Metropolitan News-Enterprise
Tuesday, Jan. 18, 2000
Page 1



Judges Vote to Unify; Expanded Trial Court to Emerge Saturday

Superior Court Judges Approve Merger
On 153-75 Vote


By ROBERT GREENE, Staff Writer

Los Angeles Superior Court judges have voted overwhelmingly to absorb the county's 24 municipal courts and in the process will create the largest trial court in the nation, with 563 judicial officers and an annual caseload of nearly 3 million.

Unification will take effect Saturday as Chief Justice Ronald George administers Superior Court oaths to nearly 200 municipal court judges at a ceremony at the Biltmore Hotel in downtown Los Angeles.

In month-long balloting concluded Friday, current Superior Court judges assured unification with a 153-75 vote in favor. It was a sharp reversal for the court, which had rejected the move twice in the last 18 months.

"The third time was a charm, no doubt about that," Chief Justice Ronald George said of the vote. "It was a tribute to the leadership of both levels of the court that they could work through their problems."

Municipal court judges overwhelmingly approved unification, as they had twice before. The vote to unify was 77-7 in the Los Angeles Municipal Court and 88-9 in the 23 outlying municipal courts, officials said.

"We worked very hard for this," an elated Los Angeles Superior Court Presiding Judge Victor Chavez said Friday. "This was the first time that we had an informed vote. That's why I called for it."

Many details of merging the courts have yet to be worked out.

The vote becomes official only when the state Judicial Council certifies it--a move George said would take place early this week.

Following the mass swearing-in at the Biltmore Bowl--an event observers speculated would be the largest-ever judicial enrobement in history--the unified court will turn to implementation of a governance plan adopted by the judges in December. That agreement calls for a new Executive Committee, with members to be elected by geographic district. Chavez is to remain presiding judge, and James Bascue assistant presiding judge, through the end of the year.

Elections for the new committee would take place "pretty soon," Chavez said.

Court officials, not speaking for attribution, said a meeting was planned for today in which new assignments would be unveiled for the unified court's top management team.

One of the top items on the unified court's agenda will be eliminating duplication, such as the two separate filing windows at the Central Courthouse where the Superior Court and the soon-to-be-defunct Los Angeles Municipal Court both have their headquarters.

Chavez said it was not expected that any court workers would lose their jobs because of unification.

For judges, Chavez said, early changes in assignments were unlikely, although he said he would like to assign former municipal court judges with expertise in particular areas to courts in which their talents could be best utilized. The court especially needs judges for family law and juvenile cases, he said.

"We have a desperate need for competent, able judges in many specialty areas," the presiding judge said, "and we will encourage judges to make careers in those areas. I already said to the [governor's] appointments secretary that we don't necessarily need more generalists. We need family law judges and juvenile court judges. And we would also like some geographic consideration, so that no one has to drive two hours to get to court."

Courts in most of the state's counties have already merged under Proposition 220, an initiative also known as Senate Constitutional Amendment 4 that allows unification each county's judges to merge their courts. Unification takes place if a majority of the superior court judges, and a separate majority of the municipal court judges, approve the move.

While municipal court judges here strongly backed unification, and the higher pay, benefits and status it will bring them, Los Angeles Superior Court judges voted against unification in August 1998 and rejected it by an even greater margin in June 1999.

They cited legal issues such as the impact of federal voting rights laws, although their municipal court counterparts often asserted that the Superior Court judges just didn't want to lose their seniority or their pick of courthouse assignments.

A report prepared last year by a Superior Court panel under the leadership of Judge Gary Klausner focused on concerns that eliminating municipal court districts in areas of high concentrations of minority voters could spark a lawsuit under the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Such a suit could in turn lead to a settlement under which the county is re-divided, for purposes of voting for judges, potentially erasing any of the efficiencies that gave rise to unification in the first place.

Chavez said one key to paving the way for approval of unification was an assurance from Attorney General Bill Lockyer--who as a legislator authored Proposition 220--that he would not seek to re-divide the court. Another key was an assurance from Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund lawyers that they had no intention of bringing a Voting Rights Act lawsuit.

The tide turned, slowly, as a first a Superior Court panel, then a joint committee that included municipal court jurists, examined the issues. The Superior Court judges signaled their willingness to look again at the issue in December, when by a strong majority they--and the municipal court judges--approved the governance agreement for the united court. Chavez called for the third unification vote as soon as the governance plan was approved.

But not everyone is satisfied that the Voting Rights Act concerns were addressed. Veteran voting rights attorney Joaquin Avila of Milpitas said he has alerted U.S. Justice Department officials to his view that elimination of municipal court voting districts in Latino areas violates Sec. 2 of the act.

"I think it's pretty much open as to whether they would get involved," Avila said of the Justice Department. "They did get involved in the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors"--a reference to a 1990 case in which a federal judge invalidated a supervisorial election and ordered the county to draw new district lines.

Still, the unification vote was hailed by court leaders and trial lawyers. Los Angeles County Bar Association President Patricia Schnegg, a partner at the firm of Knapp, Grossman & Marsh, said lawyers would come to appreciate the efficiencies created by unification, but that in the short run they probably won't notice much difference.

"I suspect it's going to be business as usual for at least a short period of time," Schnegg said. "Obviously it's going to be a readjustment, and it's not going to be without some pain to both judges and practitioners. All of a sudden the Superior Court is doubled, not only in the number of judges but in the number of physical properties, and it will be a gargantuan job to master."

But Schnegg added that unification could bring some long-sought benefits for lawyers, such as specialty courts in complex litigation and other fields, and more uniform courtroom rules.

The association hopes to work cooperatively with the court in implementing unification, Schnegg said. A task force that examined governance issues in the Superior Court is in the process of being reconstituted, she said, and will look at issues faced by the new, expanded court.

"I view this as an incredible opportunity for the court system," Schnegg said. "I think it's a very exciting time and I think we should all seize the opportunity to create one of the best courts in the United States. We certainly have the talent to do so."

Judge Ray Hart, whose tenure as Los Angeles Municipal Court Presiding Judge will last a mere three weeks due to the vote, said he saw the move as the culmination of years of work by unification supporters.

"This is very, very gratifying," Hart said. "This is something I've been working on for many years, now, from the time I sat on Superior Court cases to my work with the Municipal Court Judges Association. I've always expected this to happen."

Los Angeles Municipal Court Judge Mel Red Recana, a former presiding judge of his court and former MCJA president, said credit was especially due to Chavez for not taking a stand on the issue at the beginning.

"Had he taken a stand it would have been very divisive, and people on the other side would not have listened," Recana said. "But he listened to all the voices in the Superior Court. That to me is masterful leadership. I don't want that to be lost."

Rio Hondo Municipal Court Judge Frank Gately, the new chairman of the Municipal Courts Presiding Judges Association, said his organization would soon be "dead, gone and buried."

"There's no need for it now and I'm very pleased about that," he said. "There is regret, but it is regret of nostalgia only. We're just delighted that this has happened."

Unification will have a direct impact on the March 7 elections, in which 24 candidates are running for eight municipal court seats in the Alhambra, Antelope, Beverly Hills, Downey, Inglewood and Los Angeles judicial districts. The names will appear only on ballots in those former municipal court districts, but the victors will never serve on those courts. They will instead be sworn in next January as judges of the Los Angeles Superior Court.

Meanwhile, many municipal court judges who mounted successful, but expensive, countywide campaigns over the last several years for the Superior Court will be joined now by former colleagues who get elevated without having to run. But Los Angeles Superior Court Judge John Harris, who as a municipal court judge ran for elevation in 1998, said he had no regrets.

"With the advantage of hindsight it would have been nice to have avoided spending $150,000 on the election," Harris said. "But there had been talk of unification for the last 10 years and I didn't want to wait."

Harris added that he was "thrilled and excited" at the strong showing of support for unification.

Opinions differed on whether the pre-unified Los Angeles Superior Court should already be considered the largest trial court of its kind in the nation, or whether that distinction went instead to the Cook County courts in Chicago, Ill., which take in a greater variety of cases. But unification, which will create a court of 428 judges and 135 commissioners, now clearly makes the Superior Court the largest trial court of general jurisdiction in the U.S.

The swearing-in of new Superior Court judges takes place at 2 p.m. Saturday at the Biltmore Hotel, 506 S. Grand Ave., Los Angeles.

Elevation does not occur without the oath, but judges who miss the ceremony may be sworn in at any time by court administrators, a court official said. Elevation is automatic for commissioners, the official said.

 
 




Copyright Metropolitan News Company, 2000