Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes 05-29-2008 COURT FACILITIES SPACE NEEDS COMMITTEE Minutes of Meeting May 29, 2008 Convened: Adjourned: 2 2:05 p.m.:53 p.m. CALL TO ORDER Commissioner Craft called the meeting to order at 2:05 p.m. in Conference Room # 3, 2300 Virginia Avenue, Fort Pierce, Florida. ROLL CALL Roll call was taken. Members Present: Commissioner Chris Craft Edwin Fry, Clerk of the Courts Tom Genung, Court Administrator Mark Godwin, SLC Criminal Justice Coordinator Roger Shinn, SLC Central Services Director Major Reuther for Sheriff Ken Mascara Members Absent: Mayor Bob Benton, Fort Pierce Diamond Litty, Public Defender Councilwoman Michelle Berger, Port St. Lucie Chief Judge Roby Bruce Colton, State Attorney Others Present: Dan Rogers, DJJ - Circuit 19 Kevin Housel, DJJ – Detention Lieutenant Hardie, SLC Sheriff’s Office Sergeant Church, SLC Sheriff’s Office Jim Reeder, Palm Beach Post APPROVAL OF THE MINUTES: The minutes from the March 27, 2008 meeting were unanimously approved. OLD BUSINESS: Mark Godwin stated concerning the space needs we meet every other month obviously the space needs and the issues concerning that I know that Commissioner you orchestrated a bus trip to various court facilities around the town and during that time you had a discussion with Judge Connor. Judge Connor had made the suggestion along with you and the other individuals on that trip to talk about utilization of judicial time because of the empty courthouses. I contacted the individuals that put in a number of different training for judges thru the National Center for Court Court Facilities Space Needs Committee Nay 29, 2008 Page 2 Management out of Williamsburg, Virginia and on the County’s behalf just to find out what suggestions they may have concerning case management as far as case flow and utilizing courtrooms. They made recommendations and I asked them to submit a proposal to come down and provide training to the folks in the criminal justice system. Identify ways to streamline and refocus, certainly in the area of criminal and the area of civil which are usually the heaviest areas. They were happy to put together a proposal and to bring down a staff member. They recently done this over Fort Myers and the court administrator in Fort Myers said he was very satisfied. As soon as I get the proposal I will send it out to everybody. There is a cost associated with it. Commissioner Craft said the last hearing we had over the impact fees with Port St. Lucie the Judge scheduled three days for the testimony. The trial took 1 day and 2 hours and pointed out to Mr. Anderson to make sure he gets the message to the Commissioner who says that we don’t need more space that this is why we need the space because the court was canceled and I just think that can be managed better. Mr. Genung said what you have to do is plan that x amount of cases are going to go to trial. Commissioner Craft said explain to me how this works. The Judge at docket call determines how long he thinks that case is going to take. Mr. Genung said that’s input through the attorneys. The Judge might say can’t we try this in 2 days as oppose to a week, how many witnesses do you have, how much time do you think the witnesses are going to take. Sometimes attorneys fluff a little bit saying they want more time, sometimes they underestimate. Commissioner Craft said if we have a 60% accuracy rate I imagine that would be pretty decent. Mr. Genung said that would be good because there are so many variables in the equation. Mr. Fry said following along with what you were saying what I would like to do is expand to include to take a look overall utilization of the courtroom. How are we doing on scheduling the courtrooms? I know, right now Judge Barnes is not using his courtrooms in downtown Fort Pierce 8 days out of every month. It certainly appears to me that we should be able to utilize that courtroom. That is the type of things I think we should look at, as where we know the courtrooms are vacant but they are not being used. Mr. Genung said that’s how we are able to get our senior judges in. Mr. Fry said there is a group of people sitting down stairs – we’re going to bring them up stairs and we are going to go thru the jury selection process, people settle. Commissioner Craft said what is the percentage of cases do you think settle. Mr. Fry said the judges can have anywhere form 20 to 50 cases on their docket that are sentenced for trial that day and it is very common that 95% of them settle. Court Facilities Space Needs Committee May 29, 2008 Page 3 Judge Connor’s statement is 95% of those settle and only 5% are scheduled for trial. Of those that are scheduled for trial 95% of those ends up settle ling. Commissioner Craft asked where does it cost the biggest problem. Is it trial stuff or the other stuff? Mr. Genung said a number of factors – how quickly the attorney’s on both sides work up the case. Commissioner Craft said I don’t think the other 95% cases that go thru – it’s the 5% we have a trial set for 3-5 days that I think is what’s causing the empty courtrooms. Mr. Genung said I think the courtrooms are pretty much capacity Monday thru Wednesday or Thursday and at the end of the week it might drop off because that’s when the trials are settle ling. Now I appreciate what you’re saying if perhaps things could be scheduled differently, so that you’re pulling jury staggered times during the week and files are turning and different times thru the week. Judges tend to only have 1 week of trial for the month. Mr. Godwin said inmates are a huge factor they don’t want to be shipped off to State Prison. They want to stay here locally and visit their family. They will drag everything out as long as they can. Also, the National folks have indicated a lot of times when you see a Judge’s courtroom that’s down that doesn’t mean that justice isn’t working because the Judge is in the back writing their opinions on certain cases. So sometimes when you see an empty courtroom the judge is in the back moving papers. Commissioner Craft said Mark, my problem is the Judge pounding the desk and telling me I need to build more courtrooms and they are sitting there empty. That’s unacceptable. Mr. Genung said in terms of Fort Pierce, Doug and I have spent many times on the phone saying we need courtrooms and the reason is because we are maxed out of courtrooms. When a Judge settles just before the trial starts it is extremely challenging to get somebody in to fill that space in the next 2 to 3 days. Commissioner Craft said and that’s why I think it is important if we can recognize the accuracy rate of how much time is being allotted to a trial. If the attorney says I need this much time and they are only utilizing 40% of that actual time then we got a serious problem and the Judges need to understand they need to see that hard number in front of them saying of your cases you had in the courtroom 60% have settled 20%of the time. If they have that data in front of them by Judge that would help them determine how much time they need to allot. Mr. Genung said it would but if they significantly prescribe the period of time requested we got an immediate appellate issue. So we really have a fine line to walk. Commissioner Craft said we have time now where the trials run over the allotted times and you have to cancel the court and reschedule. That happens now and I understand we don’t want it happening a lot but if it happens a few more times I don’t think those cost are going to out weigh me building a new building that has to be staffed. Those are the things we need to take a look at Court Facilities Space Needs Committee May 29, 2008 Page 4 from my side because we are the side that is responsible for building all of this. Mr. Genung said if a trial is scheduled for 3 days but it’s going to run more and the Judge has the remainder of the 2 days already booked, those are important matters to be heard on those 2 days, each of those cases may be impacted if those matters aren’t heard on those 2 days. If the court isn’t able to extend the trial and move all that off or find another courtroom to hear the trial and have somebody else come in and hear those matters then they got a lot more issues than they started off with. That second thing I said if they are not able to move their trials or get somebody else in to hear those cases then that creates a whole lot more issues. That’s when Doug calls and says we have a trial that’s gone over and there is a team of Judge coming in but I don’t have a courtroom to put the trial what do we do? Again, we have to be able to accommodate what we are presented with and the volumes. The County isn’t getting any smaller in terms of population. Commissioner Craft said right now it isn’t getting any bigger. Mr. Fry said County may not be getting any bigger but the case loads are. Mr. Godwin said when he gets the information he will forward it to everyone and then make a phone call survey to find out if it is something the committee can endorse so that I can take it to the Commissioners and take it before the board for the approval. Lieutenant Harding said myself and Sgt. Church schedule all the courtrooms. We deal with the dilemma everyday. I worked with Tom since he came up here about trying to be more efficient of the use of them. A lot of it is all the human factors that go along with the trial and we even thought from our law enforcement side how do we make this better. How do we take this trial that is settled and fill something in that gap. We feel your frustration there’s certain days that it will take 30 deputies to run that place and by 3:00 in the afternoon we could do it with 10. But human dynamic process in there you can’t make them go to trial and you can’t make them plea is the same thing that we feel. Commissioner Craft said and that’s where I think we need the efficiencies on the front end with how much time we spend on each case. Lieutenant Harding said I know the Judges calendars inside and out. I know how many weeks they put for trial week and there is plea weeks, motion weeks. Commissioner Craft asked do you also keep track of when the courtrooms vacant. Lieutenant Harding said no. Everyday we’ll communicate with Mr. Fry’s staff. On our misdemeanor Judges, we try to use the biggest docket in the biggest courtroom. The felony Judges pretty much stay in assigned spaces. But the misdemeanor Judges we try to put the large traffic docket which will have 100 cases plus, we try to schedule that in the largest courtroom and try to be smart about the efficiency of it because then there is an issue where we’re moving prisoners to that location so we are trying to look at the safety stand point and that’s something we juggle everyday. There is a lot of logistical things that go into just getting a trial to start anyways and Court Facilities Space Needs Committee May 29, 2008 Page 5 believe me, I dealt with Tom for 2 years on this, how can we come up with software, can we look at all the calendars and fill the holes with something? Commissioner Craft said and that is why if you put hard numbers in front of a Judge and he can see what his actual rate of settlement is versus the other Judges it’s going to change in his mind how much time he needs to allot to this case based on what the attorneys are saying. nd Mr. Shinn said in SLW this is 1 empty area on the 2 floor that Tom would like to convert into a courtroom. Mr. Genung said that is the one that was budgeted this year for that conversion. We are pulling 2 of our Judges from the County west of us. Judge Mirman and Judge McManus to SLW. Judge Mirman is going to be helping out with the criminal dockets and Judge McManus will be hearing the foreclosures helping Judge Bryant. Mr. Godwin said if I can follow up with Roger I know that you had discussed possibly with Crime Stoppers. If you want to utilize space that space in front of the Civic Center was open. NEW BUSINESS: There was no new business discussed. ADJOURNMENT: Commissioner Craft adjourned the meeting at 2:53 p.m. Submitted by, Carol Strobert THE NEXT MEETING WILL BE July 24, 2008