Dear fellow citizen: please don’t use bomb threats to get out of a court date

This is one of those stories that makes you wince:

Courthouse officials are using a weekend arrest in a bomb threat case to warn others not to make the same mistake.

Spartanburg County [South Carolina] Clerk of Court Hope Blackley said people sometimes will attempt to get out of their court hearings by calling in bomb threats to the courthouse, forcing the building to evacuate and shut down operations.

Such actions add to the burden on an already strained judicial system and can inconvenience hundreds of other people who have rearranged their schedules to accommodate a court appearance.

“It’s a costly, logistical nightmare first and foremost, and taxpayer dollars are being wasted,” Blackley said. “The court docket is already backed up. We need every minute we can to have court be operable. It’s a huge injustice for folks who want and need their cases to be heard.”

The courthouse can be a difficult place for many people, and it is understandable why some would feel reluctant to enter that space  After all, issues affecting personal liberty, property, and relationships are determined there on a daily basis. But that is no excuse for terrifying and disrupting the lives of hundreds of other people. My goodness.

New York courts prepare to combat opioid overdoses

The New York Law Journal reports that each court in the state will receive an overdose prevention kit containing naloxone (Narcan) and other related medical materials.  Court personnel will receive formal training in the use of the kits as well.

This is a forward-looking and sensible response to the national opioid crisis, and a good example of courts taking seriously their role as forums that serve all members of the community.

Alexis de Tocqueville on American courts

“An American judge … cannot compel the people to make laws, but at least he can constrain them to be faithful to their own laws and remain in harmony with themselves.”

“I am aware of a hidden tendency in the United States leading the people to diminish judicial power; under most of the state constitutions the government can, at the request of both houses, remove a judge from office. Under some constitutions the judges are elected and subject to frequent reelection. I venture to predict that sooner or later these innovations will have dire results and that one day it will be seen that by diminishing the magistrates’ independence, not judicial power only but the democratic republic itself has been attacked.”

“I do not know whether a jury is good for litigants, but I am sure it is very good for those who have to decide the case. I regard it as one of the most effective means of popular education at society’s disposal.”

— Selected from Democracy in America (13th ed. 1850)

A look inside judicial training on sexual assault cases in Canada

I noted in May that Canadian authorities were weighing whether to mandate training on sexual assault and domestic violence cases for the country’s judges.  That training has now begun for new judges, and the Toronto Star provides a thoughtful report here on how it operates.

Some thoughts on the effort to recall Judge Aaron Persky

There is currently an effort in Santa Clara, California, to recall Aaron Persky, the Superior Court judge who gave an extraordinarily light sentence to former Stanford swimmer Brock Turner last summer after Turner was found guilty of sexual assault.  Persky sentenced Turner to six months in county jail, far short of the recommendations of prosecutors, after Turner was found to have sexually assaulted a drunk and unconscious woman behind a dumpster.

Turner’s actions were hideous, and it is certainly understandable why a light sentence would be greeted with surprise and even outrage.  And Judge Persky’s standard defense–that any challenge to his discretion would compromise judicial independence–sounds almost ridiculous in this context.  But the recall effort is still a terrible idea.

Continue reading “Some thoughts on the effort to recall Judge Aaron Persky”

What just happened? June 2017 roundup

The month in a nutshell: the governments of Ireland and North Carolina are each rattled by judicial selection controversies, a group of Brooklyn lawyers challenges the city’s de facto judgemakers, and courts around the world make quiet adjustments to better serve their communities and customers.

June 2017 was highlighted by two extensive controversies over judicial selection procedures on each side of the Atlantic.  In Ireland, the outgoing government gave a last-minute judicial appointment to Attorney General Maire Whelan, sparking outrage from minority parties in the government and threatening the viability of the new government.  The story continues to play out, as government officials seek to implement a new judicial screening committee.  In Pennsylvania, after another messy election season in May, a move away from elections and toward merit selection was endorsed by a small cohort of legislators and five former governors.  And in North Carolina, itself no stranger to judicial selection wars this spring, the state chief justice threw his own support to merit selection in an address to the state bar.

Another challenge to established judicial selection procedures was more homegrown.  Brooklyn attorney John O’Hara announced a slate of six “independent” Democrats who will seek judicial seats outside of the Democratic Party machine.  O’Hara and his cohort argue that the party’s “so called independent judicial screening panel is not very independent.”  They may have a point, if this embarrassing meet-and-greet with a local party boss or this scathing editorial are any indication.

The month was also noteworthy for a number of events that made international news.  In Australia, local politicians were haled into court to explain why they should not be held in contempt for criticizing judges and eroding trust in the judicial system. (Check out the interesting discussion I had about this with reader El Roam in the comments.)  The United Kingdom agreed to take on a year-long study of judicial pay and working conditions, amidst furious attacks on the judiciary in the wake of Brexit and a recent poll suggesting lower rates of public confidence in the British judiciary.  In Israel, watchdog groups questioned the court’s official statistics on divorce proceedings, again illustrating the challenges faced (and posed) by specialized religious courts in a pluralistic society.  And in India, a courthouse literally collapsed.

Then the U.S. Supreme Court suspended the wrong lawyer.  Sigh.

Through it all, and much more quietly, there were almost daily examples of courts and legislatures making changes to the way they do business in order to better align with the needs of the communities they serve.  Minnesota added two new judges to help address the growth in criminal and child protection filings.  Eagle, Colorado developed a partnership between a problem-solving court and a local Masonic Lodge to give vocational training to recovering drug and alcohol offenders.  And El Paso County, Texas, converted a civil court into a family court to better reflect the nature of its filings.

Again, a recurring theme in emerging in these monthly roundups: while high-profile issues of judicial selection, judicial ethics, and judicial independence dominate the headlines, the much lower profile work of efficient caseload processing, internal allocation of resources, and working with the community itself proceeds unabated.

 

 

Helicopter drops grenades on Venezuelan Supreme Court

A police helicopter dropped four grenades on the Venezuelan Supreme Court building yesterday, and also fired at least 15 shorts at the Interior Ministry, in an apparent attack on President Nicolas Maduro and his supporters.  No one was injured.

Earlier this spring, the United States imposed economic sanctions on individual members Venezuela’s Supreme Court for their role in perpetuating Maduro’s illegitimate and catastrophic regime.

Justice At Stake closes its doors

Today brings the sad news that Justice At Stake, an important court reform group of the past 16 years, has closed down due to funding woes.  JAS had moved in recent years toward more explicit advocacy of merit selection, which did not sit well with some in its core donor base.

I had the great pleasure of working with Justice At Stake during my time with the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System (IAALS), and I was consistently impressed how deftly and charismatically its leadership brought together reform groups from around the country.  I made friends and colleagues from the Brennan Center for Justice, American Judicature Society, Lambda Legal, Pennsylvanians for Modern Courts, National Center for State Courts, and countless other organizations.  Even when I disagreed with certain individuals on other matters of policy, I was always heartened by our shared conviction that the American courts deserved both reform and vigorous defense.  It was a testament to the JAS leadership that we were always kept focused and on track.  Its legacy is sure to last.

 

 

The pros and cons of canines in the courtroom

This is an interesting article on the use of trained dogs in courthouses to calm abuse victims and others who must testify about highly emotional issues.  It does a nice job laying out the arguments for and against the use of dogs, namely that they can comfort witnesses and elicit better testimony, but they also risk prejudicing juries against criminal defendants by making prosecution witnesses seem more sympathetic.

Unpacking the latest in the Maire Whelan controversy: proposed judicial appointments bill panned, government at risk

The controversial appointment of Maire Whelan to Ireland’s Court of Appeal continues to ruffle the country’s new government.  This week, Transport Minister Shane Ross proposed a bill to create a new Judicial Appointments Commission.  The new commission would have a majority of non-lawyer members, and would be chaired by a non-lawyer.  The commission would select final nominees, who would then be chosen by the government.

The bill immediately came under fire from Fianna Fail, the political party whose support is necessary to uphold the government’s confidence and supply agreement. The proposal was also publicly criticized by prominent members of the judiciary.

Continue reading “Unpacking the latest in the Maire Whelan controversy: proposed judicial appointments bill panned, government at risk”