June 2017

 

About the Legal Services Corporation:

The Legal Services Corporation (LSC) was established by Congress in 1974 to promote equal access to justice. LSC operates as an independent 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation and currently serves as the single largest funder of civil legal aid for low-income Americans. More than 93% of LSC’s total funding is currently distributed to 133 independent non-profit legal aid programs with more than 800 offices across America. LSC’s mission is to help provide high-quality civil legal aid to low-income people. To learn more about LSC, please visit: www.lsc.gov.

 

 

Project Team:

Lewis Creekmore

Ronké Hughes

Lynn Jennings

Sarah John

Janet LaBella

C. Arturo Manjarrez

Michelle Oh

Zoe Osterman

Marta Woldu

 

Report:

 

http://www.lsc.gov/sites/default/files/images/TheJusticeGap-FullReport.pdf

 

 

Alameda County Bar Association

 

 

 

 

Mix and mingle with members of the bench, bar and staff at our 2017 Summer Reception.

Bring your colleagues who have yet to join the ACBA - if they become members at the reception, you will all receive a complimentary drink on the ACBA!

 

This event is FREE for ACBA Members and a guest.

 

MEMBERSHIP RECRUITMENT SPECIAL: If you bring a guest who signs up to be a member of the ACBA, you both get a free drink! Please email katrielle@acbanet.org with the name of your guest.

 

We look forward to seeing you soon!

 

Cost: 

FREE for ACBA Members

$50 for Non-members

 

Sponsored by:

          

 

 

 

Summer Reception

Event Information
Provider:	Alameda County Bar Association
Location:	Bocanova 55 Webster Street Oakland, CA  94607
Phone:	510-444-1233
Date:	07/20/2017 05:30 PM - 07:30 PM

Event Registration

Available seats: 126           .

 

California Courts Newsroom

 

July 05, 2017

 

Merrill Balassone

(415) 865-7447

 

Millions of tickets are handed out each year for minor traffic infractions, and treating traffic offenses in the criminal arena can mean major fees, suspended driver’s licenses and even arrest if a driver fails to appear in court.

 

 A new proposal from Chief Justice Tani G. Cantil-Sakauye, based on the work of her Commission on the Future of California's Court System, seeks to do away with these oversized consequences by making minor traffic offenses–such as failing to signal before changing lanes–civil violations.

 

Ventura County Judge Mark S. Borrell, an advisory member on the Futures Commission’s Criminal/Traffic Working Group, answered questions about the proposal:

 

Q: What prompted the commission to address this issue?

 

A: The impetus behind the recommendation to treat minor traffic violations as civil violations–rather than criminal offenses–was threefold: improve access to justice by developing user-friendly court processes, such as online trials via videoconference; increase court efficiency; and create a system that doesn't disproportionately punish defendants.

 

The adjudication of minor traffic violations represents a major part of what criminal courts do and impacts a large and diverse group of Californians. These are violations such as running a stop sign or using a cell phone while driving. About 4 million tickets for these types of minor traffic violations are written each year, which represents about 75 percent of the criminal caseload of the courts.

 

Q: What are the negative consequences of treating traffic offenses as criminal charges?

 

A: One of the most significant consequences is the way we treat individuals who do not come to court when they are supposed to. In a criminal case, the defendant must come to court. Can you imagine someone charged with a more serious traffic offense, like a DUI, not coming to court? The judge would issue a warrant to have the person arrested and brought to court, and the person would have some explaining to do.

 

Because we treat minor traffic violations as criminal offenses, the mindset is the same: you have to come to court, or otherwise deal with your ticket by your court date. And if you don’t, there will be a serious consequence. Indeed, that ticket that gets signed at the roadside is a promise to do just that–to come to court. The law provides a number of ways a court can deal with someone who does not keep that promise. Courts can issue an arrest warrant, add a penalty of up to $300 onto the person’s case, or suspend the person’s driving privilege until they come to court.

 

Q: How would the commission’s proposal change the current process?

 

A: The burdens of the current process fall particularly hard on individuals with limited resources. In some cases, the fine for not coming to court on time could be more than the ticket itself. And the loss of a person’s drivers’ license can have significant repercussions on work, family and educational opportunities.

 

Viewing these minor violations as civil matters gives us a different mindset and fairer process. In civil cases, if defendants don't come to court, we don’t punish them. We just treat the case as unopposed and resolve the matter in the person’s absence. Treating minor traffic violations in this way disposes of the need for arrest warrants, additional fines and driver's license suspensions. And, just as in other civil cases, if a person misses court for a good reason, there will be a simple process to ask the court for a second chance. 

 

This is an example of the type of flexibility that a civil case model provides. But I want to emphasize that by moving minor traffic violations into civil courts, we don’t change the rules of the road—what is a violation now will remain a violation. Nor will it affect law enforcement’s ability to do their job. None of this will change the way that serious traffic offenses are handled, like driving under the influence.

 

Q: Do other states treat traffic infractions as a civil matter?

 

A: Yes, there are several. In the process of developing this concept, we focused our attention on four: Michigan, Minnesota, Rhode Island and Washington. We carefully looked at their procedures and had extensive discussions with judges from each state to identify the things they felt were the strengths and weaknesses of those procedures. This gave us the opportunity to construct a strong model for California.

 

This is also not a new concept in California. Over thirty years ago, a version of this concept was tried here as a pilot project. The difference is the earlier program relied on administrative hearing officers to resolve traffic tickets, and it was discontinued in 1985 amid concerns about the cost of creating and operating a new bureaucracy. We have used that experience to help us shape the current proposal.

 

Q: There is a much lower bar to prove a charge in civil court. How would this affect traffic cases?

 

A: The rules in civil cases are not the same as those required in criminal cases. By treating traffic tickets as civil matters, we can take advantage of that flexibility to create procedures which are more user-friendly and more efficient for the court.

 

One example of that is the way trials would be conducted. Criminal rules of evidence are complicated; lawyers spend a lot of time in law school learning them. And we felt it did not make any sense to apply those rules to traffic ticket trials, because very few people charged with a minor traffic violation have attorneys. So the idea was to use the flexibility of civil procedures to develop a set of rules of evidence that are intuitive and easy for most people to apply. But the recommendation retains the requirement that the ticketing officer come to court to prove the violation. 

 

The proposal also removes the classic criminal law burden of “proof beyond a reasonable doubt.” Instead, it adopts the burden of proof used in civil cases which is a “preponderance of the evidence.” Thus, a violation would be established if the evidence presented showed it was more likely than not to have occurred.

 

Q: The state Legislature has offered amnesty programs for overdue traffic fines. Why do we need to go further?

 

A: The amnesty programs were temporary solutions with a narrow focus. This proposal envisions a long-term change to how we, as a state and a judicial branch, view minor traffic violations. That change in perspective opens up a number of opportunities to develop procedures that will make it easier for Californians to resolve traffic tickets for minor violations and increased court efficiency.

 

Q: Many Californians don’t have the means or flexibility to appear in court to challenge traffic tickets. Would violators still need to show up in person?

 

A: This proposal will help the court leverage the power of various online resources. It is our vision that a person with a ticket for a minor traffic violation could track and resolve that ticket entirely online. This would include the option to elect to have a trial based solely on online submissions from the defendant and the officer, or perhaps even online video conferencing. This would be a tremendous resource for people who–because of work, family or transportation issues–can’t come to court. Part of the proposal would be to explore these resources and develop online self-help tools.

 

Q: What input have you gotten since you released the proposal for public comment?

 

A: The feedback has been overwhelmingly favorable. There has been constructive criticism and questions about how all this would work in practice. Those comments and suggestions will be studied as the process moves forward.

 

Q: What are the next steps?

 

A: The next step is to continue to refine the proposal. Obviously, a change this significant is not something the judicial branch can do on its own. This will require legislation. We, as a branch, are looking forward to working with legislators and the Governor to develop legislation that will best serve California.

 

Judge Mark S. Borrell is a Ventura County Superior Court judge and former chair of the Judicial Council Traffic Advisory Committee.

 

 

http://newsroom.courts.ca.gov/news/taking-minor-traffic-tickets-out-of-criminal-court

 

Berkeley Law 

University of California

 

6/30/2017 

 

"A unique collaboration between education advocates at Berkeley Law and local public defenders is providing hope—and stability—for vulnerable youth. Lawyers and students at the East Bay Community Law Center (EBCLC), working in its Education Advocacy Clinic and Youth Defender Clinic, are making a meaningful impact at the intersection of education and juvenile justice."

 

 

 https://www.law.berkeley.edu/article/innovative-partnership-brings-positive-change-bay-area-youth/

 

 

 

About the JDC Bike-A-Thon/Walk-A-Thon

The Details: What, When and Where

Saturday, July 15
Crissy Field, Warming Hut Cafe

Registration: 8:30 a.m.
Ride/Walk: 10:00 a.m.
Picnic: 12:00 p.m.

Questions? Contact bike@sfbar.org.

 

 

http://events.sfbar.org/bikeathon/#routes

 

 

How are Bike-A-Thon proceeds used?

 

The JDC Bike-A-Thon/Walk-A-Thon raises funds for the Justice & Diversity Center's pro bono legal services programs.

 

The Justice & Diversity Center is San Francisco's largest provider of pro bono legal services, providing representation valued at over $18 million each year with the help of staff and over 1,900 volunteers.

 

Take a look at JDC's impact report to learn more.

 

New York Times

 

Editorial Observer

 

By JESSE WEGMAN

July 3, 2017

 

 

Lyle Denniston has reported on the Supreme Court since 1958. Credit Al Drago for The New York Times

 

 

There have been 113 Supreme Court justices in American history. Lyle Denniston has reported on 31 of them — more than one in four. “My wife and I ran a calculation,” Mr. Denniston said the other day, speaking by phone from his home in Prince George’s County, Md., a 30-minute drive from the court.

 

 

That’s about as far as Mr. Denniston, who is generally uncomfortable in even a dim spotlight, will go in acknowledging the scope of his own achievement. He retired last week after covering the court for 58 years — the longest run, by far, in a beat known for lengthy tenures.

 

When he started, in 1958, the court’s momentous school-desegregation ruling in Brown v. Board of Education was only a few years old, and so was the current chief justice, John Roberts Jr. Roe v. Wade was 15 years away; Bush v. Gore nearly half a century. Correspondents sitting in the courtroom sent the morning’s opinions through pneumatic tubes to reporters downstairs in the press room. “That was a real challenge on a day when it was a fat opinion,” Mr. Denniston said.

 

With less than an hour to file after rulings came down, he composed his reports in his head and dictated them, in full, over the phone.

 

During his years on the beat, he has written for The Wall Street Journal, the now-defunct Washington Star, The Baltimore Sun and The Boston Globe. Since 2004, he has been the lead reporter for SCOTUSblog, where his clear, rigorous and scrupulously fair-minded posts on oral arguments and opinions quickly became required reading for devoted court watchers around the country.

“I never met anybody who worked harder,” Tom Goldstein, SCOTUSblog’s founder and publisher, said.

 

Mr. Denniston keeps a physical copy of every article he has ever written. Asked to put a number on it, he demurred. “I’ve been very prolific,” he said matter-of-factly; six decades of work eliminates any impulse toward exaggeration or false modesty. At this point, weight is the more relevant measure anyway.

 

When he left The Sun in 2001, he brought home six six-drawer file cabinets and 73 boxes of his clippings. The number of boxes has since doubled. He stored everything in the loft of a barn at the back of his property until his son Alan, an architect, warned him not to add any more.

 

“My basement is now in the same condition as my barn,” he said, “and my office looks about like my basement.”

 

At 86, Mr. Denniston exercises almost every day, a regimen he credits with delivering him through various physical setbacks: a life-threatening blood clot that developed in his leg after weeks of sitting in courtrooms covering the Pentagon Papers litigation in the early 1970s; a heart attack in 1996. But a difficult recovery from major spinal surgery last winter persuaded him and his wife, Pamela, that it was time to stop for good.

 

If the job of Supreme Court correspondent requires an immense amount of preparation, it also offers a predictable and mostly orderly process that Mr. Denniston says is crucial to doing the work well. When I started at The Times, I often found myself, by luck, seated next to him during oral arguments. From our cramped alcove on the side of the courtroom, we could see only a couple of justices, and it took a trained ear to know who was speaking. Early on, whenever I was lost in a complicated or arcane stretch of argument, I’d glance over his shoulder and try to make out the chicken scratches on his yellow legal pad. What was Lyle thinking?

 

In nearly six decades covering the court, he recalled only one time he was caught by surprise: the controversial 2008 decision in which the court ruled, 5-to-4, that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to bear arms. The majority opinion, by Justice Antonin Scalia, relied on a historical analysis that ran against decades of legal precedent.

 

“The outcome was so strongly yearned for by Justice Scalia that I think you have to read that history as in the service of a foreordained jurisprudential result,” Mr. Denniston said.

 

Court watchers of all political stripes have said the same about many cases over the years, but Mr. Denniston is highly wary of efforts to politicize the justices’ work. He refuses to follow the common journalistic practice of identifying them by the party of the president who nominated them. And to this day, he maintains that their votes in Bush v. Gore, which decided the outcome of the 2000 presidential election, were not cast for partisan purposes — a view he admits is in the minority.

 

“If you wish, mark me down as a criminally naïve person about that,” he said.

 

Perhaps, but it’s a naïveté steeped in a profound respect for the court and the importance of the role it needs to play in a politically polarized society. It’s also a mark of how much he values the trust of his readers, who are always at the front of his mind.

 

On the final day of the court’s term last week, Chief Justice Roberts interrupted the reading of the opinions to honor Mr. Denniston’s service. Recalling that unexpected moment, Mr. Denniston was clearly moved. Yet he remained sharply aware of the unbridgeable gulf between him and the institution to which he has devoted his life.

 

“We are strangers to the courthouse,” he said, referring to Justice Potter Stewart’s observation about the press. “I’m not a part of the furniture and I’m not a part of the family.”

 

https://nyti.ms/2uB6aKA

San Francisco Attorney Magazine

Spring 2017

 

Mairi McKeever

  

Mairi McKeever is the director/managing attorney of the Pro Bono Legal Services Program of the Justice & Diversity Center of The Bar Association of San Francisco. She can be reached at:  mmckeever@sfbar.org.

 

"Each year in California more than two hundred thousand petitions

for dissolution of marriage are filed. When the dissolutions have reached

the final judgment stage, more than 80 percent of the cases involve at

least one self-represented party." 

 

 

 http://www.sfbar.org/forms/sfam/q12017/q1-jdc-family-law.pdf

 

 

 

California Courts Newsroom

 

June 28, 2017

 

Blaine Corren

415-865-7740

 

 

Chief Justice Tani G. Cantil-Sakauye has appointed three new voting members and four new advisory (non-voting) members to the Judicial Council. She also reappointed an advisory member to a new one-year term.

 

“The council is responsible for ensuring our courts are fair and accessible to the public we serve,” said the Chief Justice. “Our court system faces many challenges, but our new members have the talent and experience to help us address them. While I’m excited to work with our new members, I also want to acknowledge the incredibly valuable service of our outgoing members and thank them for volunteering their time and energy for the benefit of the judicial branch.”

 

Following are the Chief Justice’s newest appointments, effective September 15:

• Presiding Judge C. Todd Bottke, Superior Court of Tehama County, will be appointed to a voting position through September 14, 2019, succeeding Judge Dean T. Stout. In addition to leading his court, Presiding Judge Bottke handles three felony calendars and supervises the Adult Felon Drug Court, Behavioral Health Court, and Family Law Settlement Conference calendars.
   
• Judge Harold W. Hopp, Superior Court of Riverside County, will be appointed to a voting position through September 14, 2020, succeeding Judge Brian John Back. Prior to his appointment to the bench in 2005, Judge Hopp was an associate practicing civil and business litigation. Judge Hopp has served on many council advisory committees, including the Civil Jury Instructions and the Civil and Small Claims advisory committees.
   
• Attorney Gretchen Maria Nelson will be appointed to a voting position through September 14, 2020. Ms. Nelson was selected by the State Bar Board of Trustees to succeed Ms. Donna D. Angelo Melby. Ms. Nelson is a trial lawyer practicing in the area of complex class action, derivative actions, intellectual property, and business matters.
   
• Presiding Judge Patricia M. Lucas, Superior Court of Santa Clara County, will be appointed to an advisory position through September 14, 2018, succeeding Presiding Judge Jeffrey B. Barton. Presiding Judge Lucas will also be appointed as the incoming chair to the council’s Trial Court Presiding Judges Advisory Committee.
   
• Judge Stuart M. Rice, Superior Court of Los Angeles County, will be appointed to an advisory position through September 14, 2018, succeeding Judge C. Todd Bottke, who has been elevated to a voting position on the council. Judge Rice was recently elected as the 86th president of the California Judges Association, serving a one-year term beginning October 8, 2017.
   
• Andrea K. Rohmann, Court of Appeal, Third Appellate District, will be appointed to an advisory position through September 14, 2020. Prior to serving as the clerk/administrator for the court, Ms. Rohmann was employed in the Executive Branch for 26 years, specializing in general government administration.
   
• Michael M. Roddy, Superior Court of San Diego County, will be appointed to an advisory position through September 14, 2020, succeeding Mr. Richard D. Feldstein. Mr. Roddy serves as court executive officer in San Diego and has more than 36 years of experience in court administration. He previously served as an advisory member of the Judicial Council (2006-2011).
   
• Presiding Judge Daniel J. Buckley, Superior Court of Los Angeles County, will be reappointed to an advisory position through September 14, 2018. Presiding Judge Buckley has more than 14 years of experience as a judge with assignments in criminal, civil, and probate cases.
   

According to the state Constitution, the Chief Justice chairs the Judicial Council and appoints one other Supreme Court justice, three justices from the courts of appeal, 10 trial court judges, two nonvoting court administrators, “and any other nonvoting members as determined by the voting membership of the council.” The State Bar’s governing body appoints four members, and the state Senate and Assembly each appoint one member.

 

Council members are volunteers and do not receive additional compensation for their service. Most members serve three-year terms, and each year about a third of the membership rotates off and a new group is sworn in.

 

http://newsroom.courts.ca.gov/news/chief-justice-appoints-new-members-to-judicial-council-6405189

 

Published May 18, 2017

 

This video takes a historical look at the country's largest court system and the foundation and purpose of the Judicial Council - policymaking body of the courts chaired by Chief Justice  Tani G. Cantil-Sakauye.

 

 

 https://youtu.be/joamjJVgEZQ