This Post will be modified deleted and replaced to reflect individual experiences from people who have worked for the state agency currently known as the Judicial Council Staff or their predecessor, the AOC.
While we currently have a few testimonials , we wanted to give you the opportunity to weigh in anonymously via our private message window at https://forms.hush.com/judicialcouncilwatcher
Please submit your entry by this Sunday, October 22 30th or feel free to post it as a comment after that date. We will also be drawing reviews from glassdoor.com to supplement the post.
Posted in: Judicial Council of California
Judicial Council Watcher 
unionman575
October 18, 2016
https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Judicial-Council-of-California-Reviews-E41592.htm
Judicial Council Watcher
October 18, 2016
Two replies thus far…. keep ’em coming.
Judicial Council Watcher
October 20, 2016
Three more replies: Please let your voice be heard because what we’re hearing is that Judicial Council Staff Management could care less about a whole lot of issues and has resulted in a (confirmed) exodus of in-depth talent. What you write will be read by those people in charge and unlike every other venue they offer, you have nothing to lose and a whole lot to gain.
Wendy Darling
October 21, 2016
Well, no surprise here. The latest edition of Tani’s Follies, published today, Friday, October 21, from Courthouse News Service, by Maria Dinzeo:
Judges’ Commission Fights Scope of State-Ordered Audit
By MARIA DINZEO
SAN FRANCISCO (CN) – The California Commission on Judicial Performance is challenging the scope of an audit of its operations ordered earlier this year by the Legislature, saying the state Constitution prohibits the review of its core functions and confidential records.
“If you imagine for a moment an auditor asking a court ‘We want to know how you resolve cases,’ you can see where there’s a concern,” commission attorney James Wagstaffe said in an interview.
Invoking the separation of powers doctrine that prohibits the Legislature from interfering with the judiciary, the petition asks that the state auditor refrain from examining how the commission investigates complaints against judges and decides cases.
The commission also wants the state auditor barred from accessing confidential records related to its investigations, to protect the rights of judges who have been privately admonished and the privacy of witnesses and those who file complaints against judges.
This past August, the Legislature voted unanimously to audit the commission, a constitutionally established body in charge of investigating and disciplining judges, following public outcry from activist groups that the commission hasn’t been sufficiently harsh on errant judges and that its proceedings aren’t sufficiently transparent.
The commission was formed in 1960 and originally included nine members. Most of its proceedings were confidential, and in 1994 voters passed Proposition 190 mandating open proceedings and increased the membership to eleven.
The proposition also changed the composition of the commission: three judges appointed by the Supreme Court, two attorneys appointed by the governor, and six citizens – two appointed by the governor, two by the Senate Committee on Rules, and two by the Speaker of the Assembly.
The Supreme Court has the authority to review and overturn the commission’s rulings, as in the recent case of Judge Nancy Ayers, where the high court dismissed the commission’s advisory letter against her for keeping a guide dog she was training in her courtroom.
This will be the first time in its history that the commission has been audited.
Wagstaffe said that on the whole, the commission operates in the public eye.
“The CJP doesn’t operate entirely in confidence. Many proceedings are open to the public and it publicly admonishes judges when appropriate. But some cases appropriately call for privacy,” he said.
Aside from its usual examination of budget and spending, State Auditor Elaine Howle has also been asked to review the commission’s rules, standards and procedures.
Wagstaffe said the commission has no problem with the auditor looking into its finances, but other aspects of the audit go too far.
“Many of the categories are attempting to look at the very core function of how a court process works and that would be unprecedented to allow that,” he said. “This is a very, very broad-based audit.”
The auditor proposes looking into the commission’s rules on confidentiality and why certain proceedings are kept private, reviewing its process for investigating legal error, and examining the commission’s standards for handling cases and when to contact complainants, witnesses and judges.
Howle’s office also notes that the audit will take roughly 4,100 hours, with no set completion date, at a cost of roughly $492,000. The commission is also contesting the cost, saying it cannot afford to pay a nearly $500,000 bill with a yearly budget of $4.6 million.
Wagstaffe said the commission isn’t using its petition to skirt the audit, but wants some clarification on what the auditor will be allowed to do.
“This isn’t an agency that’s looking for a free pass,” he said. “We’ve gone to court to get some judicial guidance so this audit can go forward on things that are appropriate. We are hoping this will be a matter that is handled very quickly and efficiently.”
Howle’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
http://www.courthousenews.com/2016/10/21/judges-commission-fights-scope-of-state-ordered-audit.htm
Still serving themselves to the detriment of all Californians.
Long live the ACJ.
Mycotic
October 23, 2016
Here’s the CJP’s writ https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9OCfkemZYQSMUROMFpBbkRFTDQ/view
Judicial Council Watcher
October 23, 2016
That suit silences every judge that feels that the CJP is more a political animal wielded as a weapon by the insiders. It is also likely to backfire and gut judicial branch budgets when the legislature responds or result in a changing of the composition of the commission where there are no judges, with managing and prosecuting attorneys are hired by board composed of citizens.
It took an astonishing 11 years for them to act on Taylor Culver in spite of years of complaints and during that time approximately 176,000 Californians paid witness to his antics, burning an image in their psyche that this is how fucked up our courts really are.
They never took action against other subordinate judicial officers, like our friend Commissioner Gregory Saldivar who ruled repeatedly that a towing company stealing a car out of your driveway and impounding it is your financial responsibility and not the towing company.
They never questioned if an assigned judge in Shasta County was playing with all his marbles when there was a plethora of evidence to suggest that he wasn’t. And it goes on and on and on.
The commission could clearly benefit from a critique of its practices via a comprehensive audit and still preserve the privacy of the litigants involved. But the resistance to the suit has nothing to do with what’s on the face of the suit as much as it is a desire of the insiders to preserve the status quo.
So really, don’t be surprised one bit if the legislature takes a huge bite out of branch budgets and guts the composition of the current commission as a result of this suit.
Mycotic
October 24, 2016
Here’s the scope of the intended audit:
https://bsa.ca.gov/reports/scope/2016-137
It will be interesting to see which judge gets assigned this case.
It seems an inherent conflict of interest for any Ca judge to rule on whether the CJP can skirt and audit of how they decided which judges get what punishment based on what complaints.
Given their known propensity for practicing politics for insider judges and justices, it seems any Ca judge could be intimidated from ruling against them.
Seems like every Ca judge should be disqualified from ruling on the CJP’s writ.
Delilah
October 24, 2016
What it’s like to work in the CA trial courts. Constant cutbacks, closures, furloughs and give-backs in order to continue to feed the insatiable beast.
http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2016/10/21/alameda-county-most-courthouses-to-be-temporarily-closed/
unionman575
October 24, 2016
Yeah, feed the beast!
🙂
unionman575
October 24, 2016
Tighten your belts all you trial court slum dogs…and quit whining…
wink wink…
🙂
Mycotic
October 25, 2016
http://www.therecorder.com/id=1202770633353/Judicial-Discipline-Commission-Sues-to-Restrict-State-Audit?cmp=share_facebook&slreturn=20160925112918
“Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson, D-Santa Barbara, one of the legislators who requested the audit, said in an emailed statement that the lawsuit amounts to “stonewalling” by the CJP. “This is a public entity, paid for through public dollars, that has never before been audited in its 56-year history,” Jackson said. “While I respect the separation of powers, no state agency is above the law, nor above its fundamental responsibility to be accountable and transparent to the public.”
Mycotic
October 26, 2016
Another article about the CJP’s move to obstruct an audit of their files. “Some state judges have also complained that, in general, judges don’t get information about the substance of complaints lodged against them and who is making them so they can adequately respond to the commission.”
http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/courts/sd-me-judicial-audit-20161025-story.html
Wendy Darling
October 26, 2016
“What’s it like to work at the AOC?”
Well, if you’re a public employee with no ethical or moral compass, aspire to being a career criminal and expect to be rewarded and promoted for being a crook, like stealing, lying or being a thug or a bully, want to punish people who work for you for telling the truth, and get paid with public money for doing so, it’s probably the perfect place for you to work.
If not, then it’s hell to work at the AOC. Pure, unmitigated, hell.
Not that anyone is actually going to do anything about that.
Still serving themselves to the detriment of all Californians.
Long live the ACJ.
Judicial Council Watcher
October 27, 2016
Out admins have been tied up with a ddos attack from last week that is having them writing reports and recommendations to our other customers so we’re delaying this post until October 31st.
However, we do have a ACJ news release that will hit later this morning.
If you want to write us, there is still time.
If you want to preserve your anonymity and writing style, just ask and we’ll recompose what you write to us. Hush communications is in Canada so U.S. subpoenas are quite useless.
Maxrebo5
October 27, 2016
The 2016 Court Statistics Report is out today. The presentation to the Judicial Council on these numbers is to be broadcast this afternoon. As I keep telling everyone here at JCW the case filings for CA Courts are down again as they have been now every year since 2009. It is a very clear decline trend for cases coming in the door of courthouses statewide. The latest report says:
“In FY 2014-15, over 6.8 million cases were filed statewide in the Superior Courts.”
In the prior fiscal year report (2015) there were 7.5 million cases in the Superior Courts. That’s a 9% decilne in case filings to Superior Courts in just the last fiscal year alone. This decline in case filings has been going on for seven years now but the funding for CA Court has gone way up (like $600 million) since the recession ended. The public is now paying hundreds of millions more for CA Courts to process several millions fewer cases. It’s nuts!!!
If you go back to 2009 the Superior Courts had 9,5 million cases in total. Today they say they have 6.8 million so that is a decline of 2,7 million cases. As a percentage that is nearly a 30% drop in the work coming in the courthouse door compared to 2009 and yet the Chief keeps saying CA Courts need more money?
In my view more money is not warranted based on the data (and I say this as a big supportor of CA Courts). It’s pretty close to fraud seeking more money for the branch given these incredible ongoing workload declines. In my opinion, the JC is acting more like an industrial complex needing ever more funding instead of as good stewards of limited public dollars. The branch does deserve to grow if it has more cases but if it does not have the cases it should not seek more funding. Doing so I consider to be unethical.
I do want to give credit where it is due to the analysts that made this report. Their new report does have trend lines so it is mostly transparent in that regard. The filing trends are right there for all to see but nobody in the other branches, the press, or in the public seems to able to hold them accountable for it.
Shame on the Legislature and Governor for paying more in taypayer money for CA Courts to handle far less cases year after year. The JC being a bunch of yes men for the Chief and always seeking more money is also a factor because doing so ultimately erodes the integrity of the institution they claim to serve. Someday these caseload facts are going to be noticed and funding will be reduced as these trends are only getting worse. The Chief’s matra is a constant “We need more money!” instead of saying, “Actually we have it really good considering we have far less work coming in the door.”
These case filing trends will decline even more as pot is likely to be decriminalized (just two weeks from now) and self driving cars will cut into traffic tickets greatly in future years. Traffic tickets are 80% of court “cases” as it is. The branch has to start preparing to be much smaller and more high tech instead of costing the public more money handle far less work. The alternative approach is to keep the status quo going which is selling this pig with makeup (forever more money for CA Courts) year after year to the other branches.
To keep doing that you’d have to get very very corrupt to succeed, which is not culturally appropriate for the CA Courts as an institution, and even then it still might not work. Nevertheless, this corrupt path seems to be the path the Chief is on and has been on since she was put in place by Ron George. In my opinion she is, “Going off the rails on a crazy train” to quote Ozzy Osborne.
Thanks for reading my long post!
Mycotic
October 27, 2016
Sounds like they will need to hire more AOC employees to orchestrate and implement the needed downsizing (just kidding!).
Maxrebo5
October 27, 2016
The Judicial Needs Study has gone way down too here in 2016. In the last report in 2014 the AOC said CA Courts needed 269.8 more judges (a crazy high number). Now they are saying it is 189 more judges that are needed in CA Courts so that metric has gone way down because filings are in total free fall. They really need to change their never ending push for more money and more judges because their formulas will soon be working against them at this rate.
Someone on the JC asked what has the need for judges back to 2008? The answer back was the AOC was calling for more than 300 new judges. Their model lacks all credibility. Another car on the crazy train they have to get off.
Mycotic
October 27, 2016
Since the marijuana laws are not yet in effect and driverless cars are a few years off, what do you think has caused the great reduction in court filings?
Judicial Council Watcher
October 27, 2016
Cops giving warnings rather than write thousand dollar tickets and not wanting to travel 180 miles to defend them in court.
Judicial Council Watcher
October 30, 2016
There are some pretty basic changes that the courts can make that would eliminate the need for over a hundred judges and take tremendous loads off of existing court operations.
Their claimed need is unjustifiable without adjusting their operations to make them more efficient and consumer friendly. Of course if you asked anyone to implement them the judicial council would conduct a study that would last for 18 months. After that, they would only go half way and take another 36 months to implement it.
Maxrebo5
October 27, 2016
I believe case filings to the courts are mostly down because juvenile crime is at historically low levels and also because the war on drugs is slowing down just due to the cost.
For years I was told there would be big a spike in crime around 2010 because the millenial generation was as large as the baby boomers in terms of total numbers. The premise being young people are the ones who commit a dispropotionate amount of crime so there should be a spike in juvenile crime as they become teenagers and adult crime would spike soon after. Seemed logical to me at the time.
That theory has not proven to be the case at all. Millenials commit very little crime and are more interested in social media, school, and work so juvenile crime is way down and I am talking about juvenile arrests being at the lowest leves in 50 years. It’s like street fights have morphed into a non-violent form of posting insults on the internet instead of violence in the streets. Not perfect behavior to be an online hater but progess from violence! Sucks for CA Courts though as crime is what the branch needs to stay in business.
Also, consider that juvenile crime is down despite their having been the great recession for this same period. So the millenial generation did amazing and have stayed out of trouble and out of the courts not just here in California but nationally.
Lastly, the prisons in CA are full! We are under Federal court orders to get them smaller. There is no growth potential and CA voters passed Prop 47 in 2014 to get the non-violent drug offenders out of prison.
Some say the war on drugs is ending or perhaps the fallout from Clinton’s 1994 crime bill is finally showing (It put thousands more cops on the streets) and made prisons population levels unsustainable. So now the pressure is on to reduce prisons, provide drug treatment instead, and stop spending bilions locking up 37% of African American males when blacks represent just 12-13% of the nations population. Now it is the police who are under scrutiny for their actions as every citizen has a cell phone. So finally the public has a tool to check police brutality as we have all seen over and over again with the Black Lives Matter movement from Furguson to Chicago.
The point is the Chief is on the wrong side of this major social trend siding with the insiders in CA Courts who like the filings forever going up as it means more money for courthouses, judges, and raises. I believe those cases are not coming back and the branch needs to prep for decreases in caseloads pretty much from here on out. Where is the potential growth…divorce cases? Lets hope not.
Mycotic
October 29, 2016
Two things. The documentary “The 13th” is on Netfllix. It presents a valid argument that the disproportionate percentage of incarcerated blacks has its roots in slavery. Goes thru the political history of the issue. Fascinating.
The Judicial Council website has the info up of the 27th and 28th meeting with their interpretation of why court filings are down but case loads are not decreasing.
Delilah
October 28, 2016
Criminal, Juvenile and Traffic. And now a word about the state of “Civil” filings.
“For those who can afford it, the solution may be greater use of private judges and arbitrators.”
http://blogs.lawyers.com/attorney/trusts-and-estates/the-high-cost-of-litigation-in-contra-costa-county-2-38613/
Queen Pumpkin
October 28, 2016
Ask all the people leaving Legal Services. Top staff have left in the last month. And a termination based on retaliation.
Judicial Council Watcher
October 29, 2016
Please share more…. using our email address ( judicialcouncilwatcher@hushmail.com ) or our secure and anonymous contact form.
Delilah
October 30, 2016
“Panel ponders whether bail system is fair to the poor”
Such a thorny, complex issue to ponder. Let’s put on our thinking caps, Kids.
But — have no fear! The CJ has “named a task force” to study a question that could be answered right now by the Department of No Shit Sherlock. How about naming a few public defenders or defense attorneys to that task force? People who can attest firsthand to what happens to people held in jail on bail they can’t afford, even when the district attorney ends up not filing any charges. (As just one egregious example.) Instead, she names 11 trial judges (wonder who and how many are ex-DAs) and a court administrator. Simply brilliant. And here’s the kicker. She has asked them to “present their recommendations” by December 2017.
Well, at least her M.O. is consistent: Create a task force or subcommittee, give them a year or three to come up with something, and then do nothing anyway and let the issue fade into oblivion.
Pull her string and she again recites: “This is an equal-access-to-justice issue…”
http://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/Fairness-of-state-s-bail-system-to-the-poor-10420852.php
Judicial Council Watcher
October 30, 2016
By putting it under study, she gives adequate cover for lawsuits to be dismissed over the same issue as being premature. If you ever listened to Taylor Culver go into his rants against respondents, he made it abundantly clear that this was not about justice, this was about money going to the courts. He claimed that this was because of judicial council guidance on the issue that he had no authority to consider your circumstances or lower your bail, so don’t ask.
You are also correct in assuming most of those judges served some time in a DA’s office and not a public defenders office. What that task force needs is a few Jeff Adachi’s on it and it would be nice if he started raising hell because he wasn’t named to it.
Our chief justice is a total sellout to minorities in a historical sense because it really wasn’t that long ago that Asians were strictly prohibited from owning farmland in California or Indian scalps were worth a quarter. But she lives in a million dollar plus house and has a million plus dollar SOMA loft so that colors her view on things dramatically.
People who can’t afford bail every single day have their lives destroyed by the current system when they’re factually innocent. She could have had the task force come up with recommendations in ninety days but you’re also correct that this task force is designed to make this issue fade into oblivion as well as to shake loose of a few pending lawsuits over the matter.
And oh, four years from its inception, we’re still waiting for the SEC recommendations to be implemented.
Please, don’t hold your breath.
Delilah
November 29, 2016
Speaking of sell-outs.
http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/State-to-defend-suit-against-bail-system-after-10640767.php
Wendy Darling
October 30, 2016
“And oh, four years from its inception, we’re still waiting for the SEC recommendations to be implemented.”
Uh-huh. Ho-hum. Yawn. Yawn again. When pigs fly and hell freezes over – at the same time. Not that anyone is actually going to do anything about that.
Still serving themselves -and doing so once again under the charade of yet another “task force”, “committee”, or whatever the popular deceptive nom de plume of branch administration is at the moment – to the detriment of all Californians.
You just can’t make this stuff up. Really.
Long live the ACJ.
unionman575
November 29, 2016
Stroke is the word: