Judicial/ AT Court Committee Report

League of Women Voters^®
of Schenectady County

Balancing Justice

Simplified Court System Report. Court Restructuring Revisited. Annual Report of the Judicial / AT Court Committee: June 2011.

Simplified Court System Report

Helga A. Schroeter, Judicial Committee Chair
On December 6, 2011 the Fund for Modern Courts held a meeting to discuss future plans to promote court simplification and strategies for achieving this goal. The LWV of New York State was one of the sponsors of this meeting along with several other advocacy groups. Former Chief Judge Judith Kaye made the opening remarks and put the efforts of court consolidation into historic perspective. The most compelling reason for achieving the goal of a simplified system is exemplified by the Family Court. This court is truly a "poor peopleʼs" court, dealing with societyʼs most pressing issues, such as juvenile justice, custody and child support, foster care and adoption, domestic violence and child abuse. Yet this court is tremendously overburdened and under-funded, with litigants having to return to court time after time, often losing time at their work places.
The main proposals for a court restructuring constitutional amendment include the following components:

Simplify the court system from 11 separate trial courts to a two-tier system, merging Family, County, Court of Claims and Surrogate Courts into the Supreme Court.

Create a Fifth Department to alleviate the overburdened NYC system.

Create a wider, more diverse pool of Supreme Court justices eligible for the appellate division of the court system.

Maintain the manner in which judges are currently selected, either by election or by appointment (Merger in Place).

Remove the constitutional limit on the number of Supreme Court Justices to relieve overburdened courts.

In order to accomplish an efficient, effective court simplification, a constitutional amendment is needed. This means passage of the amendment by two separately elected legislatures and ratification by the voters. Therefore, this coming year will be crucial for first passage of such an amendment. The Schenectady League chose court restructuring as one of its three legislative priorities and hopes to promote a strong effort to accomplish this long overdue goal.

Court Restructuring Revisited

Helga A. Schroeter, Judicial & Alternative Treatment Chair
The NYS League of Women Voters has had a long-standing advocacy position on court restructuring. The current system of nine separate trial courts is confusing to those who appear in court and costly to everyone involved in the courts: the litigants, the court system itself, and the taxpayers.
The Fund for Modern Courts has put together a working coalition to advocate for first passage of a constitutional amendment to streamline the trial courts. The task force has been meeting bimonthly to strategize, and different members of the group have begun to meet with the governor!s counsel, the Office of Court Administration (OCA), the Bar Associations and various advocacy groups. I represent the League of Women Voters of New York State on this task force.
One of the selling points in this stressed state government budget is the anticipated savings in a more streamlined system. But most importantly, the litigants stand to gain in a court system that allows them to deal with one judge and one court for their individual cases. Elevating more judges to the Supreme Court level would also create a fairer distribution of resources and a more diverse pool of justices eligible for the appellate division of the courts. We are hoping for strong support from the League because of its long-standing commitment to this issue.

Annual Report of the Judicial / AT Court Committee: June 2011

Submitted by Helga Schroeter and Laura Zeliger
During the past year, the judicial committee has continued to monitor the Alternative Treatment Courts. Members of the committee have observed the County AT Court and witnessed at least one graduation ceremony. At the City Court level, Judge Blanchfield has been presiding over the AT Court, after Judge Clark was elected Family Court Judge. Committee members who have observed the court proceedings have been impressed by the compassionate treatment the defendants received. Some members have also interacted with the local NAMI chapter and have attended a program at the Union Graduate College to address the need for better mental health services in the county. Several members of the committee have focused their attention on domestic violence issues and on how the courts address domestic violence cases and the enforcement of orders of protection. To date, anecdotal data have been collected, mostly by observing court proceedings, especially in City Court and the Integrated Domestic Violence Court (IDV Court).
The third subject of interest to the committee is the current focus on juvenile justice, an area which is under intense scrutiny at the state level. New York is only one of two states that still tries 16 year olds in adult criminal court for felony offenses and sends them off to adult prison. In the case of a serious felony, the age of a juvenile defendant can even be as low as 13 or 14. Several of our members recently attended a panel discussion on this issue at the State Bar Association in Albany. The program was sponsored by the Fund for Modern Courts. NYS is in the process of appointing a commission to look into the issue and to recommend changes. The committee will continue to learn about any recommended changes and to advocate for them, if appropriate.
Finally, the judicial committee has continued its involvement with the prisoner reentry program. Linda Muralidharan has been particularly involved with the task force and has provided the committee with valuable feed-back. We are planning to pursue the same areas of interest in the coming year.

Report on the Albany Law School Forum on Wrongful Convictions
Submitted by Helga Schroeter, Co-chair Judicial/AT Committee
"Wrongful Convictions: Understanding and Addressing Criminal Injustice" was the topic of a panel discussion held at the Albany Law School on Thursday, March 4, 2010. Since 2007, the Albany Law Review has held the State Constitutional Commentary Symposium in honor of former Appeals Chief Judge Lawrence Cooke. This year's symposium was moderated by Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman with five distinguished panelists. Judge Lippman opened the discussion with a brief overview of the history of wrongful convictions, stating that human error has been the leading cause and that recent access to DNA evidence has resulted in many exonerations. He has established a permanent task force on wrongful convictions. Mr. Lippman introduced each panelist and allowed 15 minutes per presentation.
1) James R. Acker, Distinguished Teaching Professor of the School of Criminal Justice at SUNYA outlined the leading causes of wrongful convictions, such as misidentification, undue influence of law enforcement producing false confessions, incompetent defense, witness lies, prosecutorial misconduct and the poverty of defendants. He said that many reforms can be achieved administratively without waiting for legislation.
2) The Hon. Cyrus R. Vance, Jr., New York County District Attorney, pointed out that prosecutors are active partners in seeking justice and avoiding wrongful convictions. He is establishing a conviction integrity program, headed up by senior staff with an outside panel of advisors, which includes former Appeals Court Associate Judge Howard Levine.
3) Amy Bach, author of "Ordinary Injustice: How America Holds Court," talked about her observations in various courts where she witnessed "assembly-line justice" and where speed equals success. She called courts the most unexamined institution and she also alluded to the ongoing "race" issue connected with wrongful convictions.
4) Saul M. Kassin, Distinguished Professor of Psychology of John Jay College of Criminal Justice and Professor of Psychology at Williams College, MA, talked about the additional victims of crime, especially the families of both victims and perpetrators. He pointed out the frequency of eyewitness mistakes (between 20 and 25 %) and also the high number of false confessions.

5) The final speaker was Stephen Saloom, Policy Director of the Innocence Project. He commented that if we convict the innocent, the guilty go free and continue to be a danger to society. He also said that there is resistance to change in our legal system and a strong political trend to be perceived as "tough on crime." In addition, there is a huge crisis in indigents' defense, and judges, prosecutors, public defenders and police are overwhelmed with caseloads.

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