Court of Appeal Prefers a Downtown Home : Justices xuash Any Move to North Hollywood

Their honors the justices of the state Court of Appeal would like a new courthouse--but not at the price of moving to a redevelopment zone in North Hollywood, thank you.

That was the response of the 26 justices of the 2nd Appellate District to an idea of state Sen. Alan Robbins (D-Van Nuys).

The judges, now in leased quarters on Wilshire Boulevard in the mid-Wilshire area, wrote to Gov. George Deukmejian unanimously opposing a Robbins bill to build them a courthouse in the North Hollywood Redevelopment Project.

The Valley is short of law books and inconvenient for attorneys, the judges said. They requested a home in downtown Los Angeles where the other judges are.

Faced with the judges’ resistance, Robbins gave up.

His resolution was to be considered Tuesday by an Assembly committee. Robbins pulled it from the agenda. He said he would let the measure die or allow the justices to rewrite it requesting the courthouse on state-owned property downtown.

Last year Robbins won approval of a new courthouse in North Hollywood for 12 Superior Court judges. He introduced the appeal court measure arguing that it would save money if the judges of both courts were in neighboring buildings and could share things like the cafeteria and law library.

Since the state Supreme Court uses Court of Appeal facilities in Los Angeles four weeks a year, it would also have sat in North Hollywood.

The justices reacted swiftly. Less than two weeks after Robbins introduced his resolution, their letter to the governor protested that “the citizens of Los Angeles expect their courthouse to be located in the Center City.”

They would prefer, they wrote, to have a courthouse on 1st Street, between Spring Street and Broadway, because it is within a block of the county law library, “the largest law library in California, from which this court frequently borrows books.”

They noted that the site is within two blocks of other courts, “adding to the convenience to lawyers who are scheduled to make appearances before one or more courts on the same morning.”

“I’m not quite conceding defeat, but I am conceding reality,” Robbins said Tuesday. “As a practical matter I see no way that we can force them to go to North Hollywood.

“Sometimes you have to count the votes and recognize where things lie.”