A nonprofit organization calling for increased accountability for the Marin judicial system is planning its next moves, which include a series of forums and the eventual creation of a judicial citizens review commission modeled after community police review commissions.

The Center for Judicial Excellence (CJE) held a forum in September, the first event the organization presented since its formation earlier in the year. About 150 people attended the event, which CJE titled “Forum to Improve Marin Courts.” The event reflected the organization’s stated goal “to improve the Marin judiciary’s accountability and restore and maintain the integrity of Marin County Courts.”

CJE first attracted attention in the spring, when it sent a letter to presiding Superior Court Judge Lynn Duree and Court Executive Officer Kim Turner. The letter asked for all audits issued since Jan. 1, 2005. The letter also asked for information regarding internal and external inquiries since 1999.

The requests didn’t come out of the blue.

The court has been the subject of tough grand jury investigation regarding administrative procedures and a particularly damaging case involving a former court executive, John Montgomery. He was arrested in April on 10 charges of felony conflict of interest. Montgomery resigned in March of 2005 after the court’s previous presiding judge, Terrance Boren, called for the Judicial Council of California, which oversees the funding of county courts, to conduct an investigation into the administration of the court under Montgomery.

The investigation started after Boren learned that Montgomery had bought two houses with Linda Lau, a contract employee with whom Montgomery was living. Allegations against Montgomery included a charge that he guided contracts her way and failed to disclose their relationship. Red flags also went up for Boren when he learned that Montgomery had traveled out of the state on the court’s dime without getting proper approval.

That’s part from the background that led up to the first CJE forum on judicial accountability in Marin. CJE wanted its first forum to begin as a conversation between the public and the court on matters indicative of the Montgomery case--and also on matters of even more widespread concern.

One problem: No one from the court showed up for the forum. That shouldn’t be a surprise, according to Victoria Henley, one the participants on the guest panel that discussed court issues at the September forum. Henley is the director and chief counsel of the California Commission on Judicial Excellence. Responding to “public clamor” is something judges are trained to avoid, she said. Even participating in public forums about the judiciary is a new experience for many judges. Alameda Superior Court Judge Kevin Murphy, a Mill Valley resident, did attend; he was the only judge on the panel. He echoed Henley’s statement that judges must be extremely careful to stay out of the trenches in a forum like the CJE event and assiduously avoid making statements about individual cases. Members of the Marin court were invited to attend and, according to CJE Board member Rafael Durr, up until a few days before the forum, CJE was expecting at least one Marin judge to participate.

The failure to participate was unfortunate, according to Durr, who is co-chair of the Marin Human Rights Commission. He says the goal of CJE “isn’t about trying to go after anybody. This is about trying to identify different issues within the system, and trying to find ways to work together with the judges and the court system and the community to try and take care of them. This isn’t a witch hunt in any way.”

At the first forum, however, many of the 150 people who attended seemed to have specific problems with specific cases--many of them in Family Court. Murphy did his best to explain court procedure from his perspective, but he stressed that neither he nor other court representatives could comment about specific situations. (No judge in Marin has been the subject of a disciplinary sanction by the Commission on Judicial Performance since its inception in 1960, when a voter referendum called for its creation. That fact, however, has not stopped vocal critics of the Family Court in Marin.) The forum in September was the first in a series of events designed to move toward an overall goal to position CJE as a catalyst to help “the community understand their courts,” says Erin Fogg, a founding member of CJE. Fogg works with Kathleen Russell, another CJE founding member. Russell is the same Russell on the ballot for a seat on the Marin Healthcare District. She’s the principal in Kathleen Russell Consulting, a firm that specializes in nonprofit organizations and social issues. Also in on the founding of CJE was Jonathan Frieman, also on the ballot for a seat on the Marin Healthcare District. Frieman and Russell allied with Jennifer Rienks on a slate that proclaimed “Putting Patients First.” Frieman, it should be noted, is not a full and formal founding member of CJE. He did, however, provide some early assistance to help the fledgling organization get off the ground.

“You can see questions about the judiciary coming up across the nation,” says Fogg. JCE sees itself as part of a growing number of organizations and individuals who think that light needs to be shined on the judiciary, which often looks like the most arcane and darkly impenetrable branch of government on the national scale. It can be downright intimidating on the local scale, especially when someone has to experience it as a defendant for the first time. “There is more and more interest in involving the community to create an understanding of the judiciary and gaining some overall knowledge of the system. (JCE is) interested in supporting that process.” Fogg says the founding members of the organization came together informally at first to discuss their interest in the court system. “Some had been interested in court-watch groups for decades, and others had known other people who had gone through the judicial process. In watching the process from the outside, we became active individually, and then we came together.” CJE grew out of that mutual interest. “We started talking first just in someone’s living room.” Fogg stresses that CJE has no intention of going after specific judges or court personnel for wrongdoing. The organization's first goal, she says, is educational. Toward that end, CJE has produced a Web site (www.centerforjudicialexcellence.org) on which it hopes to begin the process of providing education for the community.

The idea is to accumulate information and create a central site on which people can find resources relating to the judiciary, links to the courts, and “where they can read what it will be like for them” if they are involved in court cases. As far as the perception that CJE is an attack organization? “Hopefully, we will be able to overcome that,” says Fogg.

The series of forums CJE is planning for the coming year, with focused topics dealing with the activities of the courts, will “demonstrate that CJE is really an educational” organization. Carl Shapiro, the outspoken Marin lawyer who has fought for the rights of the poor when they enter the judicial system, was one of the guest panelists at the September Forum. “I think this meeting, with 150 people, will carry a message to the court,” he told the audience. “Perhaps the next meeting will have 300 people. That will carry an even better message.” Shapiro suggested that CJE think about creating a position for a person who would act as an ombudsman in the court system. He also said CJE should think about taking its message to the Board of Supervisors and to future grand juries. He suggested that CJE organize a group to approach the Marin County Bar Association to “set up a joint program. The lawyers might even do it because many of them also have problems with the judiciary.”

Shapiro is particularly critical of the current political process in Marin that puts judges and prospective judges into the political ring. Shapiro and others question the objectivity of judges in a system that allows lawyers who hear cases before the judges to contribute to their political campaigns.

“You can’t tell me in judicial political campaigns when lawyers give judges $5,000 to support a campaign, they’re doing it out of the goodness of their hearts.” It creates the appearance of impropriety.

According to the California Commission on Judicial Performance Code of Ethics, “A Judge shall avoid impropriety or the appearance of impropriety in all of the judge’s actions.” Another part of the code states, “A judge or judicial candidate shall refrain from inappropriate political activity.” Under the First Amendment, lawyers, like anyone else, have the right to contribute to campaigns for the judiciary. But the question of propriety remains.

Shapiro says he wants to write a resolution and present it to the Marin County Bar Association that would call for a resolution among local lawyers to refrain from contributing to campaigns for seats on the local bench. Shapiro also notes that sitting judges should refrain from supporting candidates for open seats on the bench. He says he plans to go to the state Commission on Judicial Performance and ask for “an ethical standard for judges to remain neutral in campaigns.”

Henley also has some ideas about the pitfalls of pushing judges and prospective judges into the political pit. At the September forum, she said she favors eliminating contested elections for judges.

A better system, Henley believes, is the retention election, similar to systems already used in other states. In Utah, for instance, the governor chooses a judicial nominating commission of lawyers and non- lawyers. A nominating commission exists for each of the state’s judicial districts and one for the appellate courts. Commissioners serve four-year terms. The nominating commissions choose between three and five candidates from among applications for an open seat on the bench. The governor then makes a final choice from among the nominated candidates. A majority of the state Senate then must confirm the governor’s pick. Instead of running an open election at the end of a judge’s term, he or she must stand for retention, when the state’s voters can either approve another term or reject the judge, which once again begins the nominating process. So, instead of two or more names on a ballot for a contested seat on the bench, there’s only one.

That probably would be good news for people who get down to the bottom of a ballot and have no idea where to cast their vote. “Who the heck are these people?” is all-too- frequently heard whenever there’s an election that includes a seat on the Marin bench. Not a bad topic for a forum on the judiciary.

Contact the writers at meagher_seidman@yahoo.com

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