Category: News And Announcements

On December 10, 2016, the U.S. Senate confirmed Chief Justice John Minton from Kentucky to serve on the SJI Board of Directors.  Chief Justice Minton was nominated by the President on July 13, 2016.  He was elected to the Supreme Court of Kentucky in 2006, and reelected in 2014.  His fellow justices elected him as Chief Justice in 2008, 2012, and 2016.  Chief Justice Minton was in private practice for 15 years before serving as a Circuit Court Judge from 1992 to 2003, and a Kentucky Court of Appeals Judge from 2003 to 2006.  In 2016, He was elected by his fellow chief justices to serve as President of the Conference of Chief Justices and Chair of the National Center for State Courts Board of Directors.  He holds degrees from Western Kentucky University and the University of Kentucky College of Law.

In July 2016, the Conference of Chief Justices (CCJ) approved a resolution endorsing the Recommendations of its Civil Justice Improvements Committee. The Committee’s report, Call to Action: Achieving Justice for All, encourages the state courts to improve their civil justice systems by providing 13 recommendations.  Since then, the Call to Action and supporting materials have been accessed, downloaded, and reviewed thousands of times, garnering attention from all stakeholders, including state courts, academia, and the media.

The Civil Justice Initiative is supported by a partnership between the National Center for State Courts (NCSC), and Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System (IAALS) at the University of Denver.  With continued support from SJI, the NCSC and IAALS will promote the implementation of these recommendations in state courts across the nation.  This collaboration includes providing education, technical assistance, and practical tools to assist state and local courts in improving civil justice systems.

Expert technical assistance is available to state and local courts to implement the Recommendations of the CCJ Civil Justice Improvements Committee.  To be considered for this technical assistance, please download and complete the full CJI Implementation Request for Technical Assistance form, and email to Blake Kavanagh, at bkavanagh@ncsc.org.

An NCSC representative will contact you to discuss the request, including identification of appropriate experts and the scope of work anticipated.

 

Former SJI Board Chair Chief Justice Jim Hannah was posthumously inducted into the Warren E. Burger Society during the National Center for State Court’s (NCSC) Annual Recognition Luncheon on November 17, 2016.  Chief Justice Hannah, who passed away in January 2016 at the age of 71, had served as SJI Board Chair since 2010, and also served as President of the Conference of Chief Justices (CCJ) and Chair of the NCSC Board of Directors.  Attendees included 18 members of his family, along with members from the SJI Board of Directors.  The ceremony was hosted by Kentucky Chief Justice John Minton, CCJ President and Chair of the NCSC Board of Directors.  The Burger Society honors individuals who have volunteered their time, talent, and support to the NCSC in exceptional ways.  It is named for the former Chief Justice of the United States who helped found the NCSC in 1971.

Other inductees included: Wallace Jefferson, former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Texas and current Partner at Alexander, Dubose, Jefferson & Townsend in Austin, Texas; Donna Melby, Partner with Paul Hastings, LLP in Los Angeles; Edward Mullins, Jr, Partner with Nelson, Mullins, Riley & Scarborough, LLP in Columbia, South Carolina; and Myron T. Steele, former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Delaware and current Partner with Potter, Anderson & Corroon, LLP.

 

With support from SJI, the National Center for State Courts (NCSC) and the Texas Office of Court Administration partnered to evaluate the impact of the Texas Expedited Actions Rules, which were enacted in 2013 to reduce expense and delay in civil litigation.  The rules are mandatory for almost all civil cases involving monetary damages of $100,000 or less (“expedited actions”), and damages awarded for expedited actions cannot exceed $100,000.

The evaluation compared characteristics and outcomes of civil cases filed both before and after the expedited actions rules were enacted.  It also surveyed attorneys about the expedited actions rules and the impact on civil case management.  Students from Baylor University School of Law interviewed judges and attorneys to provide a more nuanced context about how the rules impacted strategic decision-making and calendar management in individual cases.  Analysis of the case-level data indicated that the Expedited Actions Rules had a positive impact on civil case processing.  In contract cases, settlements increased at the expense of summary judgment and trial outcomes, while trial rates grew in tort cases, replacing summary judgments.  The new rules also decreased time to disposition for cases that settled.  Cases disposed by trial or summary judgment experienced some initial delays, presumably due to the relative complexity of those cases, but cases lasting longer than 9 to 12 months resolved more quickly under the new rules.  It has already been observed that the apparent impact of the new rules appears to be a function of routine communications about the new deadlines and restrictions by court administration, rather than conscious decisions by judges and attorneys to change case management practices, which tends to highlight the importance of including court administration in educational programs about civil justice reforms.

The full report is online and will be featured in upcoming editions of the NCSC’s @TheCenter publication, and a new civil justice newsletter that will launch soon.

 

The SJI Board of Directors has established Priority Investment Areas for FY 2017 grant funding.  SJI will allocate significant financial resources through grant-making for these Priority Investment Areas (in no ranking order):

• Self-Represented Litigation – Promoting court-based self-help centers, online services, and increasing use of court-based volunteer attorney programs.
• Language Access – Improving language access in the state courts through remote interpretation (outside the courtroom), interpreter certification, courtroom services (plain language forms, websites, etc.).
• Reengineering to Improve Court Services and Performance – Assisting courts with the process of reengineering, regionalization or centralization of services, structural changes, improving performance, and reducing cost to taxpayers while providing access to justice.
• Remote Technology – Supporting the innovative use of technology to improve the business operations of courts and enhanced services outside the courtroom. This includes videoconferencing, online access, educational services, and remote court proceedings.
• Human Trafficking and the State Courts – Through the Human Trafficking and the State Courts Collaborative, addressing the impact of federal and state human trafficking laws on the state courts, and the challenges faced by state courts in dealing with cases involving trafficking victims and their families.
• Guardianship, Conservatorship, and Elder Issues – Assisting courts in improving oversight of guardians/conservators to prevent fraud of the elderly and the incapacitated, to include establishing court visitor programs, electronic reporting and monitoring, and guardian training.
• Juvenile Justice – Innovative projects that have no other existing or potential funding sources (federal, state, or private) that will advance best practices in handling dependency and delinquency cases; promote effective court oversight of juveniles in the justice system; address the impact of trauma on juvenile behavior; assist the courts in identification of appropriate provision of services for juveniles; and address juvenile re-entry.
• Fines, Fees, and Bail Practices – Assisting courts in taking a leadership role in reviewing fines, fees, and bail practices to ensure processes are fair and access to justice is assured; implementing alternative forms of sanction; developing processes for indigency review; and transparency, governance, and structural reforms that promote access to justice, accountability, and oversight.  Projects that address this Priority Investment Area will inform the work of the Conference of Chief Justices/Conference of State Court Administrators (CCJ/COSCA) National Task Force on Fines, Fees, and Bail Practices

The Conference of State Court Administrators (COSCA), released its 2015-2016 policy paper recommending specific policies and practices that courts can adopt to minimize the negative impact of legal financial obligations (LFOs) and end so-called “debtors’ prisons,” while ensuring accountability for individuals violating the law.

This paper examines the growth of debt imposed by legislative bodies through courts and the incarceration that results from failure to pay ,as well as significant collateral consequences incarceration brings to those unable to pay.  The paper discusses the issues created by reliance on funding courts through fine and fee revenue and the impact of using private for-profit entities to collect court-related LFOs.

“COSCA has long advocated against the practice of funding courts and other government activities through fees.  In this paper COSCA advocates for lawful, effective, and just policies toward those who are ordered to pay fines and fees,” said Arthur Pepin, the President of COSCA and Director of the New Mexico Administrative Office of the Courts.  “The objective is compliance, whether through payment in money, performing community service, or creating alternative ways to satisfy the public policy behind the imposition of fines and fees.  Incarceration must remain as the ultimate sanction for those who are able to pay but willfully refuse to do so.”

Recommendations included in the paper focus on:

• strengthening the capacity of courts to assess the ability to pay through the use of automated tools or other existing means tests;
• adopting practices that reduce failures to appear, such as using phone call and text message reminders of pending court dates;
• expanding and improving access to alternatives to incarceration, such as community service;
• ensuring judges have the authority to impose alternatives for those unable to pay; and,
• ultimately, imposing jail time for an offender’s willful refusal to pay.

The press release for this paper notes that this is not the first time COSCA has addressed similar issues.  In 2012, COSCA issued a policy paper with the position that courts should not be treated as revenue centers. In that paper, COSCA outlined a series of principles, including:

1. Courts should be substantially funded from general governmental revenue sources, enabling them to fulfill their constitutional mandates.
2. Neither courts nor specific court functions should be expected to operate exclusively from proceeds produced by fees and miscellaneous charges.
3. Optional local fees or miscellaneous charges should not be established.

This new policy paper, and other COSCA papers are available online.

Courting Justice is an unprecedented multi-city town hall series that invites state supreme, appellate and trial court judges to step down from the bench and listen to new perspectives on how the United States court system can better deliver justice for all. With support from SJI, these town halls have enabled the public to voice their concerns and share solutions on how to rebuild public trust in the judiciary. The second town hall was held in Little Rock, Arkansas, on September 23, 2016. Videos from each of the Town Hall meetings are available on the National Center for State Court’s Courting Justice website.

The SJI Board of Directors met on September 12, 2016,  at the Multnomah County Courthouse in Portland, Oregon, to make decisions on quarterly grant applications and awarded a total of eighteen (18) new grants.

One Strategic Initiatives Grant (SIG) was awarded to the National Center for State Courts to evaluate online dispute resolution projects in New York and Utah.  One Project Grant was approved for the Arkansas Supreme Court Commission on Children, Youth, & Families for statewide implementation of juvenile justice reforms.

Nine (9) Technical Assistance (TA) Grants were approved, including: the Missouri Office of State Courts Administrator for a municipal court technology consolidation project; the New Orleans, Louisiana, Municipal Court for an assignment and case management plan consolidating Municipal and Traffic Courts; the Supreme Court of the U.S. Virgin Islands for implementation of administrative unification of the Supreme and Superior Courts; Juvenile probation performance measurement development for the Allegheny County, Pennsylvania Court of Common Pleas; and, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) for a project to assess and address human trafficking in the CNMI.

Seven (7) Curriculum Adaptation & Training (CAT) Grants were approved, including: support to the Supreme Court of Ohio for a court interpreter improvement program; the Maryland Judiciary for faculty development education; the New Mexico Administrative Office of the Courts for Safe Exchange Supervised Visitation (SESV) Practice Standards online training; and, the National Judicial College (NJC) for human trafficking education for state court judges.

 

A recently released report, titled Call to Action: Achieving Civil Justice for All, is the result of more than two years worth of research and discussion by a blue-ribbon group of legal and judicial leaders. The committee included state chief justices, trial court judges, court administrators, attorneys, and academics, and was supported by an SJI grant to the National Center for State Courts (NCSC) and the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System (IAALS) at the University of Denver (SJI-13-P-201).  It recently received the endorsement of the Conference of Chief Justices (CCJ) and the Conference of State Court Administrators (COSCA).

“This is a call to action for state court leaders across the country,” said Chief Justice Thomas Balmer of Oregon, who chaired the committee that produced the report. “Our courts need to resolve disputes fairly—but also at lower cost and with less delay. “

The recommendations are designed to meet the challenges of contemporary civil caseloads by taking advantage of modern technologies and highly trained court staff to provide effective oversight and timely intervention to move civil cases to resolution.

The report provides a comprehensive framework that features:

• Procedural reforms implemented in a variety of state courts that have been empirically tested and shown to substantially improve civil case processing;
• A right-sized staffing model for civil case processing that delegates substantial responsibility for routine caseflow management to specially trained professional staff, supported by effective case automation, permitting judges to focus on tasks that require their unique training and expertise;
• A Pathway Approach to caseflow management that assigns cases at filing based on the expected amount of court involvement needed to resolve the case, but offers sufficient flexibility for reassignment as the needs of the case change over time; and
• A renewed focus on high-volume calendars that comprise the vast majority of contemporary civil caseloads, improved access for self-represented litigants, and greater attention to uncontested cases and greater scrutiny of claims to ensure procedural fairness for litigants.

“We need a legal process that can fairly and promptly resolve disputes for all Americans,” said Mary McQueen, president of the NCSC. “These recommendations, when implemented, will enhance public confidence in our system of civil justice.”

“The civil justice system is mired in misperceptions and inefficiencies,” said IAALS Executive Director and former Colorado Supreme Court Justice Rebecca Love Kourlis.

The full report is available online.  Both the NCSC and IAALS have committed to working with state courts to implement the recommendations.