Judicial
Leadership and Independence
Building
a Problem-Solving Court
Approach: A Toolkit to Transfer Ideas into Practice•
Pam Casey
Contact: Stephanie Montgomery
During their
2004 annual meeting, the Chief Justices and State Court Administrators called
for a “toolkit” to help jurisdictions make greater use of the
problem-solving approach—either through the development of specialized court
dockets or the incorporation of specific problem-solving practices into
traditional court settings. The
Toolkit would help jurisdictions interested in using the problem-solving
approach but unsure about where to start and how best to use their limited
resources. It
would provide a blueprint for advancing the problem-solving approach and offer
examples of policies, procedures, and relevant forms that could be adapted to
local court needs. The
project responds to the call by the Nation’s court policy leaders for this
resource.
The project’s
deliverables include the Toolkit, the Web site,
summary
brochure, journal and
newsletter announcements, and presentations to judicial audiences. The
deliverables will encourage a greater use of the problem-solving approach by
helping courts implement the approach at the local jurisdictional level.
Helping
Courts Solve Key Problems (The Solutions Project) •
Pam Casey
Contact: Stephanie Montgomery
In
the current fiscal environment, resources for state courts are scarce.
Discovering new ways to address old and new problems more effectively and
efficiently is critical. This national component of the SJI Solutions
Project will mobilize courts around key issues of concern and facilitate
national collaboration among the court community to develop new solutions and
best practices to address key problems.
The
project includes three main components: (1) selection of five key
problem areas, based on court practitioners' views, and identification of
solutions and resources to address the problems within each area; (2)
provision of both short-term and intensive technical assistance to help courts
solve problems, and (3) development of an infrastructure to foster long-term
creative problem-solving among courts.
The
project will generate several resources to support implementation of
innovations and best practices nationwide: (1) a master list of the most
pressing problems facing state courts from the view of the courts themselves;
(2) a description of, and emerging synthesis of information on, potential
solutions in key areas; (3) technical assistance resources in each priority
problem area, both short-term and responsive to a broad range of courts and
intensive and longer-term with a limited number of "Partner Courts";
(4) a web site clearinghouse for project information in each problem area; (5)
a better understanding of promising practices for building court capacity for
problem solving; and (6) national communities of practice that provide
opportunities for court practitioners to participate in and learn from
improvement efforts of courts in other jurisdictions.
Implementing
the Call To Action of the Summit on Improving Judicial Selection* •
David
Rottman
Contact: Pam
Petrakis
The National Center for State Courts, in partnership with a
group of state chief justices and Professor Roy Schotland of the Georgetown
University Law Center, and in cooperation with other individuals and
organizations, proposes to take steps to implement the Call
To Action
issued by the participants in the recent Summit on Improving
Judicial Selection. Four steps
are proposed: (1) The Symposium
on Judicial Campaign Conduct and the First Amendment called for by the
Summit participants; (2) A Call To Action with Commentary designed to mobilize support and
action in pursuit of judicial selection reform by a broad audience of
judges, attorneys, and concerned citizens;
(3) To collect and distribute
information about efforts in the various states to implement the Call
To Action
so that reformers can learn from one another;
(4) To use the National
Center’s expertise and contacts to support implementation efforts in
coordination with other organizations.
Judicial
Leadership to Reduce the Incidence of Impaired Driving • Victor
E. Flango
Contact: Pam Petrakis
This
project was awarded to promote judicial leadership to reduce crashes involving
impaired drivers by increasing judicial awareness of the problem, creating a
curriculum focused on the role of courts in impaired driving, and developing a
distance learning program for judges. The
project increased judicial awareness of the impaired driving initiative
through presentations to the Conference of Chief Justices (CCJ), the
Conference of State Court Administrators (COSCA), the American Judges
Association (AJA), and the National Association for Court Management (NACM) to
encourage these associations to incorporate information on impaired driving
into their on-going educational programming.
The
entire curriculum, The Court’s Role in Impaired Driving, has been completed,
and reviewed by an Expert Panel chaired by Judge Gary Lumpkin of the Oklahoma
Court of Criminal Appeals and including representatives from all of the
Associations listed above. The
complete curriculum consists of four parts:
1.
The basic report on
the role of the courts, called the Leadership Guide.
2.
The Facilitators Guide
designed to enable faculty members and individual presenters to quickly and
easily develop individual presentations or full courses on impaired driving.
The Facilitator’s Guide contains lesson objectives, possible discussion
questions, self-administered quizzes, PowerPoint slides and other teaching
aids.
3.
The Resource Guide
containing supplementary reference materials.
4.
An on line distance
learning course to bring the curriculum to judges and court staff not able to
travel to educational programs.
As
an additional set of products to the project listed above, the Technology
Services Division of the NCSC has been contracted to do traffic functional
standards needed to improve the processing of traffic cases.
A
Program of Support for Judicial Branch Action to Preserve Judicial Independence: 2006/2007•
David
Rottman
Contact: Stephanie Montgomery
This
two-year project funded by the Open Society Institute builds on the Call To
Action issued by participants in
the 2000 Summit on Improving Judicial Selection and subsequent events and
activities undertaken by the National Center to promote strong and independent
state judiciaries. The focus is on
devising strategies and producing resources that help create a climate in
which the likelihood of attacks on judicial independence is reduced.
Specific objectives include promoting the use of judicial
campaign oversight committees, collaboration with the main court leadership
organizations, and highlighting effective state practices that promote
judicial independence.
A
Program of Support for Judicial Branch Involvement in Judicial Selection
Reform: 2004/2005* •
David
Rottman
Contact: Stephanie Montgomery
The
15-month long project continues a concerted effort to help key states and
localities prepare for the new realities of judicial elections and to take
significant strides to promote selection reform in the longer-term.
The project builds on the recommendations in the Call
To Action issued by participants in the National Summit on Improving
Judicial Selection (December 2000). The
project sponsors two national ad hoc advisory committees to (a) help states
revise their codes of judicial conduct to be consistent with recent federal
court decisions and effective restraints on non-judicious campaigning
and (b) establish non-governmental judicial campaign conduct committees to
monitor campaigns and educate candidates and voters about the appropriate
standards for judicial elections (including a Workshop on Establishing
Effective Judicial Campaign Conduct Committees, to be held in October 2005).
An educational component is being added to the project, developing
curriculum for use in meetings of judicial organizations and members of the
public. The project works with
other national organizations like the
ABA
, AJS,
and Justice at Stake, as well as with the state court leadership.
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Court
Organization and Management
California
Statewide Performance Measurement •
Brian Ostrom
Contact: Shannon
Roth
The
NCSC is collaborating with the Office of Court Research of the California
Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC) to pilot test the ten
CourTools measures in the California courts. The
interim goal of the project is to develop a strategy and methodology for
statewide implementation of the measures. The project includes a comprehensive
assessment of the current statewide data to assess for its accuracy and
utility as well as pilot tests of the ten CourTools measures. Ultimately, this
work, in conjunction with prior work with the California AOC on workload
assessment and resource allocation, will facilitate the AOC's ability to link
resource levels to outcome-based performance measures.
Court Statistics Project
(CSP)
• Richard
Schauffler
Contact: Brenda Otto
The
main goal of the Court
Statistics Project is to develop a statistically accurate and
policy-relevant profile of the work of the state courts.
Under the guidance of COSCA and support from BJS, the CSP directs
the only authoritative
national level court data collection program operating in all 50 states.
Simply stated, significant trends and differences in state court
workload cannot be understood without a base of valid data.
The two annual publications, State Court Caseload Statistics and
Examining the Work of State Courts, are the only tested national
reference sources for statistical information on the volume of cases in state
courts, the nature of judicial business, and historical trends in court
caseloads.
-
The project provides a
means for courts to view themselves in a comparative perspective.
Most importantly, the information is used.
Courts at both the trial and appellate level as well as judges and
state court administrators request and rely on the comparative, baseline
data on caseload volume, composition, trends, and jurisdiction provided by
the CSP. Continuing work to assist states to implement the data standards
in the State Court Guide to Statistical Reporting will enhance
comparisons with more consistent and meaningful data elements.
-
The CSP is investigating
how to integrate data from individual trial courts into its publications.
Focusing on the work of individual trial courts would allow the
publications to offer not only comparisons of caseload, but to extend the
analysis to caseflow and workload.
-
The CSP is seeking to
develop more Web-based channels for publishing court statistics, building
from our recently developed query tool that allows states to construct
their own comparisons using some basic data elements.
Evaluation
of the Programs and Services of the Virginia Alcohol Safety Action Program
(VASAP)* • Fred
Cheesman
Contact: Pam Petrakis
The
National Center for State Courts (NCSC) in collaboration with Court Works,
Inc. will evaluate the programs and services of the Virginia Alcohol Safety
Action Program (VASAP). VASAP was
established in 1975 to work with and support 24 local Alcohol Safety Action
Programs (ASAPS). There are
currently 24 VASAP District Offices around the State.
The goal of VASAP is to “improve transportation safety by decreasing
the incidence of driving under the influence of alcohol or other drugs and
thereby reducing the number of alcohol and other drug-related crashes”.
In order to accomplish this goal, VASAP has established the following
set of objectives:
-
Deter
the motoring public from driving under the influence.
-
Deter
those arrested and convicted of DUI from again driving under the
influence.
-
Increase
awareness to facilitate the identification, apprehension and conviction of
offenders driving under the influence of alcohol and other drugs.
-
Raise
the conviction rate for offenders and the number of appropriate referrals
to Alcohol Safety Action Programs.
-
Ensure
appropriate probationary control of offenders.
-
Ensure
the delivery of appropriate education or treatment services for offenders.
-
Provide
statewide offender tracking services for all ASAPs.
-
Increase
public awareness of the civil and legal consequences of DUI arrest; public
perception of transportation crash risks; and public activities to reduce
DUI incidents.
-
Assess
and maintain the effectiveness and self-supporting status of both the
commission and local Alcohol Safety Action Programs.
The study found that about half of
the people referred to VASAP recidivated and that the average time to
recidivism was 16.3. Recidivism among DUI offenders, however, was only 11%,
who committed another offense within 18 months after close of service.
State
Court Organization, 2004* •
David
Rottman
Contact: Stephanie Montgomery
The
State Court Organization (SCO) series is a unique resource reference,
used routinely by judges, court administrators, and other members of the court
community, as well as by federal and state policy-makers, criminologists,
researchers, journalists, members of the public, and others interested in our
state courts. There is no other authoritative, comprehensive source of
information about the organization of state courts. An up-to-date SCO
is essential for understanding the diverse ways in which state and federal
courts structure, organize, and administer their appellate and trial courts at
both the state and federal level. Topics covered include
sentencing, problem-solving courts, jury decision making, judicial discipline,
and use of technology in the courts.
Collaborative
efforts between the National Center for State Courts and the Bureau of Justice
Statistics (BJS) have produced four editions of State Court Organization:
1980, 1987, 1993, and 1998. The last revision was published in 2000 and
described features of the state courts in 1998. The value of this
resource is directly dependent upon its accuracy and responsiveness to
changing policy priorities which, in turn, depend upon its currency. For the
series to continue as the primary reference source in state court organization
and administration, an update is needed.
The fifth
edition will: (1) update key information describing state and federal
court systems to be current as of October 31, 2004; (2) expand coverage to
reflect current policy issues, such as re-entry courts and judicial campaign
conduct; (3) design the electronic version of SCO 2004 for inclusion in
"FedStats" and "MapStats," and; (4) propose a process for
periodically updating time sensitive information. In continued
collaboration with BJS, the NCSC has compiled State Court Organization,
2004, which is now available on the
BJS website by following this
link.
Understanding
Court Culture and Improving Court Performance: New Ideas and New Tools* •
Brian Ostrom
Contact:
Pam Petrakis
Criminal
courts are confronted with a daunting challenge. They are expected to achieve common goals -- fairness,
consistency, and timeliness -- while at the same time differing substantially
in terms of their local legal culture. Consequently,
even well designed reforms seldom produce improvement on an across-the-board
basis. A particular reform might
flourish in one culture, but wither in others.
Our objective is to understand more clearly the nature of court culture
and its consequences for both court performance and reform.
Ideas
developed in the field of organizational theory are used to probe the concept
of trial court culture. Growing
out of their analysis of measures of organizational effectiveness, Quinn et
al., have developed a conceptual framework (known as Competing Values) that
connects the underlying values of an organization to its vision of
effectiveness. Values are
measured along different dimensions and a rich set of organization cultural
archetypes is produced.
A
research strategy with four main tasks applies the framework to trial court
culture. Essential instruments to
measure the attitudes of judges, attorneys, and court managers are formulated
with input from approximately 64 selected participants. The cultures and
performance of eight trial courts will be examined to answer the following
question: Do courts in particular
categories of cultures develop distinctive processes and achieve distinctive
outcomes?
The
project was designed to achieve two basic ends.
First, it should advance understanding of how court culture and
performance are related. Second,
it should provide a useful set of tools that can be used by judges, attorneys,
and court managers to diagnose their culture, assess their performance, and
see how well their culture and performance fit together. Do they desire changes in performance? If so, what sorts of cultural shifts are appropriate?
The ability to answer these questions should enable courts to engage in
self-improvement much more effectively. In
addition, it will enable visionaries and national policy makers to design
initiatives more strategically.
Publications
based on this study include:
Court
Cultures and their Consequences, Court Manager, Volume 20, Issue 1
Examining
Court Culture, Caseload Highlights, Volume 11, Number 2
Weighted
Caseload Studies* •
Brian Ostrom
Contact:
Pam Petrakis
The
National Center conducted studies in three states to develop more accurate
measures for assessing and allocating caseloads and determining the level of
effort required to process those cases.
In Michigan, the weighted caseload system was adopted unanimously by
the bipartisan Trial Court Assessment Commission.
In Minnesota, the new set of case weights has been adopted by the
courts. The
Florida project is complete.
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Access
to Justice
Competitive
Procurement of the Spanish/English
Interpreter Certification Program •
Wanda
Romberger
Contact: Nikiesha
Cosby
The
National Center for State Courts (NCSC) is pleased to announce that in
January, 2000
it was awarded the contract to administer the Federal Court Interpreter
Certification Exam (FCICE) program on behalf of the Administrative Office of
the United States Courts. Services
to the Government (AOUSC) under the contract will also be provided by NCSC’s
collaborating partners CPS Human Resource Services of California (CPS) and
Second Language Testing, Inc., N. Bethesda, MD (SLTI).
The contract is renewable annually for up to five-years.
The contract includes the development of written and oral performance
tests as well as test administration services and other related functions. NCSC will develop the FCICE oral exam and SLTI will develop
the written exam. CPS will be
responsible for all services related to test administration, including
registration, fee collection, information, and score reporting, in addition to
field administration of the exam.
The
National Center for State Courts has been engaged in a wide variety of
research and programs since the early 1990s to increase the quality and
availability of language interpreting services in the nation’s courts.
Among these efforts is the development of a highly-successful,
multi-state court interpreters certification exam program, the Consortium for
State Court Interpreter Certification. For
more information about NCSC see: www.ncsconline.org.
CPS
also administers the California Court Interpreter Certification Exam program
under contract to the California Administrative Office of the Courts, as well
as several other language-related certification or proficiency examinations.
For more information about CPS see: www.cps.ca.gov.
SLTI
is a unique company that specializes in language proficiency tests in a wide
range of languages. Its President, Charles W. Stansfield, Ph.D. is formerly
the Director of Foreign Language Education and Testing Division, Center for
Applied Linguistics, WA. D.C. and Associate Director, Language Programs,
Educational Testing Service, Princeton, N.J. For more information about SLTI,
see: www.2lti.com.
With
the award of this contract, the nation’s three major documented testing
programs for court interpreters are united within a single conceptual
framework tied closely to the NCSC. (The
three programs are the federal court testing program, the California state
testing program, and the Consortium for State Court Interpreter Certification
that represents 25 states in addition to California.)
Court Interpreter Technical
Assistance • Wanda
Romberger
Contact: Nikiesha
Cosby
Technical
assistance is provided to individual courts and states to help them plan the
best ways and means to initiate court interpreter improvement programs.
Assistance is tailored to the needs of individual courts and states.
It may focus on overall planning, or on some or all of the following:
adoption of court rules related to interpreting, especially rules governing
professional conduct for interpreters; planning and implementing training
programs for interpreters; providing education to judges, lawyers or court
staff on interpreter issues; or managing interpreter recruitment, assignment
and payment activities.
Each year a substantial amount of free assistance is provided.
Developing
a Model Written Policy Governing Electronic Access to Court Records* •
Martha Steketee
Contact: Pam Petrakis
The issues of privacy and ensuring
public access to court records have placed courts between several public
interests: increase the speed and ease of public access to court records,
protect the privacy and confidentiality of materials in court records, protect
individual and public safety, and make effective use of court resources.
State, regional, and national conversations have been taking place over
the past several years. Educational
and informational work products of this project and other resource materials
can be found at the public access
project Web site.
State
Court Interpreter Certification Consortium •
Wanda
Romberger
Contact:
Agape Kokovidis-Zagaris
The
Consortium for State Court Interpreter Certification addresses resource
shortages that impede efforts by state courts to define and implement standards
for interpreting proficiency. Without those standards, equal access to justice
by linguistic minorities remains an unfulfilled obligation of the American
system of justice.
Millions
of non-English-speaking American citizens and residents are being denied equal
access to justice because they are unable to comprehend and fully participate
in state court proceedings. Numerous state commissions, research studies and
media investigations have concluded that the plight of non-English speakers in
the state courts is compelling and requires immediate attention. "Improve
interpreter services" has been a central recurring theme in published
studies of commissions and task forces across the country charged with
evaluating the extent of racial and ethnic bias in our courts.
The
Consortium is a program administered by the National
Center
for State Courts in Williamsburg,
Virginia
on behalf of the state courts systems in the United States. It was created in 1995 as a way to develop court interpreter
proficiency tests, make them available to member states, and regulate the use
of the tests. It is a mechanism through which funds from several sources
can be combined under a single administrative umbrella to achieve economies of
scale across jurisdictional and organizational boundaries. There are
currently 34 member states representing about two-thirds of the nation’s
non-English speaking population.
State
Interpreter Contracts •
Wanda
Romberger
Contact: Wanda
Romberger
States
who become new members of the Consortium for State Court Interpreter
Certification usually contract with the National Center for State Courts to
help them establish their testing program in the first year.
It is the NCSC’s responsibility under these contracts to ensure that
the Consortium standards for test administration are met.
The work involves helping plan for pretest training, and test
administration, including maintenance of test instrument security.
At this time, most of the member states have contracted with NCSC to
help them with their testing program, and some states renew their contracts
every year.
A
Strategic Plan for the Future of Self-Represented Litigation: A Proposal for a
Pro Se Summit*
•
Paula Hannaford-Agor
Contact: Brenda
Otto
The courts and
the broader legal community have experienced a sea change in their attitudes
concerning access to justice for self-represented litigants.
Many of the successful initiatives began at the local level with little
attention, direction, or support from state or national leadership.
The extent of creative local response is truly impressive in many ways.
Yet progress in this area has been uneven within states, and across
states, due to lack of information about successful initiatives and lack of
educational materials and substantive resources.
A greater degree of centralized planning, support, and coordination
will be necessary to ensure continued progress toward improved access for
self-represented litigants. This
project for a National Pro Se Summit was intended to provide a forum in which
long-term planning can take place.
Invitations to
attend the two-day Summit, which took place on
March 24-25, 2005
in Chicago,
IL, were offered to approximately 40 key individual and institutional
stakeholders in the access to justice field.
The Summit
agenda was developed based on stakeholder surveys about priorities, reviews of
state efforts since the National Conference on Pro Se Litigation (1999), and
working papers on selected topics prepared by individuals with particular
expertise. The
Summit
also highlighted the work-in-progress of two additional projects: the think
piece on an institutionalized support system for pro se innovation (submitted
by Richard Zorza) and documentation of the current self-help efforts and their
known impact on improving access to justice (submitted by JMI/Greacen
Associates). The primary objective
of the Summit
was to identify policy areas in need of further development or coordination at
the national level and to lay the groundwork for a more institutionally
sustainable form for continued development and dissemination of these ideas.
Following the Summit, a report of the proceedings was published and distributed to attendees and
posted at http://www.selfhelpsupport.org
and other relevant websites. Supplemental
articles highlighting the Summit
report and recommendations will be submitted for publication to a wide variety
of court and bar periodicals.
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Public
Trust and Confidence
Examining
Voir Dire in California* •
Paula Hannaford-Agor
Contact Brenda
Otto
Voir
dire, the process of selecting a jury from a pool of qualified citizens, is,
perhaps, the least studied aspect of jury trials. In this comprehensive
project under a contract from the California Administrative Office of the
Courts, NCSC Research staff extracted panel information for nearly 7800 jury
trials in 15 California counties to examine panel size, numbers of jurors
excused for hardship, for cause, and by peremptory challenge in felony,
misdemeanor, and civil trials. NCSC staff are also supplementing these
data with direct observations of felony voir dire in approximately 20 trials in
8 jurisdictions to gain perspective about judicial variation in approaches to
voir dire procedure and decision-making regarding challenges for
cause.
This
project also includes two unrelated components: a literature review of
jury size and unanimity, and a study of the financial impact of an employer tax
credit for salaries/wages paid for employees on jury duty.
Implementing
the National Action Plan to Improve Public Trust and Confidence* •
Pam Casey
Contact Pam
Petrakis
The National Action Plan (NAP) was crafted following the National
Conference on Public Trust and Confidence in the Justice System as a guide
for state and national organizations interested in building public trust and
confidence in the courts. The
NAP calls for a structure and process to promote on-going dialogue,
facilitate the sharing of information on activities and best practices,
coordinate the actions of state and national organizations, and support
court improvement. Conference
participants recognized that the enthusiasm and energy created at the
Conference would eventually weaken without an organized structure to support
communications between individuals, groups, and organizations engaged in
public trust and confidence efforts.
The continuation project focuses on the completion of the
PT&C
Electronic Information Network, activating the interactive database of
information on various activities taking place to improve public trust and
confidence, facilitating communications among the two consortia through
listservs and chat rooms, identifying promising practices for improving
public trust and confidence, and evaluating the NAP implementation
process. All project information will be fully accessible through
the PT&C Electronic Information Network.
Check out the new Web site dedicated to the
Implementation of
the National Action Plan (click on title).
Take a look at the programs going on in the different states and
notify us of anything new happening in your area.
The
NCSC Sentencing Attitudes Survey*•
David
Rottman
Contact: Stephanie Montgomery
The
National Center for State Courts (NCSC) Sentencing Attitudes Survey, a 2006
national poll of 1,502 randomly selected adults, was designed to provide
specific, unbiased information about what people think and why. The new survey
thoroughly examines the American public's views toward sentencing and related
issues in an objective manner. The new survey was preceded by a review of past
survey data. This review revealed that, similar to controversial issues like
immigration, abortion, and capital punishment, sentencing is a topic on which
public opinion cannot be properly characterized by simply relying on the
general measures so commonly used. More specific lines of questioning were
developed to dig deeper, clarify previous findings and identify the competing
values and concerns underlying sentencing attitudes. Princeton Survey Research
Associates International conducted the survey, funded by a grant from the JEHT
Foundation to the NCSC. The executive
summary and final
report are available online.
Public
Opinion California* •
David
Rottman
Contact: Stephanie Montgomery
The
survey interviewed over 2,400 randomly selected California adults and over 500
practicing attorneys regarding their (a) knowledge about the courts and the
sources of that knowledge, (b) perceived and experienced barriers to court
access, (c) experiences as jurors, litigants, attorneys, or consumers of court
information, (d) expectations for what the courts should be doing, and (3)
sense of the accessibility, fairness, and efficiency of the courts.
The report Trust and Confidence in the
California
Courts, 2005: A Survey of the
Public and Attorneys
and a companion volume, Executive
Summary of the Methodology with Survey Instruments, can be downloaded at http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/reference/4_37pubtrust.htm.
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Juvenile
and Family Justice
Blended
Sentencing: On Target for Juvenile Justice and Public Safety? A
Multi-State Investigation • Fred Cheesman
Contact: Pam Petrakis
The
purpose of the research is to investigate different models of blended
sentencing to determine whether certain models serve public safety and
individualized justice for juvenile offenders better than others.
Three objectives will be accomplished using data from two states
practicing different types of blended sentencing: (1) to determine how often
juvenile courts are imposing blended sentences, to identify the factors that
influence the frequency of blended sentences, and to analyze the relationship
between the rates of blended sentencing and adult waiver, (2) to determine
whether the three processing alternatives (standard juvenile processing,
blended sentencing, and adult waiver) effectively target their intended
offender populations, and (3) to compare the types of sentences given to
juveniles selected for different processing alternatives.
The
majority of juveniles now reside in states where blended sentencing is
practiced yet empirical information on this relatively recent juvenile
sentencing innovation is sorely lacking. Information
produced by this project will help improve the practice of blended sentencing
in states where it already exists and provide guidance to others considering
its adoption in the future. We
directly confront some of the most contentious issues surrounding the use of
blended sentencing with empirical data using appropriate statistical
techniques, complemented by expert opinion.
A
contextual analysis will examine the legislative intent, history, and
implementation of blended sentencing and provide a detailed model of the
operation of blended sentencing in each state.
Random samples of 600 cases (200 each of conventionally processed
juveniles, blended sentences, and transfers) processed during 1999-2000 were
gathered. Where possible,
automated data were collected, supplemented by manual collection.
Aggregate data on the incidence of blended
sentencing, factors influencing its incidence, and the relationship between
blended sentencing and transfer rates will be examined.
Case-level
analysis for each state will proceed in two related stages:
(1) analysis of factors influencing prosecutors’ decisions to motion
or direct file for a blended sentence or transfer and (2) analysis of the
factors influencing the selection of processing alternatives (conventional
juvenile, blended sentencing, or transfer).
Sentencing data will be compared among the processing alternatives.
Evaluation
of the Protection from Abuse Database Project •
Brenda
Uekert
Contact: Pam Petrakis
NCSC
is conducting an evaluation of Pennsylvania's Protection from Abuse
Database (PFAD). The 18-month project, funded by the Pennsylvania
Commission on Crime and Delinquency (PCCD), addresses the following
issues: (1) PFAD usage; (2) user satisfaction and victim safety; and
(3) data transmission and system integration. A local advisory board
guides the project.
For a copy of the final report, click here.
Extending
Project Passport* •
Denise
Dancy
Contact: Brenda
Otto
This
project will build upon the earlier success of Project Passport to improve
recognition and enforcement of orders of protection within and between
states/tribes by encouraging states to adopt a recognizable cover sheet for
orders of protection (i.e. to include common elements). This project
originated with the Kentucky Domestic Violence Association (KDVA), which
developed a recognizable cover sheet with agreed upon common elements and is
used in
Kentucky
and six of its
border states
.
The
proposed project will use the KDVA model to convene two different regional
groups (approximately 16 to 18 states and U.S. territories, as well as
contiguous tribal regions are expected to participate in the Western and
Midwestern meetings) to create consensus on common data elements to be included
in a regionally-accepted recognizable cover sheet.
These efforts will strengthen the safety net for battered women and their
children by offering greater consistency in the issuance and enforcement of
orders of protection. Furthermore,
this effort will also serve to educate state teams about the intricacies
associated with Federal laws that pertain to orders of protection.
A
major component of this project is also the promotion and use of XML technology
to improve the comparability of data entered in protection order registries
across states. NCSC will
accomplish this in several ways:
-
An
educational overview of XML, related applications, and the Global Justice
XML Data Model and Data Dictionary will be presented – specifically as it
relates to domestic violence and protection orders.
-
An
XML-based protection order form (using the
Kentucky
cover sheet as the basis) will be
developed and demonstrated.
-
A
dialogue with front-line personnel, in regard to paper and electronic
information sharing, will be facilitated through the regional meetings.
This
collaborative effort builds upon the Regional Meetings on Full Faith and Credit
convened by the National
Center
for State Courts in partnership with the National
Center
on Full Faith and Credit (NCFFC), a project of the Pennsylvania Coalition
Against Domestic Violence (PCADV) and the National Criminal Justice Association
(NCJA). Our partners for Extending Project Passport once again include the
PCADV and NCJA, as well as the Kentucky Domestic Violence Association (KDVA),
the National Sheriff’s Association (NSA), and the Conference of Chief Justices
(CCJ) and the Conference of State Court Administrators (COSCA).
Improving
Court Performance in Child Abuse and Neglect Proceedings •
Victor E.
Flango
Contact: Pam Petrakis
This
project will help courts improve their performance and achieve better outcomes
for children in abuse and neglect cases. To achieve this goal, three of
the nation's leading court reform organizations - the American Bar Association,
the National Center for State Courts, and the National Council of Juvenile and
Family Court Judges will help courts improve their performance by addressing the
two most critical and challenging areas of court reform: (1) Court
Performance Measurement - by increasing court accountability through enhanced
performance measurement; and, (2) Judicial Workload - by assessing judicial
workloads to ensure that judges have enough time to make timely, thorough, and
well-considered decisions for children and families. The three
organizations will provide targeted technical assistance and will publish and
disseminate information designed to help courts do initial and ongoing
performance and workload assessments. To do this, our organizations will
help six (6) project courts: (1) Use performance measures - compatible
with AFCARS and CFSR measures - to measure their performance in abuse and
neglect cases; (2) Examine judicial workloads to determine whether judges are
able to spend enough time on abuse and neglect cases to make timely and
well-considered decisions by disseminating, explaining and giving technical
assistance in judicial workload assessment; (3) Develop a court-specific
strategic plan designed to achieve increased accountability and better
performance. This project will help enable these courts - and eventually
all courts handling abuse and neglect cases - to begin a process of continuing
self improvement and help agencies determine the impact of court
proceedings on the achievement of CFSR outcomes.
Judicial
Training Grant •
Brenda
Uekert
Contact: Pam Petrakis
In
2003, the Office for Victims of Crime within the U.S. Department of Justice
awarded a Cooperative Agreement to conduct a four-year national Project
entitled “Judicial Education.” Project
co-sponsors include Justice Solutions, Inc., the
National
Center
for
State Courts and the American Probation and Parole Association, with support
from the American Judges Association, National Association for Court
Management, and the National Association of State Judicial Educators.
The
Project also includes an outstanding 22-member cross-disciplinary Advisory
Board representing the judiciary, law enforcement, prosecution, victim
assistance professionals and crime victims, court administration, probation,
judicial educators and allied justice agencies.
The
goal of the Judicial Education Project (JEP) is to provide judges and court
personnel with initial and continuing education about the laws concerning
victims’ rights, the impact of crime on victims and their families, and how
the judiciary can comply with victims’ rights laws without infringing on
defendants’ rights. Three
specific objectives will help reach this goal:
1. Develop
and pilot-test a curriculum on victimization issues to train judges and court
personnel, including probation officers.
2. Evaluate
and institutionalize the training, conduct six additional training programs,
and develop a victims’ rights benchbook for judges.
3. Compile
a compendium of promising practices by courts and probation agencies that
promote victims’ rights and services.
Second
National Symposium on Children, Courts and the Federal Child Support
Enforcement Program*
•
Wanda
Romberger
Contact: Nikiesha
Cosby
The
Symposium will include information related to and provide direction for the
exploration of health care coverage that is available to both the custodial
and the noncustodial parent; the possibility that parents be required to
disclose information about available health care coverage; and whether
publicly funded coverage is available when private insurance is available but
not accessible due to geographic limitations.
To this end, the Symposium will bring together State IV-D Directors,
State CSE System Managers, and State Medicaid or SCHIP directors, members of
the Conference of Chief Justices, the Conference of State Court
Administrators, trial court judges and trial court administrators.
Strengthening
Abuse and Neglect Courts Act* •
Victor E.
Flango
Contact Pam Petrakis
The
purpose of this project is to help courts use automated information systems to
improve their performance in child abuse and neglect cases and ultimately to
help achieve better outcomes for abused and neglected children.
Specifically, the project will help and federal government successfully
implement the Strengthening Abuse and Neglect Courts Act (SANCA).
The
project will assist six sites selected by the federal government pursuant to
SANCA, including helping them to improve their automated implement performance
measurement, develop case tracking, and perform other related functions
specifically for child abuse and neglect (dependency) litigation. It will
provide this assistance through (a) conducting a meeting of all SANCA sites, (b)
providing on-site training and technical assistance, and (c) providing off-site
consultation.
The
project also will produce, adapt, and disseminate materials, arising from the
on-site work. The materials will help the nation's courts handling
dependency litigation make similar advances with their automated information
systems.
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Criminal
Justice
Assessing
Consistency and Fairness in Sentencing: A Comparative Study in Three
States •
Brian Ostrom
Contact
Pam Petrakis
Consistency
and fairness refer to efforts directed toward reducing disparity and
discrimination, making sentences proportionate with the seriousness of the
offense, and increasing certainty and predictability. The three states
taking part in the study - California, Michigan, and Minnesota - are
representative of three distinct approaches to managing judicial
discretion. Systematic differences in the basic sentencing structures used
in these states offer an important control for this study and increase the
applicability of the results for a national audience. The purposes of this
project are to: develop a comprehensive conceptual and methodological
strategy for assessing consistency in sentencing outcomes; develop a data
collection protocol to model sentencing decisions such that there are no
spurious effects attributed (or not) to potentially discriminatory factors;
assemble a comprehensive database from offenders sentenced in 2001 and 2002;
analyze the multiplicity of plausible interactions that may amplify/attenuate
the effects of discriminatory factors; estimate the fiscal impact of any
detected discrimination on prison expenditures; and develop presentation tools
to illustrate the extent of proportionality and discrimination on sentencing and
the estimated budgetary impact on corrections from any observed lack of
consistency in sentencing.
Blended Sentencing: On Target for Juvenile Justice and Public
Safety? •
Fred Cheesman
Contact Pam Petrakis
This
project will investigate different models of blended sentencing to determine
whether certain models serve public safety and individualized justice for
juvenile offenders better than others. Three objectives will be
accomplished using data from two states practicing different types of blended
sentencing: (1) to determine how often juvenile courts are imposing
blended sentences and to analyze the relationship between the rates of blended
sentencing and adult waiver; (2) to determine whether the three processing
alternatives (standard juvenile processing, blended sentencing, and adult
waiver) effectively target their intended offender populations; and (3) to
compare the types of sentences given to juveniles selected for different
processing alternatives.
Judicial Decision-Making in Mental Health Courts (MHC) • Nicole Waters
Contact Ilonka Dazevedo
This project aims to meet two key objectives: 1) To improve the effectiveness of judicial decision-making in Mental Health Courts (MHCs) through an evaluation of the administrative and operations principles at work in MHCs; and 2) To improve the synergistic relationship between mental health agencies and MHCs. This project will explore how mental health evaluations are used, when such information enters the court, and how it is evaluated and assessed in the context of MHCs. NCSC will prepare a report that, through a series of descriptive case studies, will synthesize dominant operations and theories about how that information is processed. The final deliverable will report how judges supervise and judge mental health treatment and recommend what educational needs exist for MHCs.
A Tale of Two Laws
Revisited: Investigating the Impact of Prisoner Litigation Reform Act and
the Anti-terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act •
Fred Cheesman
Contact Pam Petrakis
The U.S. Congress enacted
major legislation in 1996 to affect the volume and nature of prisoner
litigation in the federal courts, a rare and sweeping attempt at reform.
The subjects of the legislation are the two principal types of
prisoner litigation: (1)
challenges by state prisoners to the validity of their state trial court
convictions and sentences (habeas corpus petitions) and (2) challenges by
state prisoners to the conditions of their confinement in state prisons
and local jails (Section 1983 lawsuits).
The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA)
was intended to limit the number of habeas corpus petitions filed, while
the Prisoner Litigation Reform Act of 1996 (PLRA) aimed to reduce the
number of state prisoner lawsuits. Congress,
state legislatures, Federal and State Judges, state correctional
officials, state attorney generals, prisoner advocates all have stakes in
the outcomes of these two Acts.
The specific objectives of
the research project are threefold:
-
Determine
whether national trends in the number of habeas corpus petitions and
Section 1983 Lawsuits have changed since implementation of the AEDPA and
the PLRA.
-
Investigate
whether the consequences of the PLRA and the AEDPA vary by Federal Circuit
Court.
-
Identify
factors that explain any differential effects of the AEDPA and the PLRA
among Federal Circuit and District Courts.
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Civil Justice
2001
Civil Justice Survey of State Courts, Supplemental Study of Civil Appeals •
Paula Hannaford-Agor
Contact Brenda
Otto
Compared to the two earlier studies,
the 2001 Civil Justice Survey of State Courts featured an expanded
scope of inquiry, one of whose objectives was to be able to examine the level of
post-verdict and post-judgment activity in civil trials, including whether
either party filed a notice of appeal. A related objective was to provide
a methodological framework on which to examine the appellate dispositions of
trials included in the Civil Justice Survey of State Courts. The
resulting dataset would be the first time that researchers and policy makers
would be able to examine appellate characteristics and dispositions for civil
trials, but also to compare the characteristics of appeals cases to those of
cases that were not appealed, thus providing a fuller and more holistic context
in which to consider contemporary issues and problems in civil litigation.
With
the completion of data collection for the 2001 Civil Justice Survey of State
Courts, the
National
Center
for State Courts
(NCSC) will conduct a supplemental
study of civil appeals that builds on the trial court dataset.
To accomplish this objective, the NCSC will employ methods similar to
those that have proved successful in the previous three Civil Justice Surveys
of State Courts. The
supplemental appellate study will follow the progress of the 1,301 civil trials
in which a notice of appeal was filed in the trial court through its ultimate
disposition at the appellate level. The
project will also develop appellate court profiles for the 36 state intermediate
appeal courts (IACs) and 22 state courts of last resort that have jurisdiction
over these cases. The NCSC will
manage the data collection and documentation efforts with the continued
commitment toward completeness and accuracy that has been the hallmark of the
NCSC’s work on the three previous Civil Justice Survey of State Courts.
The findings from the appellate study will be published as a BJS Special
Report. The findings will be
further publicized through NCSC publications such as the Examining the Work
of State Courts and Caseload Highlights, and in articles in
court-related periodicals and scholarly journals.
2005
Civil Justice Survey of State Courts • Nicole
L. Waters
Contact
Ilonka
Dazevedo
A fourth
iteration of the Civil Justice Survey of State Courts, funded by the Bureau of
Justice Statistics (BJS), studies civil litigation in 2005.
The NCSC will collect information about general civil (tort, contract,
and real property) trials adjudicated by judges and juries in 2005 and record a
count of all other dispositions during the same time period.
This round will
expand the sample, for the first time, to be representative of all counties nationwide, yet retain the original 46 counties
(representing the 75 most populous) to enable a comparison with previous rounds.
The purpose of the survey is to
accurately record current trends in civil litigation and inform current civil
justice concerns such as the state of medical malpractice litigation, declining
trends in jury trial rates, and record pre-trial activity such as court-annexed
alternative dispute resolution.
The
Effects of the Daubert Trilogy in Delaware* •
Nicole
L. Waters
Contact:
Pam Petrakis
This
pilot-project investigated the feasibility of collecting valuable court data
to better understand the impact of the 1993 U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Daubert
on state courts. Daubert,
and the subsequent decisions completing the trilogy, Joiner and Kumho,
have impacted the role of judges as the "gatekeeper" of expert
witness testimony. The decisions
have also impacted court staff by altering case processing, and affected the
parties in a dispute by changing the criteria for excluding or including
proffered testimony.
Delaware,
one of nine states adopting Daubert standards, has agreed to
participate in this study. Lessons
learned in
Delaware
will provide the NCSC with an exciting opportunity to expand the knowledge
about Daubert through future work in other jurisdictions, both federal
and state. As part of this
project, NCSC staff reviewed information from case files and assessed the
reliability of electronic searches to identify, on a larger scale, any cases
affected by Daubert. Through interviews
with judges and attorneys, NCSC were better able to understand the impact, in
practice, of this landmark trilogy.
This
project was possible through funding from the Third Sector of New England,
Inc. (TSNE) on behalf of the Project on Scientific Knowledge and Public Policy
(SKAPP).
See
additional information on Science, Technology and the Law.
What Do We Know About Jury Verdicts? Evaluating Data Sources That Influrence Civil Litigation • Nicole
L. Waters
Contact Ilonka
Dazevedo
Do commercial jury verdict reporter data present an accurate picture of civil litigation? How do those data compare to a comprehensive jury trial database drawn from court records? In this project, the NCSC will compare data on all general civil (tort, contract, and real property) trials held in 2005 within 160 court jurisdictions with all comercially published jury verdict reporters for these jurisdictions. This project, funded by the ABA Section of Litigation Research Fund has created a rich opportunity to compare these data sets and inform litigation policy of the potential implications that will result when policy makers, laywers, and judges rely on verdict reporter sources to understand civil litigation.
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Last updated
05/19/08
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