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Sonoma County from a chosen spot of all the earth as far as nature is concerned, according to the famed plant wizard Luther Burbank Diverse County, with 1,010,000 acres of land on 1574 miles of scenic roadways, Cinema County is rightfully famed for its agriculture did a culture,

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industry and recreation as well as for the amazingly successful ethnic and economic mixture of its more than 340,000 residents on for the forward looking philosophy of its local governing bodies. Now we invite you to take a closer look at Sonoma County in the eighties with your

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host rich McGlinchy. How you doing, Everybody. Welcome to another edition of Sonoma County in the eighties. On this program, we will be talking about the Superior Court in Sonoma County. Gonna talk to two gentlemen on the left of your screen is Judge Arnold Rosenfield. He's the

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presiding judge of the Superior Court this year, and on the right of your screen and Scott stadia and he Superior Court administrators got number one with before. No, I havent Richard pleasure to be here, and I need the same here. You have your leader. That's true,

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headwaiter your presiding judge. You, the, uh, the Superior Court is a kind of a puzzle toe. A lot of people, you know. I mean, they know that there's the court. They know you're the judge. They don't know the difference between this backcourt Superior court. Is there

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a quick definition of the difference between the municipal court? And it's a pretty record. It's basically in the kinds of cases that are heard in the respect of course. Municipal Court hears the less serious crimes, the misdemeanors, and they hear the civil cases with monetary value

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of less than $25,000. All the other cases are heard in the Superior Court. People are pretty busy over there. I'd say we are very busy. Uh, Judge really feel how many judges are there, honest for your court bench here now, And how are they assigned? Well,

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we have nine sitting judges and we have a We also have what's known as a commissioner in the Superior Court, and the judges all have different assignments. Basically, we're all eight of us or trial departments and do general trial work, whether that civil or criminal, depending

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on what cases are before the court any given time, and each one of us carries what's known as could be called an adjunct or a separate calendar one day a week. And those calendars include I do the Juvenile calendar one day a week. The commissioner who

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is Jean Buckley, does that juvenile calendar the other four days of the week. But we have a probate calendar. We have a We have three judges doing various aspects of the criminal calendar work those air things other than trials that go on in the criminal area.

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We have a what's known as a civil law in motion judge. We have mental health judge that has to handle the mental health cases. So we all each of it, each of us carries a separate calendar so that one day a week and the other four

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days a week, we're trial department, right? What are your responsibilities as the presiding judge of spirit? Well, my my responsibilities include, uh, making sure that the calendar ring gets done. Uh, the, uh, cases are signed to judges and that we keep the judges busy and doing

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the cases that are before the court. I have administrative responsibilities to make sure that all the administrative functions in our relationship to the state and the Judicial Council are taken care of. And I have to make sure that, uh, in conjunction with Scott, that things are

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running smoothly. And if the problems come up with various aspects of the court, we have to try and iron them out in dealing with the various agencies that interface with the court and various people interface with the court. Well, God, um, how does the court administrator

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fit into the administrative structure off Superior Court? Well, my primary responsibilities court administrators to work closely with the presiding judge and to provide administrative support to all the Superior Court judges in the management of court operations. Among my various responsibilities are preparing the courts budget, monitoring

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expenditures, managing the courts, nonjudicial staff serving as the courts representative to other county departments, state agencies monitoring legislation implementing new pieces of legislation. I also have a couple other hats that I wear is well. I'm also the county's jury commissioner, so I'm responsible for overseeing the

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qualification and summoning of prospective jurors, making sure that jury panels provided to the trial department so they can start jury selection. And I also get involved with coordinating the nomination and selection of perspective grand jurors. Okay, I know you did that. You do that too? Yes.

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Yes, I have. All right, let's go back to you for just a moment. What kind of cases? Where you talked about the difference a little bit in Munich court spirit. What type of cases are actually heard by the security court? Well, the for the most part.

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Where are a lot of our times occupy worth hearing what are known as felony criminal cases. Those are the most serious crimes that are charged by law enforcement in the district attorney. Those cases come to court, and either they are disposed of by the defendant entering

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a plea of guilty or they go to trial and the jury decides whether the defendant is guilty or not guilty. That takes up a great deal of time. Since we have on any given week, we confront anywhere from, uh, I'd say a minimum of 6 to

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8 to a maximum of 25 criminal cases that are before the court on any given Monday morning. We also hear all the various kinds of civil cases that air that the courts are involved in. Whether that be because you had a modern automobile accident or somebody

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is contesting the will of someone who died in your family, it runs the gamut. So we see, we see a lot of different cases with medical malpractice cases where someone is claiming their doctor has done something below the standard of care. We we hear those kinds

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of cases we here proper real property cases where you have a dispute over property, anything, anything that has a value of more than $25,000. In addition, the other things one other thing we do is any kind of injunction if you want. If somebody wants to get

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an injunction against somebody else or some business wants to get an injunction against another business, those are the kinds of you know, Those case has come to the Superior Court and we have to hear them. Uh, Scotty, a while back we had sheriff that Michaelson on.

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They were talking about the increase in the only criminal activity, but his civil division, I guess you call it hero. Um, as the population continues to grow into maturity, and it certainly is doing so. Is there a corresponding increase in criminal and civil case modes with

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court? Well, what we have seen over the last five years is that the civil caseload has remained relatively consistent with the increase in the population somewhere in the neighborhood of 12 to 15% increase over the last five years. What is most dramatic, however, is the increase

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in the criminal case load. Over the past five years, there's been a 38% increase in the number of criminal cases filed this felonies, and we're certainly seeing that the trial calendars are growing larger. More of our courts are tying trying criminal cases, so we're certainly seeing

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a major increase in in the felony cases. Corollary of that rich is that it's not only the population growth, it's that the law enforcement agencies throughout the county have employed more and more police officers who are making more and more arrests, and those cases end up

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in the courts. So it's it's a combination of growing population but also a growing law enforcement population, uh, as the presiding judge, whether you indicated that part of the responsibility is the master file calendar, and it's actually assigning cases for trial. Why don't you describe a

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typical Monday during the calling of this so called master calendar? Well, I guess it's it can be hectic. Uh, what normally happens is that at 8 30 in the morning, I take the bench and the district attorney, Mr Tani, is present and representative of the public

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defender's office, and all the attorneys who are representing criminal defendants are present. And we have, ah, a list of cases with priorities because defendants who are in custody have to get to trial, have priority over those defendants who are not in custody. So we we assign

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cases to a given department as they are available, and I have to know who's available on what day because some judges air free in the middle of the week because they've got cases that have continued on from the previous week. So I have to know when

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they're available. Then I try and match up the cases with the judges on assigned them a given time. If there are any courts available at nine o'clock, I call the civil calendar, and so then I have to assign civil cases out to judges if there is

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space available so any on any given Monday morning. The calendar, as I said, ranges from a low of maybe 15 to 20 to a high of about 40 45 cases. That's includes criminal and civil. And so that's and then after that, I hear the continuance motions.

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Attorneys want continuances. They have to bring that before meat is for me to decide. And I think if you survey the attorneys in the county to find I've been very reluctant and very stingy about granting, continue, continue. Uh, you know, I'm sure we've all heard these

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stories about taking from 4 to 5 years to get a civil case to trial or to be assigned to trial. I guess you'd say, Is that the situation Storm account? I think I think probably Scotty, both can answer this for you. So let's Scott go first.

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Little I'll fill in. Well, the 4 to 5 year time period might be the case in some of your larger counties like Los Angeles or Orange County's um in Sonoma County. Right now, it takes approximately 2.5 years from the time the case is originally filed The

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complaint is originally filed with the court to the time it is a signed out for trial. But one thing you have to keep in mind and that is less than 5% of all civil cases that were filed ever go to trial. So the 30 month period

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the 2.5 year period would be for those cases that are more complex, more complicated. And there reasons why it would take 2.5 years for the case to go to trial. But we're about half the rate of many of your larger counties. I think also what people

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need to understand is that, uh, the attorneys pretty much determined when a case is ready for trial. The filing of the complaint doesn't tell the court that the case is ready for trial. They have to theater knees, have to file what's known as an at issue

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memorandum, which tells the court that they're ready for trial and they can delay that as long as they want Teoh individually. And once we get that at issue memorandum we've been averaging, I'd say anywhere from 12 to 16 months from the time that the attorney says

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it's ready for trial to the time it actually gets to trial. And so a part of the delay process that has gone on a lot eyes not only the clogging the courts, but attorneys can take their time about getting cases to trial. In some case, some

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attorneys do. Some don't. Well, let me ask you this. Is there anything being done either at the local or the state level? Teoh. Reduce some delays in this process. As a matter of fact, yes. In 1986 the governor signed the Trial Delay Reduction Act, which establishes

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time standards for the processing of both civil and criminal cases. Now, these Times standards will be mandatory for every county in the state, beginning in July of 1991. And just to give you an example of what the time standards will require is that every 90% of

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all civil cases will have to be disposed of within one year of the filing of the complaint and 100% of all civil cases to be disposed of within two years of the filing of the complaint. Former too. All right. One other question. Before we take a

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break here. You indicated that. You know what? Jonny hopes to have that reduction program in place by night. You mentioned earlier 1989. Now, how, then? We're case procedure. This is okay. We're hopeful of having our own delay reduction program in place by January of 1989 under

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these tight time standards. So, upon the filing of a complaint the pleading that initiates the lawsuit the attorneys will have less than seven months, 200 days to be precise to file the at issue memorandum that Judge Rosenfield referred to earlier indicating that both sides are ready

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to set the case for trial. And then, upon the filing of the At Issue Memorandum trial, a trial date will be set approximately 4 to 5 months down the road. So it is our goal to dispose of these cases within one year of filing it. Uh,

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it's going. It's going to take a large effort on our part to try and adhere to that. And that's true of every court in the state. As part of this, the Legislature is granted more judges to other counties. We didn't get him or judges, but the

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there is a perceived need for more judges to try and meet this goal. All right, We're gonna pause right here. And let's station bring the audience. A public service announcement after which we will return, were talked to Judge Arnold Rosenfield and Scott Potato. More about our

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of seizures can help keep kids like Evans on the team. Get the facts right. Epilepsy Foundation of America, Washington, D. C. To double 013 Welcome back to this tradition of Sonoma County in the eighties were talking about the Superior Court in Sonoma County and we were

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talking to Judge Arnold Rosenfield on the left your screen and Scott Rosado on the right. Your screen and gentlemen, when we left a moment ago, we were We're talking about one year period and one year from the filing. The lawsuit to try in the case seems

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to be pretty ambitious. We talked about not having really enough judges because our population is kind of getting out. Will we be able to try all the cases have to be tried? Well, I think that I think Richard remains to be seen, whether we're going to

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be able to do it or not. I think it is an ambitious goal for any county to make a statement that we intend to try 90% of all civil cases in a year. We are going to try to do it. The key is to have open

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courtroom so that we can try cases if they need to be tried, and we're gonna do our best to do that. We're going toe explore the possibilities of assigning to perhaps to judges just to handling these kinds of cases. I thought being that it's a, it's

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just important for just as important for people who have suffered injury or have problems that need to be addressed rapidly in the civil area, get a courtroom and get a hearing. Justice is important. Is having a civil Excuse me, a criminal case heard because criminal defendant

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has rights? I think every every citizen has right to access to the court as speedily as possible. Good. Here's possible, right? You know, it looks kind of like the state is finally provide a little financial relief to the county store funding the court operations. Scott, that

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should be in your Bella care. Can you explain for us the trial court funding bill? I think it's currently awaiting the major. That is correct. There is a trial court funding bill that's sitting on the governor's desk right now, which will provide over $200 million statewide.

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Two counties to support trial court operations and the way the money would be provided to the county's is based on a block grant in the amount of $212,000 per judicial position which would be provided to the counties to supplement county general fund dollars. Teoh support trial

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court operations and we have to make a decision in this county by january 15th of next year whether or not we will be participating in the trial court funding program. Well, let me ask you this. How would Sonoma County or how does it on the county

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fair under this truck trial court funding bill, Sonoma County fairs well under the trial court funding program, since there's only gonna be six months worth of funding available this first fiscal year, 1988 89 Sonoma County stands to gain approximately $1.9 million from the state to supplement

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county general fund dollars. And assuming trial court funds are available in subsequent fiscal years, Sonoma County will realize anywhere from 3.8 to $4 million annually from the state for trial court operations. You might take this opportunity to plug the fact that in order for the state

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to be able to have an or for the county to be able to benefit from this state funding, which is in the form of tax relief for the county's or is for the population of Sonoma County, to vote for a lifting of the proper for a

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again spending limits, which where Pat was passed by the county a while back and other for the county be able to take that money and spend it. There has to be agreement by the voters that the county can do that. And so that's coming up on

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the ballot in November. Okay, uh, I understand that this legislation we're talking about requires that the residing judge of Superior Municipal Court and the border supervises to sign a resolution that they'll participate in that in the trial court funding. Now, has that resolution been signed in

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Sonoma County on, uh, has a final decision been made where the county will opt for the trial court? Funny. When will that happen? Hasn't happened. When will that happen? It hasn't happened. Is yet. We are in the process of discussing the matter with the chairman of

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the Board of Supervisors and the county administrator, uh, Mr Shaw Flynn on, uh, both Bob Dale, the presiding judge in musical court myself on, uh, the administer. Various administrators have been talking about it, and we are moving towards that goal. The reason that that this is

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required for everybody's information is is that to make sure that the money that is allotted for trial court funding goes to the trial courts and there are some counties that wouldn't be, uh, in the mood to allow all the money to go to the courts were

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supposed to go on. So this is to make sure that the courts are aware of where every every dollar is going. And the board supervisors is also aware that the that the money is to go to trial courts. It's a very important bill that way on

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that, that's a very important allocation of state funds. If it comes to parents, we can sure use it. I know in our county, uh, this question was put people for both of you and whichever order you'd like to jump in the Superior Court also generally overseas

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that the selection in the activities of the grand jury. Now what assistance does the Superior Court actually provide the grand jury? Well, I'll briefly, Then I'll bravely answer, then, talking about talking, let Scott talk about it for a moment. Uh, briefly. The support we offer is

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advice in how to go about whatever projects the grand jury wants to get involved. They choose their own projects. They choose mostly the way they're going to go about it. They discussed the way they're going to go about it with us to make sure that everything's

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on everything is on the up and up. And then if they have questions, we are available to answer them, and that's that's the kind of backup assistance that give Scott you have. Scott's office also provides back up in other areas. That's true. The Court Administrators office

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provides support to the grand jury and the typing of reports and correspondence. But we also get involved with the nomination and selection of prospective grand jurors. We coordinate that that procedure as well, because the grand jury and others 19 persons are actually selected. I think they're

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usually about 30 that are nominated by the court judges for the For those of you in the audience who don't know what the grand jury is all about, there is. There are a number of people throughout the community who are selected as members of the grand

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jury. They're private citizens who get involved in the process of investigating and studying county government operations and making a report to the Board of Supervisors into the courts. As to the their findings in their examination of how governmental operations air going. It's legally, it's illegally created,

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statutorily created body that each county has. And Sonoma County has one. Definitely. And I said, You gentlemen, selective 19 persons with them alternates. I don't believe you select. I think now they carry over four from the year before that. I think that's true. We carry over

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Elite a maximum of four. How does one apply for membership? Gradually, it's a note we last year was the first year we went to an open call for grand jurors, and there will. There will be notices sent out in the to the newspapers soliciting potential grand

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jurors from the county, and they will be asked to file an application and then the there be a screening process on the applications and the number of people will be invited in to be interviewed by judges individually, and we'll make the selection process after that. Richard.

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As a matter of fact, we are accepting applications at this very moment and will be accepting applications for grand jury membership through October 7. So it is our hope that, uh, we will receive a sufficient number of applications, and we certainly did last year to then

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proceed then through the interview phase and ultimately, the random draw for the 19 grand jurors. And if anybody's interested, they can either right to Scott that the courthouse over call this office one of the little known programs that's appear record deals with Is the service provided

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by the Family Mediation Services. What's the role of that office cut? Okay, wait. The judge, OK, The family Family Mediation Services is a group of people who we have chosen to do mediation services in the in the domestic law courts. Uh, the Legislature a number of

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years ago directed the counties to set up mediation services to deal with custody disputes. When two people get a divorce and they are fighting over the custody of their Children or the visitation arrangements, uh, the referral is made to the Family mediation services, where they have

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an appointment. They sit down with the people, and they no one makes it. The mediators don't make a decision. They try to facilitate. They tryto make the people sit down and take a look at the problem and reach an agreement between themselves as to how they're

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going to deal with their kids. And, uh, the people we have in our county. My cleanse directs the program, and Herb Larson and Carla McDermott are two people he works with. Do an excellent, excellent job of meeting with these folks, getting them to sit down and

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reach agreement to the point. Where are the amount of litigation courtroom time spent on custody matters is very, very minimal In this county, most of the people settle their disputes before it gets into a custody dispute. So those cases, like Kramer vs Kramer. The movie we

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don't see too many of those in Scott may have some some numbers for you if you want. Justice is already now just do allowed right a little bit on that. You know, we measure the success of the program by the number of cases that ultimately require

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a court hearing, and our most recent statistics from last year showed that over 1600 people were referred to the mediation counselors. And out of those 1600 referrals, only eight cases eventually required a court hearing. So they've been very, very successful in resolving these disputes. Short of

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any sort of court hearing, we're down to about a moment. Any final thoughts for Superior Court. Well, I I think that people and I have never done this before, but I extend an invitation to people who want to see how courts operate, to come down and

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see how courts operate. What I tell prospective jurors in our county and people that I speak to is it's really easy to criticize and toe have ideas about the court system by reading about it or hearing about it. But to go down and see it is

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another story. And I think people ought to experience what a courtroom is about and what goes on a courtroom, if not from the jury angle from the spectator angle to see what goes on in our courts. I think people would be would be surprised, and I

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think that they would be educated. So rollout of kind of stopper. Seda, this is Scott. Thanks how I made that mistake. Gentlemen, we've been talking about the Superior Court we've been talking to. Judge ordered Rosenfield on the left of your screen, and Scott Stada, Superior Court

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Administrator. Judge Rosenfield is the presiding judges here. My name is Rich. McGlinchy. The program is Saddam account in the eighties. We'll be back next week with another member of the county government, family or related agency until, uh, all right, No