The King County Superior Court handled 10,700 felony criminal cases in 2007, anything from auto theft up to murder. It handled 23,850 civil cases, 11,300 family law cases, 7,000 probate, estate and guardianship cases, 2,400 mental illness proceedings, and over 7,000 juvenile cases, either offender matters or dependency issues. In fact, 40 percent of cases heard in the King County Superior Court involve families and children.
So said Bruce Hilyer, presiding judge, King County Superior Court, when he addressed the King County Council’s Budget Review and Adoption Committee Oct. 21. He addressed the Committee again that same evening at Finn Hill Junior High, Kirkland, to express his grave concern about the future of Superior Court in light of the county’s budget crisis.
“These are not just cases,” said Judge Hilyer. “These are extremely important events in people’s lives. We’re talking about when there’s a marriage breakup whether the father or the mother gets the child. We’re talking about whether or not the visitation of the child will be restricted. We’re talking about in civil cases whether or not a claim for damages is able to receive a timely jury trial. These are all traumatic events that affect thousands of people in King County.”
Superior Court is being asked to take an 11.4 percent cut, which represents $5.1 million in reductions. In addition, another $1 million worth of cuts may have to be made if Sims’ lifeboat strategy (funding dependent upon a state legislature bail out) and his labor-union-concessions strategy fail.
Sims is seeking $10 million in concessions from labor. County Budget Director Bob Cowan told the Council Oct. 21 that Sims maintains he will arrive at a solution with labor. Apparently, concessions may not mean a reduction in the cost-of-living raises Sims negotiated with the county’s 96 different bargaining units. It may involve a mandatory furlough, unpaid compensation for a set number of days per year.
“We are prepared to drastically change our operations,” said Hilyer. “We will charge $30 to every attorney who walks into court and wants a walk-in court order. We’re prepared to go to a completely paperless court, which will save the county more than a million dollars once it’s fully implemented. We’re prepared to eliminate 17 positions in the court and a dozen positions in the clerk’s office.
“However, if our court has to accommodate an additional million dollars in cuts that we learned about only last Monday, Oct. 13, we will essentially lose two programs that we cannot afford to lose, that we cannot, as citizens and as judges, remain silent in the face of. And those two programs are Family Court Services and Drug Court,” said Hilyer.
Family Court Services
Superior Court Commissioner Mark Hillman heard domestic violence cases from September 2007 to August 2008. He heard on average 10 contested cases each morning, with 12 minutes allotted per case, six minutes per side. He spoke to the Budget Review Committee Oct. 16 in Kent.
Commissioner Hillman said he was grateful to have the background analysis provided by Family Court Services. He referred to a 17-page domestic violence report for a single case that not only provided useful information but also made recommendations.
He said, “It provided more information than I could ever gather in six minutes of testimony from each party. While you may say that we cannot afford Family Court Services, I don’t think we can afford not to have it.”
Superior Court Judge Joan DuBuque said at the Kirkland public hearing, “As a result of these most recent reductions, our Family Court Services program is at risk of elimination. Family Court has been a part of King County Superior Court since 1949. Since 1949, it has provided services to those families who are involved in the legal system in family law matters.
“It provides vital services to these families: domestic violence assessments, Child Protective Services risk assessments, mediation so that parents can solve their parenting issues without the costly expense of a trial. We do parenting plan evaluations and adoption confirmations. We have family law facilitators who assist the pro se population (those who are unrepresented by counsel) in our family law cases.
“Ninety-three percent of the population we serve are families that make less than $50,000 a year. Sixty-two percent of our families make less than $35,000 a year. In 2007, we served 2,551 children. The vast majority of those were less than 12 years old,” said Judge DuBuque.
Jacqueline Jeske, a Family Court Commissioner at the Kent Regional Justice Center, told the Budget Review Committee in Kirkland that she presides over the daily domestic violence calendar and family law motions calendar five days a week. On an average week, she hears anywhere from 50 to 100 domestic violence cases and another 20-30 family law cases involving serious allegations regarding substance abuse, child abuse, neglect and violence.
The vast majority of the public in King County who appear before Commissioner Jeske is unrepresented by counsel, 73 to 85 percent. These, she said, are the lucky ones, the ones who have figured out on their own how to navigate the court system and make it to and through her courtroom door.
She said County Executive Ron Sims’ recently proposed budget might require Superior Court to eliminate Family Court Services.
“This program is a lifeline to the safety and security of King County’s most vulnerable,” said Jeske, “our children and our families at risk.”
A case she heard recently involved a parent who was allegedly held an 8-year-old child repeatedly under water as a form of “training.” Another case involved a child under the age of 5. One parent was convicted of assaulting the child. The other parent was in custody, under arrest for sexual abuse of the same child. Those are the easy cases she hears, she said.
The hard cases she sends to Family Court Services. In six weeks, they give her often a 10-page report or longer based on reliable, real-time information from teachers and doctors and counselors, which enables her to make a decision to place children in a safe and secure setting while legal proceedings continue.
“I’m here to ask for your help,” said Jeske. “It’s that simple.”
Drug Court
Drug Court is another Superior Court program that is threatened. Adult Drug Diversion Court, according to an Oct. 15 New York Times front-page article by Erick Eckholm entitled “Innovative courts give some addicts chance to straighten out” states, “Experts say drug courts have been the country’s fastest-spreading innovation in criminal justice, giving arrested addicts a chance to avoid prison by agreeing to stringent oversight and addiction treatment.”
Presiding Judge Wesley St. Clair of King County’s Drug Diversion Court told the Budget Review Committee in Kirkland, “When I inherited the program in 2005, it was the core of an excellent program, having a wide breadth of services for folks who find themselves in the throws of addiction and in the criminal justice system. The program has proven to be one of the more effective programs to deal with folks as they transition from addiction to someone who is a contributing member of the community, paying taxes, sending their children to school. And the interesting thing is that if you look to see who is in Drug Court, it’s not a bunch of strangers. These are your neighbors, your brothers, your cousins. These are the folks who suffer from this disease.”
Judge St. Clair also said that because the Drug Court’s budget lies primarily in the Department of Judicial Administration, he believes the only outcome that can occur is the removal of Drug Court, “and not a removal that starts July 1 of 09, but rather in January.
“In fact, we are, at this point, beginning the process of how do we manage this chaos that is coming because the studies have consistently shown through the Washington State Public Policy Institute that incarceration does not work as a model for interrupting the cycle of addiction and that Drug Courts are, in fact, the most effective model.
“I would encourage this council to use its prerogative to direct the (spending reduction) so that we have time to come up with a new model to sustain this very important program,” said St. Clair.
Security
“Another issue of great concern is the issue of security,” said Judge Hilyer.
King County Courthouse marshals are being cut from the King County Sheriff’s budget.The courthouse will continue to have weapons screening stations at its entrances. They were installed in response to a 1995 tragedy in which a man shot and killed his estranged wife, her unborn child and two of her friends.
If a threat were made in one of the county courtrooms without the usual Sheriff’s Office marshals on hand, an attendee at a screening station would have to shutdown access to the building in order to respond to the security threat, he said.