Courts Stand to Lose a Lot

Unless the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors abandons its eleventh-hour effort to amend an agreement negotiated and approved in good faith by the Superior and Municipal Court judges, the county stands to lose $130 million in state funds, along with the trust and mutual respect that ought to prevail between co-equal branches of government.

Under the terms of the Brown-Presley Trial Court Funding Act--a measure passed to help local governments defray the expense of operating the state’s court system--Los Angeles County is eligible to receive the $130-million grant. In order to get the money, however, the county must have an agreement between the supervisors and the judges on how the funds are to be spent. That pact must be approved by Wednesday Until last week, the deadline seemed easily attainable.

Representatives of the courts and county administrators struck a bargain that would have divided $61.2 million between the Superior and Municipal courts, while the other nearly $70 million would have gone to fund general county services and programs. Presiding Superior Court Judge Richard P. Byrne said that he is “satisfied with (the agreement).” Richard B. Dixon, the county’s own chief administrative officer, called the level of court funding agreed upon “necessary,” since the superivsors would have had to make most of the expenditures even without state help.

The majority of judges in both court systems share those views, and last week they voted to approve the agreement. The supervisors, however, have refused to endorse the pact, insisting that it be amended to include three changes dear to the hearts of the board’s three conservatives. They demand that, in order to get its money, the Superior Court limit attorney voir dire--jury selection--to 30 minutes or less in civil cases and “the greatest extent permisssable in criminal trials”; that the Alternate Defense Counsel (ADC)--a private contractor who represents some indigents when the Public Defender is unavailable--have its program extended into all Superior courts by July 1, and that the Superior Court expand its night court program.

All three of these proposals are of contested worth. The question of whether Californians wish to surrender their right to trial before a jury in whose selection their attorney participated deserves the most serious consideration. Alternate Defense Counsel has yet to demonstrate its cost-effectiveness and many trial judges privately express reservations about the quality of legal representation that it provides. Night court is an interesting but not unproblematic reform whose implications require further study.

Whatever the merits of these proposals, they touch on issues far too serious to be resolved through what amounts to fiscal blackmail. The courts, acting as the guarantors of all Angelenos’ rights, are correct to resist such rash conduct, even if it means losing the state aid. The supervisors have created this confrontation, and they can end it by endorsing the existing agreement before Wednesday’s deadline.