Race and Ethnic Fairness
State:
Committee/Report
Name: The Commission on the Courts
was established
Number of Members: There were 34 members on the Commission on the Courts. 175 people served on four task forces.
Number of
Subcommittees: The
Commission established four task forces: Court Organization and Administration;
Court Productivity; Dispute Resolution; and Children and Families in the
Courts.
Chair/Co-Chairs: Each task force was chaired by a
commission member; six Commission members served as members of each task force.
In order to draw upon the expertise of a full range of citizens, each task
force added as members anywhere from 31 to 57 others.
Methods Used: Public meetings, task force work group sessions.
Topics and Recommendations
Access
Recommendations
1. The judicial department should make a deliberate effort to expand the availability of the services of the district court to include times more convenient for the public.
2. Chief judge should consider extending hours and days of operation to evenings, weekends, and holidays.
3. An automated filing system for the courts would allow litigants access to the complete court system by filing in one court. This would result in better utilization of the courts and access to court services, particularly to persons involved in legal matters outside their county or city of residence.
Courtroom Experience
Recommendations
1. There should be specific provisions in the rules of professional conduct to address the problems of performing more legal work than is reasonably required or assigning more legal staff to a problem than is warranted under the circumstances (over-lawyering).
2. The rules of professional conduct should be revised to define and emphasize lawyers’ ethical obligations to society to donate legal services.
3. Changes should be made in the legal and judicial system to enhance the quality of service to children and families.
Legal Profession
Recruitment/Acceptance
to
Recommendations
1. Law schools should encourage aspiring lawyers to develop realistic, ethical approaches to practice-related problems.
2.
An aspirational creed
of professionalism should be distributed to all
Education
Recommendations
1. The Supreme Court should require and provide training on juvenile and family matters for judicial officers in juvenile court.
2. Training on domestic violence should be available for the judiciary, bar, prosecutors, public defenders, court personnel, and law enforcement agencies. Such training should be mandatory for those persons or agencies having contact with domestic violence cases.
Recommendations
1. Impose on all lawyers a meaningful continuing legal education program.
2. Expand lawyer certification to litigation specialty areas not now covered.
3. Implement a pilot review program that includes district and appellate judges rating lawyers.
4. Require that all new attorneys successfully complete a course on professionalism as a condition of practicing law and that to retain their license to practice, all attorneys attend a course on ethics and professionalism at least every three years.
5. Informal peer review meetings could be convened by the Chief Justice with attorneys throughout the state.
6.
To expedite and otherwise enhance the lawyer
discipline process in
Recommendations
1. Courts should develop public education programs to improve accessibility, increase the judicial system’s responsiveness, and create a well-informed community.
2. The education programs and materials should provide information on court organization and procedures, key actors in the judicial system and their responsibilities, and the rights of individuals.
3. The education programs should address juvenile as well as adult matters.
4. The Education Services Division of the Administrative Office of the courts should serve as a clearinghouse for public education materials and assist courts in the development of materials.
Civil and Family
Findings
1. There is increasing dissatisfaction with litigation as the principal means available to resolve disputes.
Recommendations
1. The district court should establish innovative alternative dispute resolution programs.
2. District court judges should have the authority to refer civil cases to any one of a variety of Alternative Dispute Resolution methods.
3. The effectiveness of court-annexed arbitration should be enhanced.
4. Require attorneys to accept appointments as arbitrators, except for good cause shown.
5. Increase arbitrator compensation
6. Establish disincentives to appeal
7. Relaxing the rules of evidence. Non-expert witnesses should be able to file sworn written statements of their testimony upon due notice to the opposing party which could be rebutted by the opposing party. This change would enhance the cost effectiveness or arbitration in civil cases.
8. Repeal the statute excluding employer-employee disputes from private arbitration
9. Training in arbitration techniques and theory should be provided to and required of all arbitrators.
10. Medical Malpractice cases should be processed like any other civil suit and made subject to alternative dispute resolution procedures.
11. The legislature should enact appropriate legislation and the Supreme Court should promulgate rules to establish confidentiality for communications made during a mediation.
12. There should be a qualified immunity for mediators employed by a court-annexed dispute resolution program or by any governmental entity.
13. A state office of public dispute resolution should be established that will provide assistance in the resolution of disputes, using mediation or other means of alternative dispute resolution, between government agencies, public agencies, private citizens, or in private disputes that may have a substantial public impact.
14. Discovery in civil cases should be controlled and managed by the court from the outset.
Recommendations
1. Expedited procedures should be established for domestic relation cases. These disputes should be resolved through mediation wherever possible.
2. A more concerted, cohesive, and concentrated effort to protect the victims of domestic violence is needed.
3. The extent of jurisdictional power of the courts should be determined with respect to ordering mediation or referring order-of-protection applicants to conciliation court.
4. There should be coordination and communication among courts regarding issuance of orders of protection to prevent conflicting orders.
5. The courts should access the central registry maintained by law enforcement on domestic violence orders of protection to record and track domestic violence history, the issuance of orders of protection, and the enforcement of such orders.
6. State law and court policies and procedures need to be examined and, where appropriate, changed to ensure that children from violent families have access to basic services.
7.
Criminal Justice
Recommendations
1. The crime of interfering with a witness to prevent testimony should be fully prosecuted.
Recommendations
1. Courts should be given the discretion to excuse prospective witnesses from the courtroom until they have testified, after which the witness would be permitted to remain in the courtroom unless the court finds that is or her presence would be clearly prejudicial to a fair trial.
2. Victims and witnesses should be given more protection and control over the conduct of pretrial interviews and depositions and the right to obtain protective orders and sanctions to protect against abuse.
3. Victims should have the right to have a supportive person of their choice present in the court with them unless such person is a witness, and neither the victim nor the supporting person should be excluded from any proceeding except as provided by rule 9.2.
Judicial Selection and
Discipline
Findings
1.
The current qualifications for
2. Municipalities vary greatly as to requirements for city court judgeships. While most urban cities require judges to be lawyers, others have little or no requirement for even a minimum level of education or experience.
3. There are a number of other judicial officers who serve with compensation at various levels, including judges pro tempore (temporary judges), commissioners, juvenile division referees, traffic hearing officers, justices of the peace pro tempore, and civil traffic hearing officers. These judicial officers generally are appointed without limitation on term and are not subject to public selection or election.
4. Most judges under the political system were and are initially selected by gubernatorial appointment to fill a vacancy. Such appointments lack a non-partisan merit review and may be wholly political.
5. Limitations on judicial campaigns, partisan judicial election campaigns are of almost no use to the voting public in assessing the important qualities of candidates seeking election to the bench.
6. Few members of the voting public have sufficient information about judicial candidates to make informed choices.
7. Many qualified persons are reluctant to become candidates for the bench when it means engaging in partisan political activity.
8. The election of judges creates the appearance of impropriety by requiring judicial candidates to raise campaign funds from lawyers and others who appear before them.
Recommendations
1.
Qualifications for the various levels of
judgeship in
a.
Supreme Court Justices should be at least 35
years of age in addition to the existing requirements of good moral character,
state residency and licensed to practice law in
b.
Court of Appeals Judges should be at least 35
years of age and admitted to practice law in
c.
General Jurisdiction Judges should be at least
35 years of age and of good moral character, a resident of
d.
Intermediate Jurisdiction Judges should be at
least 30 years of age and of good moral character, a resident of the district
he or she serves, and admitted to practice law in
e. Limited Jurisdiction Judges should be at least 25 years of age and of good moral character, a resident of the district he or she serves, a high school diploma or its equivalent, and at least 2 years of college education or equivalent training or experience as determined by the Judicial Council.
2. In addition to these requirements, special training should be given at least yearly to the limited jurisdiction non-lawyer judges to assist them in fulfilling their judicial responsibilities.
3. All judges should attend a course on attorney and judicial professionalism at least once every three years.
4. All current Superior Court Judges, Commissioners, Justices of the Peace, and City or Town Magistrates should be “Grandfathered” as members of the district court in accordance with policies, standards, and procedures adopted by the judicial council. Thereafter, all such judicial officers should be subject to the evaluation and retention election process described elsewhere in this report.
5. The Supreme Court should create a commission on judicial performance evaluation.
6. The Commission on Judicial Conduct should enhance the professionalism of its performance, increase its visibility in the community and extend its staff services to the Supreme Court’s Judicial Ethics Advisory Committee.
7. There should be a merit selection system for all judges. A merit selection commission should be established in each district to nominate candidates to fill all judgeships within the district. The commission should provide three names for each judicial vacancy to the Governor for selection.
8. The Clerk of the Superior Court should not be an elective position. The responsibilities of the current position of Clerk of the Court should be carried out under the direction of the Court Executive.
9. The responsibilities of the Constable should be assumed by the Sheriff’s Office, Court staff, Private Process Servers, or a combination thereof.
10. A pool of law clerks should be made available for district court judges who need legal support services.
Juvenile Justice
Recommendations
1. A youthful offender’s correctional system should be created to deliver treatment and rehabilitation service to offenders who have been specifically identified as suitable for such services and who have a chance for successful treatment and rehabilitation in such a system prior to their 21st birthday.
2. Any juvenile offender who has been transferred to, and convicted in, the adult system should be eligible for designation by the court as a youthful offender at the time of sentencing.
3. The court should be able to reinstate the original sentence if treatment is unsuccessful.
4. If treatment is successful, the court should be able to designate the original conviction as an adjudication of delinquency.
5. Judges should be appointed to sit in juvenile court based upon their interest and ability; they should serve for a substantial period of time.
6. The Supreme Court is encouraged to work with the State Bar to establish a juvenile law specialty.
7. The juvenile court dependency process should be changed to improve the timeliness and effectiveness of decision and to reduce the need for direct judicial involvement.
8. Child welfare system should be expanded.
9. The Supreme Court should encourage the State Bar to provide a funding mechanism for processing guardianship actions for low-income families.
10. Victim advocacy services should be available for juvenile court matters.
11. The Supreme Court should encourage the executive branch to develop a comprehensive state plan for community-based and institutional treatment resources for juveniles.
12. The juvenile justice system should emphasize early crime prevention and intervention programs for at-risk youths and those already in trouble with the law.
13. A broad range of secure and non-secure treatment resources should be made available to the court, Department of Corrections and the community.
National Center for
State Courts
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Williamsburg, VA 23185
Phone (800)616-6109 Fax (757)564-2022
Questions or Comments - email research@ncsc.dni.us
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