Chief justice asked to reassign delayed 3rd District cases

The leader of a commission that made recommendations on appellate court delays 21 years ago has signed onto a letter urging Chief Justice Tani G. Cantil-Sakauye to reassign dozens of long delayed cases from the 3rd District Court of Appeal.

Retired appellate justice Gary E. Strankman joined Jon B. Eisenberg in signing the letter on Tuesday to the chief justice and the other members of the California Supreme Court. The writers identified 57 cases that have been fully briefed for the last 22 to 65 months without being heard or submitted for decision.

"Of the 57 listed appeals, 42 are criminal cases and thus have calendar preference," they wrote. "In the interests of justice, we respectfully suggest that the court should transfer these appeals -- or, alternately, an equivalent number of other appeals in the Third Appellate District -- among the other districts in the courts of appeals as this court determines to be appropriate, for the purpose of ensuring that these long-pending appeals are adjudicated expeditiously."

The Supreme Court and Judicial Council declined to comment for this story.

Last month, Eisenberg filed a complaint with the Commission on Judicial Performance citing what he said were excessive delays in decisions from three of 3rd District justices. One of these, Justice William J. Murray Jr., has also delivered opinions at a fraction of the average rate for California appellate justices in recent years, Eisenberg wrote. These delays have caused some criminal defendants to miss out on sentence reductions and caused other harms, the Healdsburg-based appellate attorney wrote.

Strankman retired as the presiding justice of the 1st Appellate District, Division 1 in 2001. The year before, he led an Appellate Process Task Force organized by the Judicial Council. Eisenberg was a member of the group that would become known as the Strankman Commission. Its report recommended the chief justice should reassign cases or rebalance workloads to address appellate delays.

Reached on Wednesday, Strankman said Eisenberg contacted him recently. He said he was disappointed that delays on appellate courts have grown worse, as shown in Eisenberg's complaint to the Commission on Judicial Performance.

"That was just shocking to me, having done that work on the commission more than 20 years ago," Strankman said.

He added, "Once they got a commission and a report, it kind of got pushed to the back burner. I retired within a year or so of that report being written and there was not a lot of continued energy and focus on delay reduction. If you leave a problem unattended, eventually it festers."

Strankman said he's had "a long-standing interest" in addressing court delays. He was Contra Costa County's presiding judge when the Trial Court Delay Reduction Act was passed in 1990. It called on the Judicial Council to adopt standards and processes for addressing trial court delay similar to ones proposed by the National Conference of State Trial Judges and the American Bar Association. Chief Justice Ronald M. George appointed Strankman to head the commission.

"It's a terrible thing for litigants to go four and five years from the time their cases are fully briefed until a decision is made," Strankman said. "It's obscene, actually."