For those of you who work for or have ever worked for the AOC as well as many of you in the courts, a move made this week to change the name of the administrative office of the courts is laughable and serves only to feverishly repaint the titanic just before it dips below the surface.
Throughout the above video you’ll note that the chief justice, justice Miller and judge Jahr make consistent references to the judicial council being the defacto board of directors for the administrative office of the courts. But they wish to change the name and the name alone and continue to delegate their board of director responsibilities to another board of directors and assistant directors at the AOC.
Admittedly, the AOC has always been the administrative offices of the judicial council but their internal structure which will apparently remain unaltered if you listen to the video, is that the chief justice appointed board of directors on the council will continue to delegate every function short of actual policy decisions to the board of directors that sit at the heads of the various divisions and continue to pay many of these people more than the judges and justices make.
No heads will roll. No effective reorganization of the various AOC divisions will occur to ensure that judicial council directors are directly over AOC divisions. Instead, they pledge to maintain, through a stated “no substantive changes in the organizational structure” division directors and assistant directors to run the day to day operations of the AOC by simply rebranding them.
Astonishingly, there is also admission that the AOC isn’t a legally formed entity anyways and that’s another good reason to change the name of the organization.
If one looks at the litigation record, any time the judicial council and the AOC have been named in a lawsuit, the AOC works to quickly dismiss the judicial council from the litigation and has been successful in doing so time and time again.
Frankly, we’re a little disturbed by the change from a litigation standpoint because of judicial immunity. By supplanting a group of judges and justices as the legally organized entity, doesn’t that give absolute immunity to the agency whose name is about to change? Under those conditions, what court in the land would even bother to hear a complaint against a group of judges and justices?
If you think things were bad before they’re about to get a whole lot worse unless and until the council itself is democratized.
Judicial Council Watcher 
courtflea
June 28, 2014
Hum, maybe next is the JC changing its name to what it really is: the rubber stamp committee for the real JC: AOC staff. Woof.
unionman575
June 28, 2014
courtflea
June 28, 2014
I nominate this JC video for the golden raspberry award
wearyant
June 28, 2014
Nicely choreographed, Queen Feckless. Irresistible, compelling reasons to eliminate the burgeoning staff will naturally follow; but the queen doesn’t plan ahead, does she.
R. Campomadera
June 28, 2014
The problem wasn’t, in my humble opinion, with name of the agency. It was with the name of the top position, which ironically, was really quite accurate in the King George context: The Administrative DIRECTOR of the California Courts, implying that the director and the office was in charge of the California Courts, which, of course, was exactly the vision of King George. In that context, it was very accurate, if unintentionally so.
There’s nothing wrong with calling the AOC the Administrative Office. The federal courts have their Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts (AOUSC), and no federal judge assumes (nor would countenance) that the Director, AOUSC (the official title of the position) is in charge of directing court operations. The AOUSC is a support function, and enjoys the strong support of the federal court judges and staff. This positive, healthy relationship in the federal courts would serve as a model for California, if anyone at the JC was truly sincere about sorting out the problems with the current relationship. The JC could simply have renamed the head of the agency to Director, Administrative Office of the California Courts, together with a comment that it more accurately described the true role of the office by eliminating the implication that the director was in charge of the courts themselves.
That would have telegraphed real change. But, of course, that wasn’t the real motivation. Instead, they continue their campaign to obfuscate, thinking we’re too damn dumb to realize that calling an Edsel something else changes NOTHING (apologies to Edsel Ford who was a very good man and didn’t deserve to have his name forever associated with failure).
katy
June 29, 2014
“Frankly, we’re a little disturbed by the change from a litigation standpoint because of judicial immunity. By supplanting a group of judges and justices as the legally organized entity, doesn’t that give absolute immunity to the agency whose name is about to change?”
Maybe someone else can better answer this question for you JCW, but as I understand it judicial immunity has nothing to do with this scenario or the acts of JC members/AOC employees. Judicial immunity is regarding acts of judicial officers in court cases. The only time a jurist has immunity is when they are acting as an officer of the court, whose court has physical and subject matter jurisdiction.
Guest
June 29, 2014
So really, to summarize this major accomplishment of the JC, the cj does this because our legislators in Sacramento are too stupid and get confused between the AOC and JC. But she is counting on that same legislators stupidity to not see that the same ineffective and incompetent people are still running the, whatever you call them now? The brilliant summary by Steven Jahr says it all. They are making asses of all of us who work for the Branch.
Wendy Darling
June 29, 2014
Exactly right, Guest.
The Chief Justice can “change” the AOC’s name a million ways from Sunday, and try to “rebrand” 455 Golden Gate Avenue a thousand times over, or some other word machination Orwellian nonsense, branch “leadership” will still be comprised of the very same liars, thugs, thieves, hypocrites, and bullies. Starting with the Office of the Chief Justice.
Still serving themselves to the detriment of all Californians.
Long live the ACJ.
JusticeCalifornia
June 29, 2014
I think there is a motive, but I do not think it is re-branding. Perhaps an advance fix for the upcoming audit report (as done with prior audits–“no problem, we already took care of it, move along”); or somehow, an attempt to stave off liability– I agree judicial immunity would not apply here—but some kind of defense; or a red herring to divert attention from someplace they don’t want it; or an attempt to dilute and spread blame to current and former JC members—who knows?
I do think that being a CA judicial council member has become an incipient liability of as-yet unknown proportions rather than an honor– you know– birds of a feather, sleep with dogs, etc….and I do think judicial council members have enjoyed having a separate entity to blame. Otherwise, bright, ambitious judges and others would not have been and be so cavalier about the SWOV CJ agenda, or about dutifully rubber stamping reports and information they knew were compromised, or could not have possibly have had time to read and digest. Did all the JC members know in advance that their AOC staff in collusion with fellow JC member Kim Turner were thwarting a Marin JLAC audit by blocking state auditor access to files and personnel, while Turner destroyed child custody evidence with the AOC legal dept. blessing, and key personnel retired with benefits? Maybe, maybe not.
But what if,let’s just say, after Turner’s MULTIPLE Marin evidence tampering debacles, including the latest one, fed and state law enforcement officials take a second look and believe that JC member Turner –who already had a well-known prior “rap sheet” of bad behavior before being knowingly and intentionally appointed to the JC by George and advanced by Sakauye– did in fact tamper with evidence and obstruct justice in Marin as a JC member/Marin CEO while the JLAC audit of Marin was pending, with the AOC’s (and Marin Court’s) blessing, no matter what non-lawyer AOC employee Judnick’s legal report said. Let’s say fed and/or state officials also are not too happy with what the AOC did –with the knowledge and/or advice of JC member Turner and others– to tamper with docs and employees and otherwise obstruct the CCMS audit. Let’s say they won’t be too happy with the same type of behavior going on right now, in the midst of the current legislative audit of the Judicial Council and AOC. Before perhaps law enforcement and others may have focused on the AOC, but now that our gambling barmaid has come right out and said the JC is responsible for everything, we are looking at squarely at the liability of the JC, and its former gambling-barmaid/current CJ, supposedly the top legal dog of the largest judiciary in the Western World.
Law enforcement SHOULD have their sights set on George and Sakauye. They with select others have known and directed exactly what has been and is going down. George and Sakauye have pulled others in all three branches in with them to give them cover and credibility. And that is the real story behind the culture of corruption fostered by George and Sakauye.
At some point it will become every man/woman for himself/herself.
Call me a pollyanna, but it is going to happen. At this point the public is mad as hell, and want judicial crimes stopped. People around the nation and the world are watching. It has come to a point where the CA legislative and executive branch — and those who are or should be aware in the judicial branch, can no longer turn a blind eye to or cover for criminal/unethical acts taking place in the judicial branch — or retaliate against whistleblowers– on the public’s dime, and to the extreme detriment of the public– without becoming an object of scrutiny themselves.
And by the way– if clever positioning or another “late-night Steinberg special” SBX 211 is attempted to fix what has been and is going down, the world will be watching and judging all those involved.
Just my opinion.
By the way, Governor Brown, please don’t ever consider appointing Steinberg to the bench.
Wendy Darling
June 29, 2014
Food for thought. Published today, Sunday, June 29, from the Sacramento Bee, by Laurel Rosenhall.
These kind of “hiring practices” are common at 455 Golden Gate Avenue. The only thing that ever happens when it’s reported is the employee(s) who report it are fired. Apparently, telecommuting from Oregon if you work for the State Legislature can warrant an investigation. Telecommuting from Europe if you work for the Judicial Council in the AOC? Not so much.
Complaints of nepotism dog California Senate
By Laurel Rosenhall
The anonymous letter sent to multiple California state senators last month ended with a sharp question: “Why is it that the Senate is not listing open positions, for other staff to apply for?”
Concerns about personnel practices and allegations of nepotism are swirling in the Capitol as an investigation proceeds into claims that friends and family of key administrators get special access to taxpayer-funded jobs.
The issue surfaced publicly last month when The Sacramento Bee reported that court records showed one of the Senate’s in-house law-enforcement officers had cocaine and marijuana in his system the night he was involved in a fatal off-duty shooting outside his Greenhaven-area home.
The officer is the son of the Senate’s longtime head of human resources. Gerardo Lopez worked for the Senate for 15 years despite brushes with the law that include a citation for petty theft and charges of drunken driving.
Lopez was fired over the drug-use revelations, but he is not the only one with family ties to key Senate administrators.
The two people with the most power to address personnel matters have long had friends and family on the payroll: Dina Hidalgo, who as head of human resources for the Senate plays a major role in hiring; and her supervisor, Greg Schmidt, who as the Senate’s top administrator oversees a staff of roughly 150 people who handle personnel, accounting and other duties.
Analysis of payroll data and other documents obtained through public records requests, as well as interviews with current and former legislative staff, found multiple Senate staff members with personal ties to Hidalgo and Schmidt:
• Schmidt’s son Jeffrey has worked for the Senate since February 2010, during which time his salary increased nearly 63 percent as he changed jobs.
• Schmidt’s daughter-in-law Beth Schmidt worked part time for the Assembly for nine years until last year. During most of her employment in the California Capitol, Beth Schmidt was allowed to work remotely from her home near Salem, Ore.
• Schmidt’s nephew Kevin worked for the Senate for three years and now works for Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom.
• At least five of Hidalgo’s family members work in the Capitol. And at least three of her softball teammates got Senate jobs after playing on her team. Most of those with connections to her have jobs in security, facilities or other duties removed from the direct supervision of politicians.
Hidalgo is on medical leave from the Senate and did not respond to emails or phone calls from The Bee. Schmidt provided information only by email. Both have worked for the Senate since the 1980s.
Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, said he did not want to comment until he sees the results of the independent investigation he has commissioned to review nepotism allegations. That action came after The Bee report and in the wake of an anonymous letter to a senator last fall that was critical of Senate hiring practices. A second anonymous letter sent to senators last month contained similar allegations.
Patronage long has been an accepted part of the culture at the Capitol, and family members and friends who are hired may be well qualified for their jobs. But anger over the practice has come to a boil now, in large part because some employees say they have nowhere to turn with their concerns, given the power held by Hidalgo and Schmidt.
Allegations that top administrators are using their positions inappropriately are troubling, said Sen. Mark DeSaulnier, D-Concord, who found an anonymous letter on the subject on the seat of his car last fall.
“Is this the proper management for a public institution? … Is this the right way to hire people? I would say no. There is clearly a management problem,” he said.
“I think most people think you apply for a job in the Senate as a staff person and you get hired based on your qualifications and your talent, not on who you’re related to or who you’re friends with.”
‘An infiltration of family’
Hiring family members is not forbidden in the Legislature. The practice is addressed in the first chapter of the Senate’s employee handbook: “There is no bar to employment of relatives in Senate positions,” it says, except in cases where one family member is supervising another or where conflicts of interest could arise.
Hiring in the Legislature also isn’t subject to the same rules that govern hiring in other parts of state government. Under the Capitol dome, there is no requirement to advertise open positions, interview a minimum number of people or demonstrate that new hires have relevant work experience. The Legislature can pick and choose which positions it advertises, and where it does its recruiting. The Assembly, for example, posts some open positions on its website. The Senate website doesn’t include a jobs page.
“It certainly does have the potential to allow favoritism and nepotism to creep into the process,” said Timothy Yeung, a Sacramento attorney with expertise in public-sector labor law.
Other branches of state government are subject to the civil service system, operating from the standpoint that everyone should have equal access to taxpayer-funded jobs. The state maintains a website that lists hundreds of open positions and procedures for applying. These jobs generally require applicants to take a test, get on a ranked list, wait for openings to be announced and interview with panels of bureaucrats.
The system dates to 1934, when Californians grew so tired of political patronage in state hiring that voters passed a ballot measure to eliminate the “spoils system,” Yeung said. The measure enshrined the civil service system in the California Constitution and created a personnel board to enforce it.
Yet from the beginning, the Legislature was not included in the civil service system. Politicians, who often take staff members with them as they move from office to office, like the flexibility. Multiple generations of some families hold Capitol positions.
Jon Waldie, who until recently was the Assembly’s longtime chief administrator, is the son of a former legislator. Tony Beard, who was the chief sergeant-at-arms for the Senate until last month, was the third generation of his family with a prominent post in Capitol law enforcement.
The vagaries of legislative hiring played a part in a corruption scandal that has engulfed the Capitol over the past year. As part of the FBI’s sting of Democratic Sen. Ron Calderon of Montebello, an affidavit says an undercover agent offered him a bribe if he would get the agent’s supposed girlfriend a job in the Senate. She, too, was an undercover FBI agent, who posed as someone whose last three jobs were in modeling, film and fashion.
She got the job anyway, a low-level position in Calderon’s district office. She failed to show up for work, and the Senate later sought reimbursement of the $684.77 she had been paid.
The roughly 2,100 people who work for the Legislature can land their jobs through word of mouth, and lose them just as easily. Unlike state workers, legislative staff do not have the protections of civil service regulations or labor unions.
The Bee spoke with or received letters from more than a dozen Senate employees who contend nepotism is hurting the institution but said they were too afraid to speak openly. Those who still have their jobs say they fear losing them. Some who have retired fear retribution against their friends. These allegations mirror assertions in the anonymous letters to senators.
One willing to speak is Lynn Rasberry, who retired in 2010 after 28 years working for the Senate. Rasberry was a supervisor in the special services division, overseeing the staff who move offices and drive lawmakers to appointments. He said he felt he could not approach Hidalgo with workplace concerns because so many of his colleagues had personal relationships with her.
“(We were) getting a nephew being hired. Friends. Softball acquaintances of hers. Husbands and wives of softball acquaintances of hers. Cousins. It just mushroomed,” Rasberry said.
“We were wondering, ‘What’s going on here?’ But we had to deal with it. It was an infiltration of family members and friends.”
Other employees complimented Hidalgo’s work. Kirk Hutson, a Republican Senate staff member, defended Hidalgo and Schmidt in a letter to Steinberg in response to last month’s anonymous letter, which specifically criticized her hiring practices.
“I consider Dina one of the most compassionate staff members in this building and I am deeply upset that anyone would claim that she is unapproachable,” he wrote. “She always took my calls, day or night.”
The anonymous letter left in DeSaulnier’s car last fall said “the majority of Dina’s hires are good people.” But it said staff members have nowhere to turn when problems arise with workers she knows personally.
“…What are Senate employees to do if we have an HR issue involving any of these employees?” it asked.
An unusual perk
A human resources expert contacted by The Bee said that while hiring friends and family may not violate an organization’s nepotism policy, the practice can create workplace conflicts and a potentially distrusting environment for other workers.
Personnel managers, in particular, should avoid hiring people they have personal connections to, given their role in responding to employee concerns in the workplace, said Jon Decoteau, West Coast divisional director for the Society of Human Resource Management.
“Although it is not illegal, it is not something I would encourage and is something I would actually frown upon,” Decoteau said. “Especially in human resources – you have the responsibility not only to represent the best interest of the organization, but you also have a responsibility to assist the employees.”
Both the anonymous letters to senators and several current and former legislative employees complained that Hidalgo favors friends from her softball team in filling Senate positions.
The Bee reviewed a decade of rosters from Hidalgo’s “Lady Legendz” softball team posted on the United States Specialty Sports Association website and found that at least three people hired into the Senate’s administrative wing in recent years had played with Hidalgo before getting their jobs. The husbands of at least two other teammates got Senate jobs after their wives had played on Hidalgo’s team.
Schmidt said he knows of five Hidalgo relatives who work in the Capitol.
Hidalgo’s daughter-in-law Jennifer Delao is a secretary in Steinberg’s policy unit; her nephews Ronaldo Gayton and Brandon Jimenez, and another relative, Joaquin Velarde, are Capitol security guards; her nephew Carlos Jimenez is a sergeant-at-arms. Security guards, Schmidt said, are employed by the state Department of General Services – so are not Senate staff – and are hired by a panel that includes representatives from the CHP.
“That’s out of a total of some 950 Senate employees. None of these is under the supervision of Dina Hidalgo, and all were hired 10 to 16 years ago,” Schmidt wrote in an email.
Schmidt said his son’s job as a principal consultant in the facilities department does not violate the Senate’s nepotism rule, because he doesn’t directly supervise him.
Jeffrey Schmidt did not respond to an interview request. His father said he was shifted into his current position.
“There was not an open job,” Greg Schmidt wrote in an email. “He and his position were taken out of another office and transferred for purposes of supplementing the Facilities operation as we face an intensive amount of (reconstruction and grounds) work.”
Jeffrey Schmidt earns $108,792, in the top third of Senate employees holding the same job title of principal consultant. That’s up from the $66,768 he earned when he was hired in 2010.
His salary increases over the last four years are the result of being promoted to different positions within the Senate, his father said. Jeffrey Schmidt started out in an entry-level position on the staff of then-Sen. Denise Ducheny and worked on redistricting for the Democratic Caucus before being assigned to the staff of Sen. Richard Roth, D-Riverside.
“He had six years’ experience as a lobbyist before entering state service, and was thoroughly knowledgeable (regarding) the legislative process,” Schmidt wrote of his son.
Roth, who chairs the Senate’s ethics committee and has a background in employment law, said he doesn’t know much about the process that Senate administrators use for hiring staff. When Roth arrived in the Capitol in 2012, Jeffrey Schmidt had been assigned to work in his office, and Roth said he did a good job helping open a new district office and managing other office operations.
Schmidt’s daughter-in-law Beth Schmidt, who is married to another of his sons, worked for the Senate for nearly three years before moving to a job in the Assembly in 2004. She enjoyed an unusual perk during most of her time on the Assembly payroll. For about seven years, Beth Schmidt worked remotely from her home in Oregon, coming to Sacramento for meetings just four times a year.
Jon Waldie, the Assembly’s top administrator during Beth Schmidt’s tenure there, said she had proved herself while working in the Senate, where she made lawmakers’ travel arrangements and worked as a legislative aide. When she announced she’d be moving to Oregon in 2004, Waldie said, the Assembly offered her a part-time position she could do from there: writing reports about West Coast fisheries.
“She was a good employee when she was here. We wanted to see if we could assist her in some way,” he said.
Waldie acknowledged that legislative employees rarely telecommute from out of state, but said Beth Schmidt earned the privilege because she was a good worker. She returned to Sacramento in 2011 and a job in Waldie’s office, he said. She left the Capitol in 2013. Her ending salary was $35,064 a year for a 60 percent-time position, according to information the Assembly provided.
“Who you know can help you get in the door in the Legislature, but it’s your work product that keeps you around,” Waldie said.
‘A day of reckoning’
Hidalgo’s son, Lopez, was first hired by the Assembly in 1998 to work in an office responsible for driving lawmakers to engagements. Shortly after he began the job, Sacramento police cited him for petty theft of an item worth less than $20, according to information from the police and District Attorney’s Office. His employment with the Assembly ended two days later. He had the job just two weeks.
In 1999, shortly before his 20th birthday, Lopez went to work for the Senate. Schmidt said he was hired based on his information-technology experience and worked for about five years in that capacity before moving to the Senate sergeant-at-arms office.
In 2008, Lopez pleaded no-contest to misdemeanor charges of drunken driving, court filings show.
In the 2012 case that led to his firing, prosecutors consider Lopez the victim of a home invasion that occurred after an acquaintance who had been at his home earlier that evening discovered he was missing a $100 bill. They have charged three people with robbing Lopez’s house before a gunfight broke out in the early morning hours on the street outside.
Lopez was among four people exchanging fire in the gunbattle that left three people injured and one man dead, according to prosecutors. A subsequent toxicology report referenced in the court file showed Lopez had ingested both marijuana and cocaine the night of the shooting. Beard, his supervisor, resigned from his position as chief sergeant after acknowledging he failed to tell Steinberg about the report. The case is scheduled for trial next month in Sacramento Superior Court.
Steinberg has commissioned two separate investigations by outside lawyers as a result of the case: one to look at whether Lopez posed a safety threat to Capitol employees; the other to examine whether Senate administrators are violating the nepotism policy.
The first report was completed in March and determined that Lopez was not a workplace threat, said Steinberg’s spokesman Mark Hedlund. But Senate administrators did not read the full report upon receiving it, Hedlund said, so Steinberg didn’t know Lopez had used drugs the night of the shooting until The Bee asked about it in late April. Hours after The Bee’s inquiry, he fired Lopez, saying the drug use falls “well below the standards expected of a law enforcement officer in the Senate.”
The Senate denied The Bee’s request to review the threat-assessment report by attorney Sue Ann Van Dermyden and expert James Cawood, saying it is a confidential personnel matter.
The investigators have billed the Senate more than $41,000 for their work.
The Legislature also denied The Bee’s request to review the contracts commissioning both investigations. The nepotism investigation is being conducted by Heather Irwin of the Gordon & Rees law firm, Hedlund said, at an hourly rate of $325.
Earlier this year, the Senate approved new regulations in response to a spate of scandals, including three senators who were suspended while they fight criminal charges in separate cases alleging bribery, perjury and conspiracy to traffic weapons. None of the new rules directly addresses hiring practices, but they will create whistleblower protection for staff who report problems, and establish a telephone hotline and an in-house ombudsman for staff to report ethical concerns.
Roth, the senator who chairs the ethics committee and helped develop the new rules, said he hopes the investigation into the nepotism allegations will focus on whether the positions held by administrators’ friends and family members are legitimate and how well the people holding them are doing their jobs.
“The question is, is someone holding you accountable?” Roth said.
“It’s our obligation to make sure that people who are employed here in the state Senate are employed to do real jobs, that we know what those jobs are, that there are job descriptions, and that we hold people accountable for doing their jobs. And that for those that don’t do their jobs, that there is a day of reckoning.”
http://www.sacbee.com/2014/06/29/6518901/complaints-of-nepotism-dog-california.html
Long live the ACJ.
Wendy Darling
June 30, 2014
Published today, Monday, June 30, from the Sacramento Bee, by Dan Walters. Apparently Walters didn’t get the memo regarding the re-branding of the AOC’s name, which has changed “everything” and with it, the perception crisis in the California Judicial Branch has been completely obliterated.
With the crisis averted, Queen Feckless will continue to be chauffeured around by the CHP.
Dan Walters: California Courts Sought Stability, Found Instability
By Dan Walters
When the Legislature and then-Gov. Pete Wilson agreed in 1997 that the state would assume the entire cost of financing California’s largest-in-the-nation court system, judges rejoiced.
It was a big win for Ron George, whom Wilson had appointed as the state’s chief justice a year earlier, and he hailed “a stable and adequate source of funding” as “one of the most important reforms in the California justice systems in the 20th century.”
What seemed like a good idea at the time, however, has become a classic example of how political decisions often carry unintended consequences.
The takeover created a very large state agency that must compete politically with schools, colleges, prisons, health services and myriad other claimants on the state’s always-limited revenues. And the judicial branch has been losing that zero-sum game.
Between 2008 and 2012, court financing was whacked by more than $700 million. Dozens of courtrooms were shuttered due to a lack of funds, even though courts dipped into construction funds, spent down their reserves, furloughed or laid off employees, and closed their doors on certain days of the week.
One local court even staged a garage sale to raise money and keep its judges and employees on the job.
However, as a surge of revenues drives overall state spending to record levels, the court system’s financial woes have continued. They are receiving just a fraction of the new funds that George’s successor, Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye, says are needed to prevent further cutbacks.
Gov. Jerry Brown has not been particularly sympathetic to Cantil-Sakauye’s pleas for more money, telling her, she says, that the courts need to become more efficient.
Some of the court system’s problems are self-inflicted.
The State Judicial Council and the Administrative Office of the Courts, both headed by Cantil-Sakauye, wasted hundreds of millions of dollars on an inoperable case-management system and have been engaged in a running battle with a band of rebel judges who say the AOC is a bloated and arrogant bureaucracy.
The impact is being felt mostly on the civil side of courts because criminal cases command priority for restricted judicial resources. It can take literally years for a civil case to get a trial date.
Bottom line: The shift to state support was supposed to bring financial stability to the courts but instead has brought much higher instability.
It wasn’t the first time a sweeping policy backfired: The disastrous 1996 energy “deregulation” scheme is another classic example. And it won’t be the last.
Meanwhile, the Legislature is on the verge of passing a bill – pushed by unions and opposed by judges – that would make the court system’s financial travails even worse by making it more difficult for them to use private contractors for some services.
http://www.sacbee.com/2014/06/30/6520078/dan-walters-california-courts.html
Long live the ACJ.
Delilah
June 30, 2014
The Recorder News Update
June 30, 2014
The state Administrative Office of the Courts is not long for this world. It’s not that the judiciary’s much-maligned bureaucratic arm is being disbanded. It’s just being re-branded.
Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye announced Friday that she wants to dump the AOC name and simply refer to both administrative staff and the policy-making council she largely appoints as the Judicial Council.
“When I and others advocate for the public on behalf of the judicial branch we often encounter confusion among those who think that the Judicial Council and the Administrative Office of the Courts are two separate entities,” Cantil-Sakauye said. “They’re not. Quite simply, the administrative staff exists to support the Judicial Council and provide services to the courts, the public, and sister branches of government.”
In addition to confusion, the chief justice no doubt frequently encounters frustration with the AOC, which has been criticized by lawmakers, judges and court employees for everything from branch budget troubles to the Court Case Management System debacle. So why not adopt a new moniker? Kentucky Fried Chicken became KFC, perhaps to appease increasingly fat-fearing consumers. Security contractor Blackwater changed its name to XE Services and later to Academi after attracting some unpleasant attention over its actions in Iraq.
Placer County Superior Court Judge Charles Wachob, who co-chaired the AOC-critical Strategic Evaluation Committee, called the proposed name change “a necessary step to resolve a perception crisis.”
Michelle Castro, a lobbyist for the Service Employees International Union, which represents court workers, wasn’t so sure about the desired effect.
“Rebranding is an understandable urge, but the real challenge is to rebuild trust through changing the way the institution operates by putting the public first, and creating a culture of accountability” she wrote in the email.
Whatever its new name, the AOC, er, Judicial Council, will not escape the audit approved by the Legislature earlier the year. That’s continuing as planned with results due to be made public this fall.
Read more: http://www.therecorder.com/id=1202661269290/Tech-Overpowers-Privacy-Bills-Plus-No-More-AOC-to-Kick-Around#ixzz368HQcf5m
Wendy Darling
June 30, 2014
“Kentucky Fried Chicken became KFC, perhaps to appease increasingly fat-fearing consumers. Security contractor Blackwater changed its name to XE Services and later to Academi after attracting some unpleasant attention over its actions in Iraq.”
A rose, by any other name, is still a rose. And liars, thugs, thieves, bullies, and hypocrites, by any other name, are still liars, thugs, thieves, bullies, and hypocrites.
Long live the ACJ.
JusticeCalifornia
June 30, 2014
Along those lines of AOC liars, thugs, thieves, bullies and hypocrites. . . ., I think this is an excellent time to officially remind all Judicial Council members of those employees still at the AOC — oops, the Judicial Council– who have historically compromised backgrounds. Think Ken Couch, Ernest Fuentes– oh, I think there are quite a few. Others have better information about that than I do. But it would appear that now would be the time to put together a package with an anonymous cover letter so none of our current JC members– who are clearly on notice that they are responsible for what goes down with their staff under their watch– can say they did not know.
And maybe when JCW has a free moment (lol) we can be given links to prior posts reflecting some of the egregious behavior of current well-paid “Judicial Council” employees.
Correct me if I am wrong, but didn’t Fuentes have a document-destruction issue at his prior employment? Weren’t he and Couch involved in that embezzlement/employment debacle where they mercilessly harassed AOC employee Paula Negley? Why are these creeps still employed by the Judicial Council?
Here is one prior JCW link. . . .
https://judicialcouncilwatcher.com/2011/10/14/paula-negley-appellants-opening-brief/
And oh yes what about Curt Childs and John Judnick? Just one scandal they were associated with:
https://www.seiu721.org/2010/06/courts-whistleblower-says-contractors-gr.php
I wonder how much taxpayer money has been spent defending unethical/illegal/obstreperous behavior of some of these Judicial Council employees who have had priors? I wonder if the performance reviews of compromised individuals reveal whether they were rewarded with raises or whacked upside the head for their bad behavior? Judicial Council members should ask.
Indeed, if I were a Judicial Council member right now, I would request and carefully review the background of all key staff and employees. And also salaries and perks, pension, travel, entertainment, auto, etc. After all, these salaries have already made news.. . .
http://www.courthousenews.com/2014/03/07/65959.htm
And look at this astute inquiry, I hope all JC members know the answers:
https://judicialcouncilwatcher.com/2013/12/10/transparency-when-it-comes-to-aoc-raises/
And of course I assume each and every JC member– including the CJ– will exercise due diligence and investigate, and be able to assure everyone, that no documents were or will be shredded, hidden, created and backdated, or created with false or misleading data, by the Judicial Council or its staff in contemplation of the current audit of the JUDICIAL COUNCIL AND AOC.
JusticeCalifornia
July 2, 2014
Was the Judicial Council removed as a defendant in the Negley case? If so, what was argued to justify the removal from this and other cases involving the AOC? Does anyone know?
Wendy Darling
June 30, 2014
Published today, Monday, June 30, 2014, from The Sacramento Bee, by Dan Walters.
Like the State Legislature, the California Judicial Branch exempted itself from these same laws, and engages in these same “hiring practices”, with the same predicable results. It’s interesting how these practices and results in the State Legislature can elicit calls for reform and recognition of public corruption, but the same thing happening on a regular basis at 455 Golden Gate Avenue results in nothing but a wall of silence.
Apparently, that Teflon thing works really, really well.
Dan Walters: It’s Time For Legislative Employees To Join Civil Service
By Dan Walters
Eighty years ago, California voters tightened up the state’s weak civil-service system to counter the corrupt practice of politicians padding public payrolls with family members, friends and political supporters.
However, the Legislature was exempted from the ballot measure’s provisions.
Later, when laws on open records, open meetings and collective bargaining were imposed on state and local governments, the Legislature exempted itself.
Over several decades, mostly in response to journalistic revelations, the Legislature has slowly granted access to its once-closed records on how it spends money on itself.
The Legislature still exempts itself, however, from open-meeting laws. If a majority of a city council meets privately to discuss city business other than a few specific matters, it’s a criminal violation. But majorities of Assembly or Senate members routinely hold private “caucuses” to orchestrate what they’ll do publicly and it’s perfectly legal.
Back to that civil-service exemption.
It allows members of the Legislature, and the senior managers they employ, to hire whomever they wish for whatever reason.
Not surprisingly, the Legislature is therefore infested with the same kind of personal and political patronage that civil service was adopted to prevent.
It’s common knowledge that legislators hand staff jobs to political operatives, but as a lengthy article by Sacramento Bee reporter Laurel Rosenhall details, the inside game appears to involve senior legislative staffers as well.
Rosenhall told us how numerous relatives and friends of high-ranking Senate managers have been placed on the legislative payroll, and cited a questionable case in the Assembly as well.
Years of private grumbling broke into the open when a Senate sergeant-at-arms – son of the Senate’s personnel manager – became involved in a fatal off-duty shooting outside his home and was found to have drugs in his system at the time.
The sergeant-at-arms was fired, his boss resigned from his post under fire for not telling Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg about the drugs, and Steinberg has ordered an investigation of nepotism allegations.
However that turns out, it’s high time to repeal the Legislature’s exemption from civil service. There’s absolutely no reason why about 90 percent of its workers should not be governed by rules that virtually all other state and local government agencies, including courts, must obey.
Each legislator could have a few exempt employees, just as there are a few exempts in state agencies, but rank-and-file employees – clerks, secretaries, sergeants-at-arms, lawyers, furniture movers, etc. – should not only be civil servants but subject to unionization.
If nothing else, it’s highly hypocritical for the Legislature to impose personnel rules on everyone else that it refuses to follow itself.
http://www.sacbee.com/2014/06/30/6524315/dan-walters-its-time-for-legislative.html
Long live the ACJ.
Wendy Darling
July 1, 2014
As is said in the law, res ipsa loquitor (the thing speaks for itself). Published today, Tuesday, July 1, from Courthouse News Service, by Maria Dinzeo:
“It took the Judicial Council’s search committee a year to select Jahr as Vickrey’s replacement after a nationwide search, but Cantil-Sakauye said the agency will have a new director in place by the time Jahr leaves in September.”
Hmmm, wonder if Steve Nash is house hunting in the San Francisco area. Maybe Ron Overholt’s house is available for purchase. Reportedly, it recently had an expensive remodel and has very nice landscaping.
California Court Bureaucracy’s Leadership Forecast Comes True
By MARIA DINZEO
SAN FRANCISCO (CN) – After months of predictions from California’s trial judges, the head of the bureaucracy for the state’s trial courts formally announced his departure Tuesday.
Judge Steven Jahr leaves behind an agency that just this past Friday changed its name from Administrative Office of the Courts to Judicial Council staff.
The reform group Alliance of California Judges called the name shedding a “choreographed maneuver” but agreed that the move would emphasize the Judicial Council as the governing body of the judiciary with a support staff.
“First, by itself, the new name changes nothing,” the alliance said. ‘Second, the AOC mushroomed from an 18-member support team in 1961 into a hulking bureaucracy of over 1,100 employees in 2012 without constitutional, statutory, or regulatory authorization.”
The name change is also seen as the latest indication of Jahr’s retirement plans. Jahr said he had been planning to retire since last fall, and told Chief Justice Cantil-Sakauye that he would stay until “sometime after the state budget was signed by the governor.”
A statement from Judicial Council staff said Jahr had been brought out of retirement as a trial judge to lead the administrative office “during a time of transition.” His predecessor, William Vickrey, left the AOC in September 2011 amid mounting controversy over the agency’s spending practices and a $500 million court technology project that judges and state legislators deemed a failure.
It took the Judicial Council’s search committee a year to select Jahr as Vickrey’s replacement after a nationwide search, but Cantil-Sakauye said the agency will have a new director in place by the time Jahr leaves in September. “We are all deeply grateful that Steve agreed to come out of his first retirement to help the Judicial Council as we initiated our reforms,” Cantil-Sakauye said.
http://www.courthousenews.com/2014/07/01/69197.htm
Long live the ACJ.
MaxRebo5
July 1, 2014
Another one bites the dust. Jahr wasn’t really running the show anyways so this is just like the name change announced last week (no real change at all). It is Jody and the Curts who are in charge of the AOC (excuse me, the Judicial Council staff) for the Chief. I’ll believe there has been an actual reform made when those three are shown the door. I see Curt Soderlund is nominated for the Vickrey award for 2014. An appropriate choice for that badge of dishonor in court administration. Let’s look back:
Vickrey resigned in 2011 because the legislature demanded it. They were pissed Vickrey spent 500 million on CCMS and it didn’t work. Cantil-Sakauye shot back an angry reply to the legislature for interfering in her administration when they demanded Vickey resign. She followed up her defiance by creating the Vickrey award and the Judicial Council named their conference center in his honor. She still gives out the award. So far the recipients of that award have been:
Jody Patel – 2012
Kim Turner – 2013
Curt Soderlund – 2014
All the “winners” are pretty much insiders of Team George and they are exactly who need to go from CA Courts ASAP in order to change the culture of failure there at the Judicial Council.
So while Jahr is gone it remains to be seen if this is the start of real reforms or just more concentration of power into the hands of the Chief’s real administrators. My view so far is it is all just appearance changes (re-branding) and no real substantial reforms. Time will tell.
California Court Bureaucracy’s Leadership Forecast Comes True
By MARIA DINZEO
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SAN FRANCISCO (CN) – After months of predictions from California’s trial judges, the head of the bureaucracy for the state’s trial courts formally announced his departure Tuesday.
Judge Steven Jahr leaves behind an agency that just this past Friday changed its name from Administrative Office of the Courts to Judicial Council staff.
The reform group Alliance of California Judges called the name shedding a “choreographed maneuver” but agreed that the move would emphasize the Judicial Council as the governing body of the judiciary with a support staff.
“First, by itself, the new name changes nothing,” the alliance said. ‘Second, the AOC mushroomed from an 18-member support team in 1961 into a hulking bureaucracy of over 1,100 employees in 2012 without constitutional, statutory, or regulatory authorization.”
The name change is also seen as the latest indication of Jahr’s retirement plans. Jahr said he had been planning to retire since last fall, and told Chief Justice Cantil-Sakauye that he would stay until “sometime after the state budget was signed by the governor.”
A statement from Judicial Council staff said Jahr had been brought out of retirement as a trial judge to lead the administrative office “during a time of transition.” His predecessor, William Vickrey, left the AOC in September 2011 amid mounting controversy over the agency’s spending practices and a $500 million court technology project that judges and state legislators deemed a failure.
It took the Judicial Council’s search committee a year to select Jahr as Vickrey’s replacement after a nationwide search, but Cantil-Sakauye said the agency will have a new director in place by the time Jahr leaves in September. “We are all deeply grateful that Steve agreed to come out of his first retirement to help the Judicial Council as we initiated our reforms,” Cantil-Sakauye said.
Wendy Darling
July 1, 2014
One can’t help but notice, MaxRebo5, that Jahrhead is skipping out of town just before the results of the BSA audit of the AOC are being released.
Probably just another one of those “magical coincidences”.
Still serving themselves to the detriment of all Californians.
Long live the ACJ.
MaxRebo5
July 1, 2014
Maybe it won’t matter who the next Director is. The AOC is gone in name now and perhaps it will be gone period. If this audit shows there is no legal basis or requirement for it to exist then why keep it? Just thank the 800 AOC staff for their service and the Legislature can then redirect the money formerly spent on the AOC to the most under funded trial courts (rather than return the money to the General Fund). The Director can remain as the secretary to the Judicial Council but with almost no staff. The Titanic would then finally have sunk. The Chief Justice would be checked for the misuse of state funds in vastly expanding the Judicial Council beyond it’s limited intended purpose under the CA Constitution. Plus funding would be restored to courts with the most critical needs to increase access to justice. 😊
Shawn
July 9, 2014
CAN WE ADDRESS THE OUTRIGHT FRAUD OF THE AOC Contracts for Juvenile Dependency Attorneys…..this is a self serving scheme that defrauds the California Taxpayer and deprives INDIGENT Juvenile Dependency Litigants …INCLUDING THE INNOCENT CHILDREN OF THEIR RIGHT TO COUNSEL……
PLEASE READ CAREFULLY….the following is true…and any simple investigation ….(do like I did and seek a freedom of information act response , which the AOC willingly provides copies of the contracts and the attorneys who participate in this fraud…
Yes you will also have to interview parents and children in the halls of the court house , where after I spent time explaining what a responsive or defending pleading is…and has their attorney ever “had a meeting with you outside of this court hallway…ever filed anything for you…ever conducted discovery…( and you have to explain that too because they don’t know what that is either) they all answered NO…they are not stupid and ignorant people…they are UNWITTING, according to the Appellate courts…..lets face it many poor folks are taken advantage of because they just do not have the education to understand what is happening or how to fight it….and these people act as below to keep it that way…
LETS PUT SOME ATTENTION TO SOME TRUTH…
Regarding the AOC contracting for attorneys of Juvenile Dependency cases…..the AOC spends in excess of 105 million per year on these court appointed “Juvenile Dependency Attorneys.”
The problem is the Judicial Branch should have no such responsibility according to the American Bar Association, which claims that once a judge is in a position to influence the appointed attorneys compensation, the attorneys loyalty shifts to the judge and not the client. SEE RULE 5.54….
In fact no other appointed attorney process in California is under the financial control of the courts except Juvenile Dependency….even Juvenile Delinquency is under the executive branch….where it belongs….
This is undue influence is precisely what has occurred since the AOC adopted, as directed by the Judicial Council, the Juvenile Dependency DRAFT Program….it is an unethical obligation put on the courts by the California Legislature in error with the consolidation of the courts…under the government code…..which the Judicial Branch should have rejected….
WHY….because the California Constitution prohibits the Judicial Council from making or promulgating rules or processes that are inconsistent with Statute!
Since Welfare and Institutions Code section 218 says that the county shall pay for appointed Juvenile Dependency attorneys and such payment is to be “approved by the trial court” …how in law and in compliance with the California Constitution, under (WIC sec 218) can the Administrative Office of the Courts, the AOC be paying for these attorneys????
How can the AOC be the only entity under its DRAFT program to be the only entity approving the bills of the appointed attorneys….
Easy….like in Alameda County, these appointed attorneys collect their pay currently….
….. after several changes from the original cost cutting scheme (done to deprive attorneys of “reasonable compensation to lower state cost…ie they used to get paid hourly for each case with no cap, and are now , after a failed previous payment plan that was capped, paid a sum relative to the total number of cases they are appointed to) …the result is independent zealous advocate attorney performance is not just lacking but completely abandoned….WHY?
Let me explain how it works…..
Every appointed attorney in the Juvenile Dependency DRAFT program…does the least to get by…which means makes an appearance and never even conducts client attorney meetings except immediately outside the courtroom before the hearing…and maintains a P.O Box for an office…keeping overhead to virtually nothing……because they also control the fox guarding the hen house….as one member of their contracting firm is responsible for insuring that they perform adequately for their clients….and the poor schlubs who are clients are never told who to complain to IF they dont think their attorney is doing something for them…ie ineffective assistance of counsel….
Thanks to the “sealing of Juvenile Dependency files ….which keeps this truth covered up…
This is great work if you can get it..doing absolutely nothing but appearing in court and get paid an average of $140,000 per year..here is how it works…with no real effort….
Nearly every appointed attorney conducts ZERO investigation of the facts for the client…files ZERO responsive pleadings on behalf of their clients….and Child Protective Services gets away with outrageous conduct and has the adept hand of the respective County Counsel to keep it that way….after all there is ZERO challenge from the appointed attorneys….
THERE HAS NEVER BEEN A MARSDEN MOTION GRANTED TO AN INDIGENT JUVENILE DEPENDENCY CLIENT IN THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA EVER….how is that possible with over a hundred thousand cases involving over 200,000 parents and even more children????
I searched the records for only the last 10 years….and can find no successful Marsden motion, for those that don’t know …Marsden motion is the method used to remove an Appointed attorney for ineffective assistance…..which IF granted would require a report by the Judicial Officer who grants such a motion to report the attorney to the California BAR….NEVER happened…and NEVER will under this scheme to defraud the California Taxpayer……
Since the AOC has it written into the contract agreements that they can “investigate and check on any attorney and his work….they don’t have the time to actually see IF any motions were actually filed or IF any action was done…the only real thing they check is does the case number exist and was that attorney assigned and appointed to the case….the result…the poor and stupid incompetent people hauled into Juvenile Court get a paper puppet for a lawyer and get screwed and the attorneys collect fraudulently from the California Taxpayer money they have not earned for “providing legal assistance”….how else can you reduce the cost of appointed attorneys below any reasonable cost for compensation and get away with it…..and which appointed attorney is going to ADMIT to his or her complicity (with their peers as well) in this scheme that defrauds….. and expose it…..so far NONE…..
If I failed to provide a clear explanation please respond and I will further clarify….even to those who are participating in this taxpayer fraud….anyone willing to do a Qui Tam action will get undisputable proof from me to assist…..
let’s see, whats the percentage of 105 to 115 million a year times at least four years of this fraud worth ? Does this kind of money deserve the effort of an ethical attorney
….and for the record I am not an attorney…nor do I have a Juvenile Dependency case….I investigate government action when I think it involves …as the lawyers call it “moral turpitude” or unethical behavior…..I have no dog in this fight….but will support the exposure and solution efforts….
I did leave my email……
DOES ANYONE GIVE A DAMN?