Category: News

In 2005, the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges (NCJFCJ) published the Juvenile Delinquency Guidelines: Improving Court Practice in Juvenile Delinquency Cases (JDG).  Over the years, the Guidelines have been used as a major resource by juvenile courts across the country.

With grant support from SJI, the NCJFCJ has updated this seminal publication.  This update will ensure that the Guidelines remain the defining resource for juvenile justice professionals into the next decade.

The Guidelines identify the essential elements of effective juvenile justice procedures provide recommended practices.  However, in the intervening decade, much has changed in juvenile justice; from landmark U.S. Supreme Court decisions that ended the death penalty and solitary confinement for juveniles, to changes in practice as a result of brain science.

The NCJFCJ invites you to join them for a webinar, where they will unveil the new Enhanced Juvenile Justice Guidelines.

Date: Thursday, December 20, 2018

Time: 10 a.m. PST / 1 p.m. EST

Duration: 1 hour

Registration: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/6695ZDQ

Justice-system involvement for those with mental illness has broad-reaching implications.  For courts and communities to effectively respond to individuals with mental and behavioral health issues who are involved in the justice system requires committed stakeholders across a spectrum of services and time.

In collaboration with Arizona’s Fair Justice Subcommittee on Mental Health and the Criminal Justice System, this new NCSC guide details the process and lessons-learned during statewide adoption of the Conference of State Court Administrators (COSCA) recommendations to implement the Sequential Intercept Model (SIM).  The Committee’s goal is promoting “a more efficient and effective justice system for those individuals who come to court and are in need of behavioral health services,” by using SIM as a “conceptual framework for communities to organize targeted strategies for justice-system involved individuals with behavioral health disorders.”  The idea behind the SIM is that appropriate responses at identified intercepts can keep an individual from continuing to penetrate the justice system. The most effective approach is to design responses that are engaged in by community collaborators early and often.

The guide was funded through an SJI grant to the Arizona Supreme Court.  In addition to statewide-specific appendices, much of the information, including SIM Protocols that detail five different partner-level activity intercepts, and general suggestions for convening, collaborating, and sustaining efforts, is applicable to all courts.

When the Texas courts revised ways for economically disadvantaged people to resolve minor offenses — such as traffic tickets — by reviewing the defendants’ ability to pay, they got an unexpected result: court collections jumped by nearly 7 percent.

NCSC board member and Texas Chief Justice Nathan L. Hecht has been leading this effort, along with the Texas Judicial Council.  “Jailing criminal defendants who cannot pay their fines and court costs keeps them from their jobs, hurts their families, makes them dependent on society, and costs the taxpayers money.  Most importantly, it is illegal under the United States Constitution,” said Chief Justice Hecht.  “When taxpayers have to say to criminal defendants, ‘This hurts us more than it hurts you,’ something is wrong.”

Along with the National Center for State Courts (NCSC) and several other state court systems, Texas has been examining ways to appropriately penalize people who don’t have the financial ability to pay court fines and fees for criminal offenses.  Chief Justice Hecht is a member of the SJI-funded National Task Force on Court Fines, Fees and Bail Practices, an initiative of the Conference of Chief Justices and the Conference of State Court Administrators.  Identifying alternative sanctions to court fines/fees was one focus area of the Task Force.

For years, many people who were unable to pay court fines and fees ended up in jail, creating long-term consequences for the individual and costing taxpayers and the justice system more money.  Many of these people, once in jail for non-payment, lost their jobs and often their driver’s licenses, which created a cycle of poverty. Critics have dubbed this as “debtors’ prisons.”

With support from Chief Justice Hecht and others, in 2017 the Texas passed legislation that, among other things, allows courts to ask defendants earlier in the court process about their ability to pay their fines/fees, and tailor the fines/fees to an amount appropriate for the defendants’ situation.  The legislation requires judges to conduct an inquiry at sentencing, limit warrants for arrest for non-compliance, and offer expanded options for community service.  For example, once it’s determined an individual is unable to afford a $500 traffic ticket, but are able to afford $200, payment is made and the case is resolved or community service is assigned. Before this legislation, if the individual was unable to pay the $500, he/she often failed to pay anything and was jailed.

“Courts are collecting something rather than nothing, and the negative impacts for defendants are much lower,” said David Slayton, Texas State Court Administrator.  “While we have more progress to make, we are delighted to see the positive impacts from the proposals the Judicial Council made.”

On November 15, 2018, SJI Board member Jonathan Lippman was among five inducted into the Warren E. Burger Society.  Burger Society membership is reserved for individuals who have volunteered their time, talent, and support to the National Center for State Courts (NCSC) in exceptional ways.

Chief Judge Lippman (ret.) is currently Of Counsel for Latham & Watkins, LLP in New York City, New York.  He previously served as Chief Judge of the State of New York and Chief Judge of the New York Court of Appeals, a position he held since 2009.  Chief Judge Lippman spent his entire legal career in the New York State court system, serving for 40 years in a variety of roles.  He was Presiding Justice of the Appellate Division of the New York Supreme Court, First Department from 2007 to 2009; an Associate Justice of the Appellate Term for the Ninth and Tenth Judicial Districts from 2006 to 2007; a Justice of the Supreme Court, Ninth Judicial District from 2006 to 2009; and Chief Administrative Judge of all New York State Courts from 1996 to 2007.  Chief Judge Lippman is a former member of the Board of Directors of the Conference of Chief Justices, former President of the Conference of State Court Administrators, and former Vice Chair of the Board of the National Center for State Courts (NCSC).  He is the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including the William H. Rehnquist Award for Judicial Excellence, which the NCSC awarded to him in 2008.  He was appointed to the SJI Board of Directors in 2013.

Conference of Chief Justices (CCJ)  President, Chief Justice Paul Reiber (VT) and NCSC President Mary McQueen presided over the ceremony.  Joining Chief Judge Lippman in the celebration were his wife Amy, Chief Justice and SJI Board Chair John Minton (KY), and SJI Executive Director Jonathan Mattiello.

The Burger Society is named for the former Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, who, with the Conference of Chief Justices, helped found the NCSC in 1971. A press release is available with full details on the other recipients.

The fact that nearly half of all marriages end in divorce means that a lot of Americans end up in family courts, but many of those courts are not equipped to meet the needs of today’s families, according to a new study by the National Center for State Courts (NCSC), the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System (IAALS) and the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Justices (NCJFCJ).

The Family Justice Initiative (FJI), an ambitious, first-of-its-kind project, supported by SJI hopes to change that by making it easier and quicker for litigants to navigate family courts.

“This is an initiative that has the capacity to help courts that are struggling to assist families,” said Alicia Davis, principal court management consultant. “Courts are effective in determining winners and losers, but family courts have to help families solve their problems. If we can study problem-solving strategies, we can eventually say to courts across the country, ‘This is what really helps families.’”

The FJI’s goal is to create better and faster experiences for litigants and less stress and more gratification for judges and other court employees.

The first phase of the three-phase initiative recently ended with the release of a study of 10 large family courts nationwide.  The study showed that cases – whether they are contested or uncontested – take longer than they should, and that courts don’t have good enough data to make changes that will make court processes more efficient and allow court employees to more effectively help litigants.  The specific finding that surprised Davis most is that contested and uncontested cases take about the same amount of time. She was least surprised that between 70 percent and 80 percent of litigants came to court without a lawyer.  “That’s something we’ve been hearing for a long time.”

The second phase of the initiative, currently ongoing, will develop recommendations, with direction from Iowa Supreme Court Chief Justice Mark S. Cady, who is leading an advisory committee on the issue.

The third phase is a pilot project stage, which will test those recommendations in 4 pilot courts over a period of approximately 18 months.  A handful of courts have expressed interest in being a pilot court.  The pilot courts will be identified and announced early next year.

The opioid epidemic has had a devastating impact on families, especially on the children of parents who abuse substances. SJI recently awarded the National Center for State Courts (NCSC) a grant to determine how state courts can best help the children who end up in the justice system because of family substance abuse.

The grant will support the efforts of the National Judicial Opioid Task Force’s (NJOTF) workgroup on Children and Families, which is working to identify and pilot innovative state court practices to help children impacted by the opioid crisis.

With the grant, pilot courts will be selected to focus on the following areas:

• Identify early intervention court strategies to help parents with substance abuse issues who are at risk of losing custody of their children.
• Promote evidence-based prevention, identification, and treatment for children and their parents related to Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome and Substance-Exposed Infants.
• Reduce trauma and promote safe and timely placement of children, including the use of trauma assessment instruments, for children, especially those under five years of age.

More information will be available soon on the selection process for pilot sites.

The National Judicial Opioid Task Force (NJOTF) is a project of the Conference of Chief Justices and Conference of State Court Administrators.  The NJOTF, which is funded by SJI, consists of three workgroups: Children and Families; Civil and Criminal Justice; and Collaboration and Education.

The National Judicial Opioid Task Force (NJOTF), in collaboration with the Prescription Drug Monitoring Program Training and Technical Assistance Center, will hold the second of three webinars in November.   The series intends to help participants gain greater knowledge about how state court systems can, and already are, working with prescription drug monitoring programs (PDMPs) to address the opioid crisis.

Part 2 of this series will address access to, and use of, information contained in PDMPs and feature guest presenters from state courts in Kentucky that are successfully using PDMP data in the justice system process.

To join this webinar on November 15^th at 3:00 PM Eastern Time, click on PDMPs and the Courts: Part 2 or copy and paste this link (https://iir.adobeconnect.com/ncsc_20181115/) into your browser bar.

Advance registration is not required. Adobe Connect will be used for the presentation and may need to be downloaded before the webinar begins.

If you missed Part 1 in this webinar series, you can access it via the NJOTF website: https://pdmpassist.wistia.com/medias/c8m8cs9ruw.

Courts and their stakeholders are encouraged to share this content and invitations to future webinars.

As part of the Human Trafficking and the State Courts Initiative, the Center for Court Innovation (CCI) has developed a video and user guide focusing on court-led responses to human trafficking

The video and the accompanying viewers’ guide, titled, From Defendant to Survivor: How Courts are Responding to Human Trafficking, profile some of the innovative ways courts are responding to the needs of human trafficking victims.  While each court is unique, they share a set of common principles including: responding to defendants’ trauma, connecting them to services, fostering collaboration across the agencies that support victims, and taking a flexible approach to how success is defined in light of the complex and unique challenges facing these victims.

Survivors of sex trafficking are usually treated as criminals—who are arrested and prosecuted—rather than victims. But some courts are changing their approach, recognizing that those arrested on prostitution charges are often victims of coercion, violence, and trauma.

CCI has also made the following related resources available on their site:

• Youth Involvement in the Sex Trade;
• Responding to Sex Trafficking in Your Jurisdiction: A Planning Toolkit;
• Navigating Force and Choice: Experiences in the New York City Sex Trade and the Criminal Justice System’s Response; and,
• Houston’s SAFE Court Offers Victims of Human Trafficking a New Path.

Last year’s wildfires in California destroyed the houses of three Sonoma County Superior County judges, enveloped the Santa Rosa courthouse with smoke for weeks, and forced the deputies assigned to that courthouse to leave and help other first responders.  The wildfires closed the courthouse for two weeks, leading to a caseload nightmare and initial confusion about how to notify the public about rescheduled court dates.

Stories like this – and in other places that recently have had to deal with the aftermath of natural disasters – made it clear to National Center for State Courts (NCSC) staffers that many courts need help to better prepare and better respond to emergencies that force courts to close. NCSC recently received a grant from SJI to help court officials in hurricane-vulnerable places such as Florida, Texas, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, and in California (wildfires) and Hawaii (volcanoes).

The first step will be a “lessons-learned” summit early next year, where court officials from those six states and territories will share what has worked and what hasn’t.  Sometime after the summit, NCSC consultants will travel to the six states and territories to review their natural disaster and emergency management plans. The consultants will also make recommendations to update and improve the plans, known as continuity of operations plans, or COOPs.

The grant will also allow NCSC to update its COOP template, which is 10 years old.  An updated COOP template will identify essential steps that court officials should take, and help them know how to connect with state and federal government agencies that can assist them before, during, and after natural disasters.

Finally, NCSC will use a portion of the grant to package the information and make it user friendly, creating an interactive COOP template, and interactive website that court officials can turn to for updated information.

SJI recently released the Grant Guideline for FY 2019.  The Grant Guideline appears as part of the National Archives and Records Administration’s Federal Register, and sets forth the administrative, programmatic, and financial requirements for applying for and administering SJI grants.

Fiscal Year 2019 Deadlines for Project, Technical Assistance, and Curriculum Adaptation Grants are as follows:

• 1st Quarter – November 1, 2018;
• 2nd Quarter – February 1, 2019;
• 3rd Quarter – May 1, 2019; and,
• 4th Quarter – August 1, 2019.