No New Courthouse, Roybal Tells Judges

Federal judges campaigning for a new U.S. Courthouse in downtown Los Angeles were warned Friday by Rep. Edward R. Roybal to stop “raising hell” about their space problems or risk losing new courtrooms already promised to them.

“I think they’re doing themselves a lot of harm by running around and raising hell about this issue,” said Roybal (D-Los Angeles), chairman of a House appropriations subcommittee involved with funding new government facilities.

Roybal said the government plans to add 10 federal courtrooms in a new federal court and office building to be constructed in the Civic Center area by 1987. The judges have proposed that the entire building be reserved for 34 new courtrooms, with capacity to add 20 more as needed in future years.

“I have told the judges that they have 10 new courts and they ought to take them and run,” Roybal said. “They’re not going to get a new courthouse. If they don’t want the 10 courtrooms, we’ll be happy to use the space for offices for other federal agencies.”

Roybal’s comments were the latest in a series of setbacks for Chief U.S. District Judge Manuel L. Real of Los Angeles, who has been the leading proponent of a new U.S. Courthouse in the Civic Center.

There are 19 full-sized courtrooms in the present U.S. Courthouse on Spring Street in downtown Los Angeles, and there are 26 active and senior federal district judges occupying the building. Congress has authorized the addition of five new district judges in the coming year.

In recent months, three active judges low in seniority have been operating in magistrate hearing rooms that lack full jury facilities and are about a fourth the size of normal courtrooms. Another has taken over the equally cramped former quarters of a federal bankruptcy judge. Four of nine senior judges are sharing small hearing rooms.

In his efforts to solve the space problem, Real proposed in August that the General Services Administration approve the installation of modular courtrooms on the lawn in front of the courthouse. He estimated that as many as eight extra courtrooms could be provided in that way.

Real also enlisted the services of architect Roger Sherwood to draw up tentative blueprints for a permanent expansion of the existing courthouse that would have added 16 courtrooms to the 44-year-old structure. He presented that idea to the General Services Administration too.

“They rejected both those proposals without even explaining why,” Real said. “They have now told me they will not build onto this courthouse at all, and they’ve said we will not be getting a new courthouse. What they do say is that we will get 10 courtrooms in the new building, if and when it is built.”

Real said that solution would create a “split courthouse,” with some judges and support facilities in one building and the rest in the new building near the corner of Temple and Alameda streets, three blocks away.

The Judicial Council of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals went on record in support of Real last month and in opposition to a split courthouse in Los Angeles, urging the General Services Administration to explore other options.

“We cannot operate efficiently in a split courthouse,” Real said. “It would cause all sorts of problems for attorneys, prosecutors, the U.S. marshals, the clerks, probation officials, public defenders and the judges. There’s no split courthouse in the country where half the judges are in one building and the rest are a few blocks away.”

Roybal, chairman of a House appropriations treasury subcommittee that oversees proposed construction of new federal buildings, said he agrees with Real that it makes sense to have all the federal judges in the same building.

“But there is no money for that purpose,” he said. “The General Services Administration is renting space all over Los Angeles for federal agencies. In order to sell that new facility to Congress, we said we could move the agencies into it. That was the plan from the very beginning. There was never any chance of getting a new courthouse just for the judges.”

Building to Cost $124 Million

Mary Filippini, a public affairs officer for the GSA in San Francisco, said the new federal building, to be constructed at an estimated cost of $124 million, will have about 560,000 square feet of space, with 400,000 square feet reserved for office space.

She said preliminary GSA estimates are that the new structure, part of a planned federal complex that would include a new detention center for federal prisoners and a Veterans Administration center, could accommodate most federal employees now working in leased office space in the downtown area and along the Wilshire Corridor, where many federal agencies are headquartered.

Despite the GSA’s opposition to Real’s various proposals and Roybal’s most recent comments, there are indications that an effort to change the present plans will continue.

Los Angeles attorney Richard J. Stone, chairman of a Los Angeles County Bar Assn. subcommittee created three weeks ago to study the situation, said county bar officials view the split courthouse issue as a “very serious” problem.

“We have a serious concern about this,” Stone said. “We don’t view it as a problem just for the judges. We view it as a problem for the entire community. I don’t think the judges have been doing anything they shouldn’t be doing by raising this issue. I’m sure the congressman would be quite interested in the views of the bar on this.”

Real, citing an annual 10% increase in federal caseloads, said the government expects that 54 federal district judges will be needed in the Los Angeles area by the year 2000.

“As chief judge, it’s very frustrating trying to find the room for them,” he said. “We have to get support on this from somebody, because we can’t keep on operating the way we’re going.”