Security Problems : New Hollywood Courthouse-- Jury Is Still Out

The shining new Hollywood Municipal Courthouse is operating well below capacity because of security problems.

Since the first case was tried there in mid-April, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department has declined to bring defendants being held in custody to the courthouse for hearings, mostly because of the way the doors to five holding cells operate. A sheriff’s official concedes the department may have erred in not discovering the shortcoming earlier.

Depending on how long it takes to motorize inner doors leading to the cells, best estimates are that security may not be tightened to the Sheriff’s Department’s satisfaction until late this month at the earliest.

Another problem at the new courthouse has nothing to do with security: The presiding judge insisted that the judges’ benches were too low and had them raised, by a little more than a foot. Critics charge that this made the benches inaccessible to the disabled and was done in violation of state law.

Meanwhile, the three judges who occupy a trio of gray-carpeted courtrooms are handling from 60% to 65% of the misdemeanor arrests made by the Los Angeles Police Department’s Hollywood Division, according to George W. Trammell, presiding judge of the Los Angeles Municipal Court District.

The current caseload mostly includes defendants who have been released on bail or freed on their promise to appear in court, but it does not include those booked on misdemeanor charges and held in jail.

Sheriff’s Cmdr. David Hagthrop estimated that about 30 people are arrested in Hollywood each day on misdemeanor charges and held for hearings. These are the defendants that the Sheriff’s Department has balked at taking to the simple two-story, stucco courthouse at 5925 Hollywood Blvd. Instead, those cases are heard in other Municipal Courts.

That is not what proponents of the courthouse expected, of course.

When the $6.6-million project was dedicated on April 3, Supervisor Ed Edelman said the facility capped five years of personal effort to help revitalize Hollywood by building a local courthouse to fight prostitution and street crime.

Edelman’s office said that when trials began each of the courtrooms would have a full caseload under an administration similar to the federal courts that allows the judge to preside over all phases of a case, from arraignment to trial.

The new system, a departure from the court’s normal procedure in which arraignments and trials are handled in separate courts, was installed, as promised. But the courthouse has yet to carry its full caseload since opening on April 14.

About a month before the opening, the Sheriff’s Department notified the county that in-custody defendants would not be transported there until security was improved. The sheriff called for placing motors in the inside doors of holding cells so that they could be electronically controlled from an outside panel.

As built, a deputy retrieving a prisoner would have to unlock an outside door to a small space called a sally port, then manually unlock a second inside door opening out of a holding cell.

Fretted About System

Security experts fretted that the system required that both the outside door and barred inside door had to be unlocked at the same time, creating the possibility that several prisoners might rush a deputy in an escape attempt.

Architect K. Kenshi Nishimoto, whose Pasadena firm designed the courthouse, said the building’s security system, including the manually operated sally port doors, was designed in consultation with county officials.

“It (the problem) was never brought forth until the very, very end,” Nishimoto said. “If there’s blame to be blamed, I don’t know who to point the finger at. I think it was a matter that was overlooked until the final product, and it didn’t do what they wanted it to do.”

The Sheriff’s Department reviewed plans for the new courthouse months before construction began and apparently did not then notice the design features it later said were deficient, according to county officials who asked not be named.

“As we started to inspect the building, we realized there was this deficiency,” said Sheriff Cmdr. Hagthrop. “We just frankly told the Board of Supervisors, the CAO (Chief Administrative Officer) and the judges that we could not safely take over operation until the corrections are made.”

Asked whether the Sheriff’s Department had “blown it,” Hagthrop said, “We may have erred in not looking at those plans in more detail.” But, he added, that was before the department had a security expert to inspect all its plans.

$170,000 to Make Changes

Correcting the security deficiencies is expected to cost about $100,000, including up to $75,000 to motorize the doors. In all, the county expects to spend an additional $170,000 when all the requested changes are completed. That includes about $50,000 for construction of a jury box to turn an arraignment court into a trial court and to raise the judges’ benches.

Presiding Judge Trammel’s decision to rebuild the benches at a “normal” height required the replacement of access ramps with steps. Critics charge that as now constructed, the benches violate the state building code, which requires all paths of travel and work areas in new structures to be made accessible to the disabled. “The judges are not above the law,” declared Richard Smith, president of Mayor Tom Bradley’s Council on Disability. “It’s disheartening that people who are charged with the responsibility of enforcing the law feel that they are above the law.”

Trammell disagrees. There are no disabled judges sitting in the Los Angeles Municipal Court District, and if a disabled person were appointed or a sitting judge should become disabled, he said, the court would make arrangements to make the bench accessible.

As originally designed, the benches were to have been raised about 20 inches above the floor. But when the city Building and Safety Department reviewed Nishimoto’s plans, it was pointed out that the benches had to be made accessible.

Insisted on ‘Normal Height’

In August, 1984, according to official files, the disability council’s architectural barrier committee approved plans for 36-inch-wide ramps leading to the judicial benches, while waiving the need for handrails. To accommodate the ramps, the benches were built about seven inches above the floor--much too low, in Trammel’s opinion.

“I was one who insisted that the benches be raised up to a normal height for a judge’s bench,” the judge said. “The attorneys, when they would stand up to address the court, were literally looking down on the judge who was seated on the bench.”

Trammell said he was fully aware of the disability provisions and knew that there had to be an alternative to ramps leading to low benches. He now favors using a portable lift if need be.

In Smith’s opinion, however, the law should be enforced.

“I think it’s a slap in the face to the law . . . and totally insensitive to the needs of the handicapped,” he said. “The purpose is to build things to eliminate architectural barriers to our society, so that we have equality. I think you can see that’s totally patronizing: ‘We’ll take care of the poor guy when he comes along.’ ”

The 41-year-old Smith, who was disabled by a spinal injury 15 years ago, said he plans to include the Hollywood judicial benches in a 45-item list submitted to the state attorney general’s office as examples in Los Angeles of violations of the building code’s provisions for the disabled.

2 Other Courts Being Built

The Hollywood courthouse is the first one built in the Los Angeles Municipal Court District in several years. Two others are presently under construction.

In Van Nuys, where a 10-story building is being built with 23 courtrooms, steps will lead to the benches but combination ramps and lifts also will be concealed inside the benches. In the Los Cerritos Judicial District in the Bellflower area, county officials are considering the use of platform lifts to provide accessibility.

Despite the problems encountered in building the Hollywood courthouse, including the county’s decision to take over construction from the original developers and possibly take legal action against them, Trammell sees the facility as “a good example of multi-agency cooperation.”

“Yeah, we’re not up to full capacity,” he said. “But it could be worse. We could have a facility out there that would be totally idle, a total embarrassment to everybody.”

The chief complaints of prospective jurors waiting at the courthouse one day recently seemed to be the lack of coffee and a place to eat in the building. Vending machines in the jury assembly room held candy, chips of various kinds and soft drinks--but no coffee.

“It would be nice to have coffee,” said Mildred Eichelberger of Carson. “It seems like a nice building.”