Brooklyn judicial candidates accuse local party chief of holding illegal fundraiser for their opponents

I have previously discussed the candidacies of five Brooklyn residents who are running for judge, but refuse to go through the selection system dominated by Democratic Party bosses. In the latest twist in the story, a spokesman for the five candidates has accused local party boss Frank Seddio of hosting a “illegal” fundraiser for the party’s preferred candidates on August 23.

Surely some of this is an effort to stay in the news cycle, but the accusations of spokesman Gary Tilzer are still damning:

Seddio, an attorney, sent the red, white and blue invite to more than 185 people — including sitting judges, judicial candidates, attorneys, developers, politicians, lobbyists and members of the Judicial Screening Committee. The invite vaguely touts fund-raising “to support our contested countywide candidates.”

It doesn’t specify the candidates who will benefit or the election that’s involved.

***

Guests were instructed to write their $500 to $5,000 checks out to the Kings County Democratic County Committee, an account that’s controlled by the Brooklyn Democratic Party, and mail them to Seddio’s home address, according to the letter.

Tilzer’s three-page letter to the committees said Seddio’s fund-raising efforts violate the Rules Governing Judicial Conduct and are unethical on seven points, including not disclosing who the event benefits, inviting sitting judges to contribute and, since the beneficiaries aren’t named, having judicial candidates raising money with potential nonjudicial candidates.

As I have noted before, those who are truly concerned about the influence of money in politics might want to start by shining a light on local hornet’s nests like these.

Wyoming raises court fees to pay for technology upgrades

The technology in Wyoming’s state courts is reportedly in terrible shape, ranging from extremely outdated to nonexistent. Half the courtrooms lack adequate power, and 80 percent lack digital capacity for video and videoconferencing.  In response, the state legislature has approved an increase in court fees to fund technological improvements.  The affected fees are primarily “automation fees” associated with filing a case, and moderately increased monetary penalties for a felony conviction.

 

ABA initiates program to give junior lawyers more courtroom experience

For years, trials have been in decline in American courts: only 1-2% of all cases filed will eventually make it to a jury or bench trial.  This decline has also meant fewer opportunities for young lawyers to sharpen their courtroom skills.

The ABA Section of Litigation has initiated a new program to give those young lawyers more courtroom experience, and the ABA’s Judicial Division has signed on.  These changes cannot, by themselves, reverse all the trends that have moved litigation away from trial outcomes.  But given the continued importance of trials in the American legal system, they are still welcome developments.

“Insurgent” judicial candidates in Brooklyn continue their fight against machine politics

In June, I flagged an interesting story of five judicial candidates in Brooklyn who are aggressively running against the Democratic Party machine. These candidates, led by John O’Hara (a lawyer with a colorful and checkered past), assert that the borough’s independent screening panel is really just an arm of the local Democratic Party, and subject to the wishes of party bosses. All but one of the insurgent candidates has refused to go before the panel .

With the primary about a month away, the New York Law Journal weighs in with an article that captures the essence of the insurgency, as well as the establishment position.  The crux of their claims: the party asserts that the 24-member screening panel simply determines candidates’ fitness for the bench, and expects no quid pro quo for the candidates it deems qualified. The O’Hara group alleges that the panel is essentially a mechanism for attorney members to receive future favors from the candidates they endorse.

I generally favor screening panels or nominating commissions as part of a comprehensive judicial selection process. But this challenge makes clear that if the panel itself is not seen as legitimate, neither will the judicial candidates it endorses. And New York has a long and unfortunate history of party boss control over the selection of local judges. We’ll see how it plays out at the September 12 primary.

U.S. Supreme Court (finally!) adopts electronic filing

Almost 30 years after the PACER system was implemented for the federal district courts, and more than 15 years after district court dockets were placed on the web, the U.S. Supreme Court has announced that it will adopt its own electronic filing system.  The system goes into effect this November.

The Court’s announcement states that “Once the system is in place, virtually all new filings will be accessible without cost to the public and legal community.” I read that to mean that reviewing and downloading docket materials will be free, which would be an improvement on the costly PACER system.  Let’s hope that is what is intended.

A remarkable look inside India’s overburdened court system

The Wall Street Journal published a fascinating article yesterday on daily life at India’s largest courthouse, the Allahabad High Court. It tells a tale of extreme delay, extraordinary inefficiency, and basic injustice stemming from a lethal combination of judicial vacancies, outdated filing systems, and lax protocols for advancing cases to resolution. Among the facts presented in the article:

  • Nearly 45% of judicial positions on the court are unfilled, due in large part to an ongoing battle between the judiciary and the other branches of government about the most appropriate methods for judicial selection.
  • On average, it takes nearly four years to adjudicate a simple commercial dispute in India — twice as long as in Brazil and more than three times as long as in the United States.
  • More than 86% of high court cases in India take 10-15 years to adjudicate.  Fewer than 5% are resolved in less than five years.
  • The Allahabad High Court receives nearly 1,000 new cases every day.  Almost half are filed by the government.  Judges on the court even have a name for newly filed cases that have not even been looked at yet — “backlog fresh.”
  • It is so unpredictable which cases will be called on any given day that one lawyer profiled has associates spread out across all the courtrooms to track if — and when — any of his 34 open lawsuits on the court’s calendar might be taken up by a judge.
  • Even though rural litigants often have to travel a whole day to appear in court, it is commonplace that their cases will not be called and another day will be wasted.
  • The system encourages delay by allowing lawyers to file an “illness slip” to postpone a hearing, whether or not they are actually sick.
  • Case records are badly misfiled–piled on floors and chairs, and intermingled by year.  In the story, a worker searched eight hours for files for the next day’s cases, and was still missing 17 of 65 by day’s end.

This is a jaw-dropping account, the paragon of “justice delayed is justice denied.” What can we make of it?

Continue reading “A remarkable look inside India’s overburdened court system”

What just happened? July 2017 roundup

The month in a nutshell: Judicial independence is under attack worldwide, especially in Poland — where an effort to exert executive branch control over its judges draws international criticism.

Throughout July 2017, judges across the world faced a variety of challenges to their individual and organizational independence. Among other things, Californians commenced a poorly thought-out effort to remove Judge Aaron Persky. And facing low salaries, Uganda’s judges voted to strike if they did not receive a pay raise.

But the big news was in Poland, where the ruling Law and Justice Party proposed a series of bills that would have effectively given control of the judiciary to the executive branch.  Among the proposals: cutting the judiciary out of the judicial appointment process, and allowing the Attorney General to remove and replace Supreme Court Justices he did not like. The bills were widely seen as a power grab that threatened the judiciary’s independence, leading to more than a week of protests in Warsaw and international criticism. Although two bills passed the Polish legislature, they were eventually vetoed by President Andrzej Duda. Still, Duda did sign other reform legislation, including a bill allowing unilateral replacement of lower court judges by the executive branch. Just yesterday, the European Union sent a letter to the Polish government, reiterating its intent to take away Poland’s voting privileges in that body if any Supreme Court Justices are removed.

Back in the United States, an increasing number of reports suggested the perils of using social media and texting for judges. And the President continued to make slow progress in nominating candidates for federal judicial vacancies.

There was good news, too, dear reader. Under the radar, many courts continued to initiate projects to reflect the needs of their communities. The New York courts announced a plan to place opioid overdose kits in their courthouses. North Carolina started two programs to ease court congestion in traffic and landlord-tenant cases. And courts across the country continued to increase the transparency of their work, by posting court filings online or by allowing cameras into the courtroom for hearings of public interest.

Jordanian government moves closer to passing judicial independence bill

The Jordanian Senate’s Legal Committee has endorsed a bill that would give the country’s judiciary an independent budget and improve the judicial appointment process.  The marked bill now goes back to the Lower House for review, and to rationalize any inconsistencies between the two versions.

Budgetary independence is a central, and often overlooked, component of judicial independence.  Courts are already dependent on other arms of the government for funding; to also be restricted in how the money is spent creates the obvious risk of quid pro quo justice.  Budgetary independence was a major project for the United States Courts in the first part of the twentieth century, and it finally met with success in the 1930s.  Other jurisdictions around the world are right to seek the same, and the Jordanian legislature is right to grant it here.

Florida judge faces recusal for Facebook friendship

Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Beatrice Butchko’s Facebook account is the subject of a pending dispute in Florida’s Third Circuit Court of Appeal. Judge Butchko is friends on the social media site with local lawyer Israel Reyes, which appellants argue should disqualify her from hearing any cases involving Reyes or his firm.

Florida was an early leader in setting out ethics guidelines for judges on social media, with a 2009 opinion that barred judges from adding lawyers who may appear before them as “friends” on any social networking site. Had Judge Butchko recently added Mr. Reyes as a friend, it would seem a clear violation of the ethics guideline.

But there is a twist in this case: Mr. Reyes was formerly a colleague on the state bench with Judge Butchko, and it was in that capacity that they connected on Facebook. Only when Mr. Reyes left the bench did the potential for him to appear before Judge Butchko ever become a possibility. And the ethics opinion is silent about removing friends from social media–as opposed to adding new ones.

Mr. Reyes is representing a non-party in the case before Judge Butchko, but the proper defendant in the case finds the entire disqualification motion absurd:

“No reasonably prudent Miami lawyer has a well-founded fear of not receiving a fair and impartial trial simply because two judges who sat on the bench in Miami-Dade County are ‘friends’ on Facebook,” wrote Shutts & Bowen attorneys Patrick Brugger and Frank Zacherl of Miami, who did not respond to a request for comment by deadline.

Judge Butchko could presumably resolve the issue quickly by dropping Mr. Reyes as a Facebook friend, so as to avoid any perception of partiality. Nothing would prevent her from maintaining a real friendship within professional limits. And that might be the best kind of friendship after all.

 

Ireland returns to established procedures to appoint new Chief Justice

After last month’s major controversy over an unusual process used to select a judge to its Court of Appeal, the Irish government has returned to established procedures to select its newest Chief Justice, Frank Clarke.  From the Irish Times:

The Government spokesman said the intention of the process was to “mirror the spirit” of new draft legislation governing judicial appointments, but “not to every detail”.

The Judicial Appointments Bill, which has been promoted by Mr Ross, will not become law until the autumn at the earliest.

Chief Justice Susan Denham is due to step down after six years as head of the judiciary, and 25 years on the Supreme Court, next month.

Previous coverage of the controversy here, here, here, and here.