Charting a Course for Overwhelmed Courts : Commission wisely asks how to avoid future shocks

Traditionally, courts look to their past, to precedent, to inform their judgments. Rarely do the courts look to their future. Because the judicial system seldom plans for the future it runs the risk of being overwhelmed by onrushing events. This is the prospect that faces judges and court administrators in California, as elsewhere. And it is just this concern that has prompted California’s courts to undertake an extraordinary effort to plan for the next century.

California is one of only a handful of states to have begun such a comprehensive attempt to look forward. Leaders of California’s 2020 Vision project include Chief Justice Malcolm M. Lucas, the state Judicial Council, private citizens and the Commission on the Future of the Courts (a panel that Lucas formed last year). The commission’s charge is to identify trends that will affect courts in the year 2020, report on the likely future of the courts and, finally, devise a plan for the state judicial system. This effort will take two years and is financed largely by nonprofit foundations.

For now, the commission views a big part of its job as building consensus among the diverse groups that use and operate the courts. Toward that end, the commission recently sponsored a symposium in San Francisco, bringing together judges, administrators, academics, lawyers and business representatives.

The symposium discovered that the future will probably look much like the recent past. If so, that signals trouble ahead. Courts across the state have experienced fairly steady increases in their caseloads, combined with considerably less frequent increases in staff and funding. The number of criminal cases filed in state superior courts, for example, has more than doubled in the last decade. Total superior court filings--criminal, civil, family law and other cases--also are up, to a record 1 million cases in 1990-91. Yet no new trial court judgeships have been added since 1987.

That past provides ample impetus for change, but though the final report of the 2020 Vision project is not due until late next year it’s already clear that there are few easy or new answers out there. It’s also clear, from the results of a recent poll commissioned by the Judicial Council, that few Californians consider themselves familiar with the court system.

Moreover, a majority of those polled had an “only fair” or “poor” opinion of the state court system. Californians want their courts to ensure equal justice, fairness and speedier trials and to provide less crowded courts. Those are tall orders, especially at a time when the state is facing continuing budgetary and staff constraints.

Accordingly, the commission must grapple with tough issues that cut to the heart of our judicial system. Issues include who should have access to the courts, at what point in a dispute, how often and for which types of disputes. And the commission must ask whether the judiciary should seek alternative means of financial support that may provide more dependable funding but imperil independence.

The project’s goal is a difficult one. But the very fact that this ambitious project has begun offers hope that the courts will be able to master their fate rather than be overwhelmed by it.