Judicial Council endorses same priorities for 2019, hopes for better results

The Judicial Council's legislative priorities for 2019 look a lot like its goals in other recent years: more judges and more court funding. The big difference next year is a new governor and an unprecedented Democratic majority.

"The last couple of years, our priorities have focused on adequate funding for the branch, improved efficiencies for the courts, as well as securing critically-needed judgeships," said Cory Jasperson, director of governmental affairs for the Judicial Council, at the organization's meeting in San Francisco Friday. "The priorities recommended for 2019 are very, very similar."

So similar, in fact, that all seven priorities appeared in largely identical form on the 2018 legislative priorities list.

Which is hardly to say 2018 was a bad year for the courts in Sacramento. To the contrary, the Judicial Council secured more money for court operations as well as one-time funding that has allowed long-delayed courthouse construction projects to move forward. Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye praised the final state budget this year, a rarity during her tenure.

Many of the recommendations made last year by the council's Pretrial Detention Reform Work Group passed the Legislature in the form of SB 10, a bill that would phase out the current cash bail system. SB 10 will be delayed pending a November 2020 referendum supported by the bail industry, however.

The latest update calls for "legislation to implement pretrial detention reform" in the interim. But it mentioned no specific ideas, nor were these discussed at the meeting.

The request for new judgeships, by contrast, is highly specific: 10, "allocated to the courts with the greatest need based on the most recently approved Judicial Needs Assessment." According to the 2018 draft version of the report circulated last month, those courts are once again in Riverside and San Bernardino counties.

These would come out of 50 judgeships approved in SB 1407, a 2008 bill signed just as the financial crash was nearing its peak. Under Gov. Jerry Brown, none of these were funded until he signed SB 847 this year, allocating two of them to Riverside County.

SB 847 also added one justice to the 4th District Court of Appeal, Division Two, which serves Inyo, Riverside and San Bernardino counties. The latest priority calls for a second new justice to be added to that court.

A justice now serving on that court, Justice Marsha G. Slough, the chair of the council's technology committee, said one of the main ways the courts have been able to start digging out from under the caseloads that have plagued them for more than a decade is by getting court users "online rather than in line."

Among the legislative priorities approved at Friday's meeting is "legislation to improve judicial branch operational efficiencies." The council also added three more courts -- El Dorado, Fresno and Monterey counties -- to a pilot project that lets people deal with traffic courts and fees online.

"We have a new governor coming in who I think is quite in tune with technological potential, when it comes to the budget," said Senate Judiciary Chair Hannah-Beth Jackson, D-Santa Barbara, one of two legislative representatives on the council.

Jackson said she would also likely play an important role in efforts to secure more court funding next year, joking, "That's why you've all been so nice to me."

The council also approved two proposals to change the rules for counsel in capital cases. One modifies the minimum qualifications for appointed attorneys in habeas corpus proceedings. The other adds new rules at the superior court level for appointing attorneys in death penalty cases.

These changes come in response to Proposition 66, a 2016 initiative that speeds appeals in death penalty cases.

Dennis M. Perluss, presiding justice of the 2nd District Court of Appeal, Division 7, and chair of the council's Proposition 66 committee, said the changes are designed to "achieve competent representation without unduly reducing the number of attorneys willing and able to handle these complex cases."

Cantil-Sakauye said most people don't appreciate the distinct set of skills needed to handle capital cases.

"These cases often go on to the federal court, with its own timelines and standards," she said.