An Untapped Court Resource

Proposition 220, which voters passed in June, can help trial courts around the state eliminate duplicative staff and make better use of the scarce and expensive time of judges--but judges have to be willing to give it a try.

The proposition allows trial judges in each county to vote to unify as a superior court, eliminating existing municipal courts as separate entities. The ballot measure rewards those counties moving toward unification by letting them tap a state fund to improve court technology and legal research capabilities, add court clerks and improve judicial and staff education.

All trial courts have already merged the administrative staffs and routines of their superior and municipal courts. Unification goes even further by folding municipal court judges into the superior court. A majority of both municipal and superior court judges in each county must approve unification before it can occur, and that’s where the problem lies.

Municipal court judges have welcomed the plan. As superior court judges, they will get pay raises and handle more complex cases. But some superior court judges worry about meshing the seniority and case assignment systems of the two courts. Others grouse about elevating judges whom they consider inexperienced.

Still, in the months following passage of Proposition 220, judges in 48 of California’s 58 counties have voted to unify. Orange, San Bernardino and Ventura counties are among them. But in Los Angeles, home of California’s largest trial court, a big majority of the 236 Superior Court judges recently rejected unification.

That vote has also blocked trial court improvements that would benefit people with business before the courts. Superior Court officials have said they need time to examine the costs and ramifications of unification in a county as large as Los Angeles, and they have appointed a committee of judges to do that. Its recommendations are due in November, and a second vote could come as early as December. Superior Court judges would be wise to support the Proposition 220 changes.