Chief justice calls for indexed annual court budget increases

Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye called Thursday for the California courts budget to be indexed to receive automatic annual increases.

"We need to be fully funded if you really want a full democracy," she said in an address to the Public Policy Institute of California. "That's it, end of story, and we need a multiplier unless you want to see me every year with my bill saying 'This is what it costs to run the judiciary this year.'"

She suggested, "Maybe you could put us regularly to some kind of index that tracks the cost of living. Say, every year the judiciary gets a CPI [Consumer Price Index] of say 5%."

Her comments came one day after Gov. Gavin Newsom announced the state is on track to have another "historic budget surplus" next year. While speaking with NBC's Chuck Todd at the Milken Institute's 24th Global Conference, Newsom said tax receipts are currently $14 billion higher than projected.

Cantil-Sakauye said the average court in California is only funded at about 83% of its needs. While some courts are in better shape than others, she said the entire system has been running at a deficit for years.

"Before the pandemic, courts were not and have never been fully funded," Cantil-Sakauye said. "We took a huge loss during the Great Recession. We spent the years after just trying to get our heads above water."

She added that the COVID-19 pandemic has not affected courts equally. Many smaller, rural courts did relatively well. Big, urban courts in the Bay Area and Southern California were more affected, she said, because of high caseloads and greater crowding, which made it harder to maintain full in-person operations.

Similarly, not all case types were equally affected. While many civil and criminal cases have backed up, some case types have seen loads go down. This led to the chief justice's second major theme: the need to continue to advance remote technologies. She said the Judicial Council has surveyed court users and found most are happy with remote services. Much of the reason to maintain many kinds of in-person services is due to the digital divide that keeps poorer people offline, something the court system cannot address, she said.

"During the pandemic we learned that access through justice through remote technology or even through a phone call increased access," Cantil-Sakauye said. "Particularly in family law, juvenile delinquency and juvenile dependency, we found children are more comfortable speaking to someone in a black robe from a kitchen table. We found that family from out of state could join in."

She called on lawmakers to "remove barriers" and give more discretion to courts to operate remotely.

Newsom signed several bills this year to increase virtual access to courts, though these have largely addressed the civil courts. The Judicial Council is evaluating potential legislation to increase remote access for criminal proceedings.

"You should have a choice in your access to justice," Cantil-Sakauye said.

As if to illustrate her points, Thursday's event was virtual. Cantil-Sakauye appeared by camera from her office in San Francisco. In December 2019, she spoke at the event in front of a crowd of hundreds in a ballroom in Sacramento.

At the time, a law phasing out cash bail in California was on hold pending a referendum. That measure passed last year, invalidating the law, SB 10. But on Thursday Cantil-Sakauye said changes in bail laws are still on the table, even if the ultimate direction is now less clear. While a research group she convened to study the question recommended eliminating cash bail, Cantil-Sakauye said going forward she was evaluating changes that would exist alongside the cash bail system.

She said research has shown that most bail is not paid by the offender, but by a family member, usually a woman, and that bail had a disproportionate impact on poorer communities and people of color. Continuing discussions should focus on the impact on families when people can't make bail, especially when the person in jail is a family's main breadwinner, she said.

"I think bail reform is a train that has left the station," she said. "We are in the midst of it."