
You’re gonna get the true facts dumped all over ya, AOC. Wait for it …
Michael Paul
March 15, 2013
If I can be entrusted to verify your identity before granting you access to a secure website, I can produce that secure website where you can use a gravitar to post. The challenge here is you don’t want Cathal Connelly or Curtis Child wanting an anonymous account to get into a secure site. So one has to verify the intent of a prospective subscriber and verify the identity of that prospective subscriber. This is not foreign territory to me.
wearyant
March 15, 2013
Michael Paul, I sure don’t want those two boobs in our discussions. I’m still trying to track down the recording of the Senate Budget Subcommittee 5 the other day. Anyway, is my “wearyant” gravatar A-okay at this point?
wearyant
March 15, 2013
Like CourtFlea, I’d give up my identity to Michael Paul to go on the secure website. I’ve had with these thugs at the AOC and the so-called chief justice! Please email me at hushmail with specifics.
wearyant
March 15, 2013
A-hem. I mean, “I’ve had it!” 😀
JusticeCalifornia
March 15, 2013
let’s all check and report our records over these past two decades. Mine are fricking voluminous.
And they extend to all current important members of all three branches.
wearyant
March 15, 2013
Yeah, JusticeCalifornia, it will be a pain, but a labor of love. If they want to battle the truth, they are gonna have the truth dumped all over ’em. I don’t think they’re gonna like it. I think I’ll go after their reaction to every query made of them and the obfuscation that followed. Like you said, tons of material. Also, we all know, lies are difficult to remember … they’ve had it!
JusticeCalifornia
March 15, 2013
Politics does strange bedfellows make. And politics is where the Office of the Chief Justice has, for almost two decades, intentionally dragged all of us, willingly or not.
In assessing the current judicial branch debacle all three branches should check their records. They have been fully informed. All along the way. By angels, rogues, and all those in between.
Wendy Darling
March 15, 2013
All the usual suspects will still be haunting the dark hallways of 455 Golden Gate Avenue. Published today, Friday, March 15, from Courthouse News Service, by Maria Dinzeo:
California Chief Reappoints Three to Council
By MARIA DINZEO
SAN FRANCISCO (CN) – California Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye made a round of reappointments to the Judicial Council this week, the top policy making body which she heads.
The reappointments are of a long-time member and two fairly recent appointees; Associate Supreme Court Justice Marvin Baxter, Justice Douglas Miller and Judge Emilie Elias of Los Angeles. Each will now sit on the council for at least three more years.
Both Baxter and Miller chair powerful internal committees, Baxter the council’s legislative policy committee and Miller its Executive and Planning Committee. Miller joined the council in 2010; Baxter in 1996, also the year he became head of the legislative committee. Elias sits on the Trial Court Funding Working Group, a committee of judges and government officials currently evaluating how the courts should be funded.
The reappointments by the chief justice come in the midst of a campaign by a reform group of judges who are pushing for the democratic election of council members. They argue that a council headed by the chief and made up mostly of the chief’s appointees is unlikely to exercise judgment independent of the courts’ central bureaucracy that works under the chief.
All three of the council members who were reappointed are in policy hot seats.
Baxter chairs the Policy Liaison and Policy Committee that endorses proposals for legislation such as a recent trailer bill proposing a host of additional fees to the public, including a prohibitive fee to search public court records that was criticized in the state Senate this week.
Elias is a member of a group that is charged with evaluating how funding is distributed by the Judicial Council to individual trial courts, a subject of contention and concerns that some courts with close ties to the administrative office are favored in that allocation.
Miller chairs the committee that is supposed to put into effect a list of reforms of the Administrative Office of the Courts recommended by a committee of judges that spent a year looking into the bureaucracy criticized for waste of funds, mishandling of a defunct statewide computer project and a “culture of control” that left no say for the state’s independent trial judges. Miller has also opened some formerly closed council meetings to the public and started sending council judges on visits to local courts.
The campaign calling for a democratic shake-up of the council has been led by the Alliance of California Judges who say the council members do not represent the interests of the state’s trial judges and that elections would hold them accountable to their peers. For example, the council recently and unanimously endorsed telecommuting by the central bureaucrats, despite opposition from the head of the committee that made the reform recommendations, from the presiding judges committee, from the Alliance and from the California Judges Association.
Alliance judges have pointed to that decision and many before it in criticizing the council’s pattern of unanimous decisions that follow the recommendations from the administrative office on policies that affect the courts.
“Over the last 15 years, under this dysfunctional form of governance, we have witnessed the doubling in size of the central bureaucracy, the wasting of over $500 million dollars on a failed computer system, the granting of overly generous pension perks to the 30 top paid AOC bureaucrats, the allowance of ‘telecommuting privileges’ to high paid central office staff–including supervisors, and wasteful construction and maintenance projects, just to name a few,” Gilliard said.
“In that same time period we have never witnessed a single instance where these hand picked Council members have ever turned down an AOC staff recommendation,” she pointed out. “That fact alone should be a great cause of concern and a rallying cry for reform in light of the historical track record of mismanagement, bloat, and waste.”
http://www.courthousenews.com/2013/03/15/55786.htm
Long live the ACJ.
wearyant
March 15, 2013
OMG, teensy Tani is making our argument for us! Is she that dense?
Disgusted
March 15, 2013
“Meanwhile, common-sense reforms, such as replacing expensive and inefficient court reporters with electronic recording devices, have not been implemented. The Legislative Analyst’s Office says that change alone would save the courts $100 million a year, but influential labor unions have kept that cost-saving reform bottled up in the Legislature for years.”
wearyant
March 15, 2013
Disgusted, where are you? I’m sure you have a wonderful retort for the crappy quote you posted. Let’s start with “common-sense reforms.” Electronic recording devices that the AOC would choose? Hahaha. Yeah, they’re great at IT, software, electronics and private vendors. Let’s never forget the CCMS disaster. Court reporters have teamed up with software vendors since the 80s to produce realtime transcripts. The vendors toe the court reporter line as no nonsense is put up with in face-to-face contracts, nothing like Deloitte running all over the stupid bureaucrats within the AOC. The court reporters pay for the expensive software and equipment, NOT the taxpayer. Meanwhile, the courts are still collecting court reporter fees from the public at large at the AOC’s demanding, and court reporter services are being denied to the public. If the AOC takes over transcripts, they will raise fees for transcripts as high as they think they can get away with while government statute controls the transcript fees now — and they haven’t been raised in over two decades! Not to mention the crap that everyone will get in the form of something typed from an impersonal, far-away transcriptionist, who doesn’t care less about the transcript, wasn’t there at the time of the hearing, will get very low recompense and it will be a less than decent product.
That’s just for starters. I’m not finished. I can go on and on, but it’s getting late …
Disgusted, hang in there! 🙂 Don’t let the bastards grind you down.
courtflea
March 15, 2013
I trust you Michael with my true identity for the purposes of a secure website. But I don’t know how to use a Gavitar
Michael Paul
March 15, 2013
You wouldn’t need to use any custom gravitar- they’re optional. Your username and a password is how you get in. On some systems like wordpress, it issues you a gravitar based on your email address. That green thingie above your name courtflea is a default gravitar. Wearyant has a custom gravitar that wearyant could easily keep.
A secure members only social networking platform is in order and I think a forum with different subject matter areas is also in order. I just have to see enough interest to ensure the development effort (which costs $$$) doesn’t go to waste.
JusticeCalifornia
March 15, 2013
My mantra after all these years: keep records. I was tempted to burn mine when I moved, but fortunately did not.
Records provide proof and protection. Those who were informed cannot say they did not know.
courtflea
March 15, 2013
Michael, I forgot to thank you for stepping up to the plate on the website. Thank you!
If you can’t guess it already I am so ready for this project! JCW posters, lets roll!!!
The OBT
March 16, 2013
The Sac Bee editorial is very disturbing. They appear to claim that the AOC ended CCMS??? Apparently they haven’t researched their history very well. The reason CCMS is gone is that the State Auditor was authorized by the legislature to investigate CCMS. That only occurred after the many groups for reform lobbied the legislature. The push back against reform was significant including from HRH 1 , Vickrey and J Bruinears who told the legislature CCMS was a great system and that an audit was not necessary. This is the same J Bruinears that would also later claim CCMS was ready to be deployed. After the legislature authorized the audit, the State Auditor slammed the AOC and the waste of a half billion dollars on a totally failed CCMS case management system. The devastating audit results and the disclosure that half a billion was totally wasted forced the hand of HRH 2 to put an end to the madness. To claim she is some type of reformer completely creates a false revisionist history as she sat on the Judicial Council while multi millions were spent on this state wide failure of incredible proportions.
wearyant
March 16, 2013
Thanks for posting, The OBT. The detractors continue to rely on people forgetting. I remember the AOC wresting over yet another $8 million plus to “shut down” CCMS. Amazing. I don’t know of any entity anywhere in the universe who would demand millions to terminate a program. Here’s an award winning link to refresh memories of the truth.
https://judicialcouncilwatcher.com/2012/05/25/its-alive-its-alive/
Delilah
March 16, 2013
Yes, OBT, thank you for listing some of the “minor details” to which I was referring that were conveniently and magically left out, thereby making it sound as though the AOC would EVER do the right thing of its own volition. Granted, it is an “opinion piece.” And MY opinion is that it is irresponsible and biased misinformation at best; shameless and intentionally misleading propaganda at worst. Either cronyism, skeletons in the closet, or job-related aspirations being possible motives, would be my guess. Who knows for sure? But somebody’s playing toady. Everyone knows the CJ is surrounded by and has no shortage of those.
Also, FYI:
Alliance director and Fresno County Superior Court Judge W. Kent Hamlin sent the following response to the Sac Bee in response to their most recent editorial claiming the benefits of ER/DAR:
Your editorial comment on the Chief Justice’s address to the Legislature acknowledged that courts have been forced to close and cut hours due to a lack of funding. You also correctly noted that money was wasted on the failed CCMS project that consumed over 500 million precious court dollars before the Judicial Council finally listened to judges who had urged an end to that misguided and mismanaged project for years.
Your comment about the need to replace court reporters with electronic recording devices, however, demands a response. Court reporters have already been replaced in many courts, but electronic recording cannot replace court reporters altogether. That is not because we’ve been bullied by the reporters’ union, but because due process demands an accurate record. Compare a transcript recreated from a recording to one prepared by a skilled court reporter before you incorrectly label reporters “expensive and inefficient.” Nonsense.
Long Live the ACJ. Recall the CJ. Democratize the JC
unionman575
March 16, 2013
http://www.lao.ca.gov/handouts/crimjust/2013/Judicial_Branch_Overview_03_14_13.pdf
Overview of theJudicial Branch Budget
L E G I S L A T I V E A N A L Y S T ’ S O F F I C E
March 14, 2013
Presented to:
Senate Budget Subcommittee No. 5
On Corrections, Public Safety and the Judiciary
Hon. Loni Hancock, Chair
;
See this on page 5:
Implementation of Prior-Year Budget Reductions to Trial
Courts
Absent legislative action, trial courts will likely expand upon
operational actions taken in the past to meet past budget
reductions. Some of these actions have resulted in reduced
public access to court services.
Given the magnitude of additional reductions which must be
addressed by 2014-15, the Legislature will want to
(1) establish its own priorities for how the budget reductions
will be implemented by the judicial branch and (2) determine
whether to minimize further impacts to court users by
providing additional offsetting resources on a one-time or
ongoing basis (such as by enacting statutory changes to
reduce court operating costs).
wearyant
March 16, 2013
Good morning, Unionman575! Good morning and good weekend, everyone! Thanks for posting this, Unionman575. Isn’t the last paragraph vveeerrrrrry interesting, beginning with “Given the magnitude of additional reductions which must be addressed by 2014-15, the Legislature will want to …” !! Hope the AOC’s blood runs cold! If I were they, mine would.
unionman575
March 16, 2013
San Joaquin County Superior Court
http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130316/A_NEWS/303160320
Court to resume hearing some small claims cases Monday
By The Record
March 16, 2013 12:00 AM
STOCKTON – San Joaquin County Superior Court will resume certain small claims processing effective Monday.
The local court still is not hearing small claims cases, but the changes indicate the court is closer to reinstating the civil segment that was halted last year because of budget cuts, said Presiding Judge Dave Warner.
Small claims court is designed for citizens to resolve disputes cheaply, quickly and without attorneys.
“When you eliminate a part of the justice system, that’s not acceptable,” Warner said. “The flip side is as the budget gets cut at some point, there’s not enough bodies and something has to give.”
Warner said court officials hope to have a plan in place next month to resume small claims hearings.
Next week, the court will begin processing renewals of judgment (judgments issued expire in 10 years); orders of examination to have a party questioned in a case; and writs of execution, court papers to allow for the collection of judgments already made.
The documents can be taken to the Stockton courthouse with fees included at 222 E. Weber Ave., Room 303, Tuesdays and Thursdays from 1 to 3 p.m.
They also can be deposited in a drop box outside the clerk’s office for same-day filing.
Forms can be picked up from a self-help area in the office or online at courts.ca.gov.
The court also will continue to file basic documents that include any abstract of judgment, satisfaction of judgment, claim of exemption, request for dismissal and proof of service.
For more information, contact the court at (209) 468-2949.
😉
unionman575
March 16, 2013
“We allow corruption and injustice to proliferate by our silence and the price of our silence is too high. “
http://www.chicoer.com/opinion/ci_22805477/letter-put-end-corruption-courts
Letter: Put end to corruption in courts
Chico Enterprise-Record
Posted: 03/16/2013 12:17:54 AM PDT
😉
unionman575
March 16, 2013
Attn: Laid off court workers. Willing to relocate to San Bernardino? Please read this.
http://www.pe.com/local-news/politics/jeff-horseman-headlines/20130315-riverside-county-sheriff-ramps-up-efforts-to-hire-hundreds-of-deputies.ece
RIVERSIDE COUNTY: Sheriff ramps up efforts to hire hundreds of deputies
BY JEFF HORSEMAN
STAFF WRITER
Published: March 15, 2013; 05:19 PM
If you ever wanted to be a police officer in Riverside County, now’s your chance.
Over the next few years, the county Sheriff’s Department is ramping up efforts to hire as many as 500 deputies and several hundred corrections officers as well as 911 dispatchers and civilian support staff.
😉
unionman575
March 16, 2013
http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/legal_aid_groups_sue_over_los_angeles_plan_to_have_5_courts_hear_eviction/
State Assemblyman Bob Blumenfield, who chairs the Assembly Budget Committee, said in a letter to Presiding Judge David S. Wesley that the plan to close eviction courts is “simply unacceptable,” L.A. Now reports. He contended the plan, which is scheduled to take effect Monday, “will impose insurmountable conditions on low-income renters needing to defend themselves in unlawful detainer complaints and undeniably push more working families into the chasm of homeless.”
😉
Lando
March 16, 2013
The Sacramento Bee editorial is exactly why we need to get Woodhull’s democratization of the Judicial Council on the ballot in the June 2014 primary . The information the Bee editorial relies on , represents a revisionist history, a classic approach used by an oligarchy or anti- democratic form of government. The revisionist history apparently has our current CJ reforming everything, ending CCMS, adopting the SEC report and reducing the size of the AOC drastically. Taking just one example we know the SEC recommendations aren’t being adopted as the Judicial Council refuses to end telecommuting or move out of the crystal place to more modest rental space in Sacramento. As OBT correctly points out CCMS only ended after incredible pressure and objections were made about wasting half a billion dollars. The longer we wait to get Woodhull’s proposal on the ballot, the easier it will be for the ” insiders” at 455 Golden Gate to claim ” all is well” , when the reality is that nothing has changed. Judge Jahr’s user fee proposal , the continued support of the Long Beach mess and the reappointment of J Miller to the Judicial Council demonstrates how nothing has changed. Nothing at all.
Wendy Darling
March 16, 2013
Revisionist history =’s lying through their teeth. And everybody knows it.
Long live the ACJ.
MaxRebo5
March 16, 2013
This paragraph from the Bee Editorial was disturbing:
“The courts themselves are not blameless in this budget crisis. A badly administered statewide court case management system wasted hundreds of millions of dollars before the Administrative Office of the Courts junked it. While Cantil-Sakauye has cut AOC staffing by 30 percent over the last year or so, it had grown top-heavy even as trial courts suffered devastating reductions.”
First I want to agree with other comments that the Bee makes in seem like the AOC and JC (Chief) ended CCMS by choice. That is not at all what happened. The State Auditor and Legislature forced the Chief’s hand on CCMS as this article in Courhouse News documented very well:
http://www.courthousenews.com/2011/02/24/34440.htm
That article should be re-read regularly because it shows the Chief’s defiance at the time and I belive her defiance toward the reformers within the branch and from outside the branch remains fully unchanged.
I say her view remains unchanged because she just named all the same inner members of the JC back to the JC. The wagons are fully circled on the JC and it is a siege mentality there. It should be an attitude of contrition by the Chief for past mistakes by the JC and AOC leadershio followed by a true desire to make amends for those HUGE errors. Making amends includes actual acts such as these:
The JC Conference Center must be renamed
The Vickrey Award must be eliminated
Team George must be fired
The JC must be democratized
JC members from the George era must be removed from the JC
The Chief must state how messed up the prior admin was or she too should resign as too polarizing a figure to lead the branch into the future.
Second, the Bee Editorial said Cantil Sakauye has cut the AOC by 30%. It is still 800+ admin staff to support a policy making council! It is a complete disgrace that it was once over 1,000 bureaucrats strong. That was Vickrey’s true failed vision to have a massive centralized office running everything and it is the one thing the Chief and Team Geoge treasures most. This AOC is filled with personal friends and she protects them behind her robe but cannot defend them intellectually with ideas (Like access to justice).
All the money for those attorneys, construction managers, and admin jobs could be directed back to the trial courts in their time of greatest need. That 5% of the CA Courts budget (according to the Chief’s speech) for the AOC needs to be cut first (not last) to save the trial courts and access to justice. The Chief is saying she is on the right side of history but she is not. She is alligned with the people who screwed over the CA Courts for their own profit at the AOC. In following this course it is she who will be remembered for being on the wrong side. Until she makes the full admin changes needed and starts embracing reforms she’ll continue to be in this mess and her list of enemies grow every week
*The press is turning on her for the fee increases on them
*The unions are seeing the full picture of the AOC waste as layoffs impact the trial court employees
*The court reporters know they are being used as a scapegoat for the AOC’s problems
*The legisislature is seeing she is not truly doing all she can in implementing the SEC Report – just look at the telecomute “reform” that failed to get a single vote
*The Governor sees that the state’s credibility to develop new case management systems is undermined by the CCMS debacle. The CA Courts have made it harder for the public to trust all of CA government so CCMS impacts the credibility of all of the branches.
*The Governor also sees the LB Courthouse cost overruns and knows that was a huge waste of taxpayer funds that is going to come out of the court’s 1407 funds not from the General Fund. He is likely wondering if the AOC can be trusted with 1407 funds or if DGS should be involved to provide a check to their mismanagement.
The Chief’s allies are thin so keep the pressure on. If we can get a Constitutional Amendment on the ballot the public will get to weigh in and she will either get on board or lose outright. She loves to remind us all of great advances in case law like Brown v Board of Education or Gideon as if she too is a reformer. I say she has been a resister of reform and if reforming the JC/AOC was a legal case she’d be alligned with the old guard of the south who wanted segregation to remain and the folks who wanted to deny Gideon of an attorney. Shame on this Chief!
Wendy Darling
March 16, 2013
Unfortunately, Max Rebo 5, this “Chief” has no shame.
Long live the ACJ.
JusticeCalifornia
March 17, 2013
Great comment, MaxRebo5.
Lando
March 17, 2013
The HRH 1 and Vickrey model was arrogant from the start. It assumed all the local trial courts were failures. While some smaller courts may have been underfunded, local control of the trial courts worked just fine. We now know that nothing HRH 1 , HRH 2 , Vickrey or Jahr had to offer improved anything. Before them did you ever see a local courthouse close in Clovis, Barstow, San Mateo, Malibu , San Pedro or San Diego ? Before them did you see court reporters lose their jobs by the hundreds all over the state and especially in civil trial courtrooms? Before them did you courts like San Joaquin completely close down all small claims cases? Before them did you see massive layoffs of Court Commissioners such as in San Francisco ? Before them did you see a self serving bureaucracy grow from less than 200 to 1,000? Before them did you see the waste of countless billions on ill conceived projects like CCMS, Long Beach, a telecommuting lawyer from Europe, and retirement benefits no one else employed by the state of California ever received. All of the above makes the case for voting out the dictatorship at 455 Golden Gate that has run our branch of government totally into the ground.
wearyant
March 17, 2013
Great post, Lando! Keep tossing the truth in their faces at the ministry of untruthiness. They have no reply. And Happy Saint Paddy’s Day, all! I’m on my green grass!
The OBT
March 17, 2013
From Buffalo Springfield For What It’s Worth sent out to the Crystal palace “overlords” . There’s Something happening here. What it is ain’t exactly clear… Everybody look whats’s going down…Paranoia strikes deep, into your life it will creep…Stop hey what’s that sound everybody look around.” Change is on the way. Despite the SEC report the current “insiders” refuse to reform themselves and reappointing J Miller like many other “insiders” before him proves the point. HRH 2 there is something happening here and your misguided , incompetent and shrill rule makes the best case for everybody looking around and seeing meaningful and real change either by your recall or by bringing democracy to the dark hallways of 455 Golden Gate.
wearyant
March 17, 2013
Very apropos, The OBT. Thanks for posting. Hope you’re wearing green today.
unionman575
March 18, 2013
http://recalltani.wordpress.com/
Recall Tani Organizing Committee (RTOC)
A Judicial Council Watcher public accountability project
JusticeCalifornia
March 17, 2013
I might be missing something, but I think selecting our own representatives and leaders in a democratic fashion is at the very heart of what our country stands for.
Democratizing the Judicial Council is a no-brainer. How could or would the legislature argue against putting this measure on the ballot? How would elected representatives explain to their constituents that they believe 2000 judges should be forced to labor under the rule and representation of a former gambling barmaid and her double-dipping, marvelously compensated, handpicked AOC pals — all of whom took part in creating and protecting the financial and policy debacles that have brought the branch to its knees?
As the branch is in ashes after countless taxpayer-funded Team George debacles. . . .as the Judicial Council thumbs its nose at judges. . . . .as the branch is divided beyond belief. . . .. . . .as all things about the branch make it clear that the branch is DESPERATELY in need of change, the legislature is seeing up close and personal what we have gotten from Sakauye.
Revisionist history and Team George retreads
http://www.courts.ca.gov/policyadmin-aoc.htm.
Sakauye’s top advisor has no relevant administrative experience, and his “assistants” (LOL-don’t we all know who is wearing the pants in this group– Tani’s good buddy Jody) all took part in getting the branch exactly where it is right now. They have ZERO CREDIBILITY.
I personally think legislation to democratize the Judicial Council should be presented to the legislature with the request that this matter be placed on the ballot, post haste.
All that is being asked is that this issue be placed on the ballot for a public vote. That is hardly controversial. So what if the gambling barmaid stamps her feet? The only change that has taken place thus far in the branch came from outsiders and/or outside pressure. Honestly, left to her own devices, and without the ACJ, court whistleblowers, AOC Watcher and JCW, informed legislators, and others who have spoken out, we would still have CCMS, $2,000 lightbulb replacements, the AOC would still have 1,000 or more employees, and Markleeville would have a $25 million one-courtroom courthouse.
This is going to have to come from the judges. The CJA and the ACJ — both of which were just publicly slapped across the face by the Judicial Council — should join forces on this issue.
The wisdom of democratizing the Judicial Council so judges from all parts of the state can be heard; so the legislature doesn’t have to play referee between failed “leadership” and members of the branch; so the Governor and the legislature do not have to worry that they will be blamed for throwing good money after bad by continuing to hand precious taxpayer funds to those who have a long and public track record of wasting it, is just so obvious.
It is just so obvious.
wearyant
March 17, 2013
Another great post, JusticeCalifornia! Thanks for posting. I hope we all can educate the public and help them care about what’s happening to California’s state courts. I’m thinking about the public’s attention span and one concise but complete paragraph of all that’s transpired in the last two decades. And it will be attached to the clipboard when signatures are gathered. 🙂
JusticeCalifornia
March 17, 2013
One more thing.
see 48:45-49:10.
Exhibit A: The chief justice herself is admitting that she and “the great” Ron George before her are the appropriate individuals to take the heat for what has gone wrong in the branch. Ummmm….. yeah, because of the way the system is currently set up…..with enormous power over the biggest judiciary in the Western World concentrated in the hands of one person…..some of us already knew and have been saying that for years. But her on-camera admission is one of the best arguments for democratization of the Judicial Council yet.
Imagine the CEO of a company unilaterally staffing the company with incompetent sycophant pals who brought the company to financial ruin. . . . arguing that she should be allowed to continue unilaterally staffing the company with her incompetent sycophant pals because as CEO she is the one who has to take the heat.
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. . .. great legal minds at work.
I am NOT saying all Judicial Council members and all AOC staffers are incompetent sycophants.
I am saying no one should have the concentrated power over the branch that CA’s Office of the Chief Justice has.
And I agree with Sakauye that she and George are responsible for the failed leadership handpicked and led by the Office of the Chief Justice that has brought the branch to where it is today.
unionman575
March 18, 2013
And I agree with Sakauye that she and George are responsible for the failed leadership handpicked and led by the Office of the Chief Justice that has brought the branch to where it is today.
Me too!
😉
The OBT
March 17, 2013
Thanks Justice California for posting that remarkable interview. The interview totally makes the case for Woodhull’s proposal to bring democracy to our branch. The fact that HRH 2 believes the branch is 16 years young is very revealing about how the” insiders ” at 455 Golden Gate view themselves. I guess what they are saying is that before Ronald George came along the judicial system in California didn’t function. That really is the root of the problem, the arrogant belief that the California court system was broken before the “great” Ronald George fixed everything with in her words a “centralized uniform” governance structure. Sorry Justice I didn’t make it to 48:45, watching HRH 2 was making my hair hurt. We need to recall the CJ and democratize the Judicial Council to get our branch back on track .
unionman575
March 18, 2013
16 years of “crash and burn”.
Delilah
March 18, 2013
Would love to read this whole article. Go, Senator Hancock!
Capital Accounts: Long Beach Lands AOC in Woodshed Premium Access Required
The Recorder March 15, 2013
By Cheryl Miller
SACRAMENTO — State Senator Loni Hancock is not usually given to verbal fireworks. But the typically mild-mannered Berkeley Democrat did not hide her anger with judicial leaders Thursday as she…
courtflea
March 18, 2013
Justice CA, interesting video. I loved how HRH 2 described how she selects JC members…diverse, their “decision” making, yada, yada. Makes ya want to puke. OBT, I made it through most of it without my hair hurting because I was sitting out in my yard kickin back and drinking a beer listening to it 🙂 You gotta get loose to listen to this crap for any length of time.
courtflea
March 18, 2013
JCW, obviously you are are a person of great influence and charm, perhaps you could pursuade Cheryl Miller and the Recorder to let you post their articles here pro bono, for the cause?
Delilah
March 18, 2013
Here is the rest of the article. The ACJ attached it to their latest release, which I’m sure JCW will be posting soon.
The Recorder
Capital Accounts: Long Beach Lands AOC in Woodshed
Cheryl Miller
2013-03-15 12:53:06 PM
SACRAMENTO — State Senator Loni Hancock is not usually given to verbal fireworks. But the typically mild-mannered Berkeley Democrat did not hide her anger with judicial leaders Thursday as she publicly quizzed the Administrative Office of the Courts about the Long Beach courthouse financing fiasco.
“My question is, to the AOC: How did you let this happen?” Hancock asked, her voice bubbling with exasperation.
The Senate budget subcommittee hearing provided the first real legislative grilling the AOC has received over the controversial project. And it probably marked the final nail in the coffin for judicial hopes that lawmakers will change their minds and cough up state money for the Long Beach building.
The Legislative Analyst’s Office recently concluded that the judicial branch may overpay by $160 million for the new courthouse because it relied on overly rosy projections when penciling out costs for the untested public-private financing deal.
“It turned out that the LAO’s projections were correct,” Hancock said at Thursday’s hearing.
Branch leaders assumed the state general fund would pick up the average $60 million annual payment for the building, even though a contract with the private construction consortium never specified what public entity would ultimately cover the tab. When lawmakers and the governor quashed those expectations last year, the Judicial Council was forced to shelve four other courthouse projects planned for Los Angeles, Fresno, Nevada and Sacramento counties to free up enough internal construction money for Long Beach.
“I frankly think that every [court with a] courthouse that is delayed because of this ought to raise some questions,” Hancock said.
AOC officials, however, wouldn’t concede that they made any mistakes with the Long Beach courthouse, which will ultimately cost $2.3 billion over the life of the contract.
“I’m not sure this was letting anything happen,” said Curtis Child, the AOC’s chief operating officer. “We’re still quite confident … this is a bargain for the state.”
Asked by Hancock if the branch had learned any lessons from the financial deal’s shortcomings, Child said it was too early to say, that an evaluation of the building’s quality after the life of the contract might be the best measure. Hancock pointedly noted that neither she nor Child is likely to be active in state government in 35 years.
“It’s not going to be particularly helpful,” she said.
Hancock instead said she’d push for language in this year’s budget that would stop state entities from using “unsubstantiated assumptions” when trying to justify public-private partnership, or “P3” deals.
“We really can’t be careless with one public dollar when we’re closing courthouses,” she said.
Any such statutory restrictions may not affect the judiciary, which apparently has decided to stick to traditional construction financing methods in the future.
“We don’t anticipate doing any more P3 projects,” Child told the subcommittee on Thursday.
JusticeCalifornia
March 18, 2013
I really appreciate that the legislature and the legal press (as opposed to the SacBee, which is rapidly losing all credibility) are stepping up to deal with tough questions about what has been and is going down in the branch.
SacBee– get with it. You look like you have replaced AOC shill Leanne Kozak as the mouthpiece for corrupt Team George. What the heck is up with that?
positivethinker
March 18, 2013
This whole nightmare could be summed up from this movie scene:
JusticeCalifornia
March 18, 2013
tripartite.
Who’s zooming who?
That is the question.
Everyone who has records should keep them.
JusticeCalifornia
March 18, 2013
Sidebar to the top leadership of the bar: The bar should be prepared to answer for their defense of patent bench/bar misconduct.
JusticeCalifornia
March 18, 2013
And oh yeah, say hey Justice Ruvolo of the CJP. Please review all those decades long Marin County CJP files. . .
and the Marin Sepulveda-penned decisions you signed. . . .
then let’s talk. LOL.
JusticeCalifornia
March 18, 2013
And Justice Rivera, and Senator Steinberg, don’t you both just really and intimately know what I am talking about?
JusticeCalifornia
March 18, 2013
All kidding aside, of course you two do. And we all know it.
Burma Schofell
March 30, 2013
IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offencesFor abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.