Reassignment of Judges Will Be Challenged in Court : Jurisprudence: Public defender says jurists had no authority to put new consolidated system into effect.

A new system designed to make the county courts more efficient by allowing municipal judges to try Superior Court cases will be challenged next week in the state appeals court, Public Defender Kenneth I. Clayman says.

Under the consolidation plan that began Monday, Municipal Judges Herbert Curtis III and Bruce A. Clark have been reassigned to Superior Court, where they now preside over major criminal cases.

A majority of the county’s 27 judges approved the plan, but Clayman said they had no authority to put it into effect because state law allows only voters to choose Superior Court judges.

“Our belief is that the law does not permit Municipal Court judges to hear felony cases on a regular basis,” Clayman said.

Deputy Public Defender Christina A. Briles, who is preparing an appeal called a writ, said the consolidation not only violates voter rights, but also ignores jurisdictional limits and separation of Municipal and Superior courts. Municipal judges typically hear only misdemeanors and civil suits involving less than $25,000, while Superior Court judges hear felony cases and major lawsuits.

“If we are not given the relief we want in the state court, we may seek relief on the federal level,” Briles said.

Superior Court Presiding Judge Melinda A. Johnson, who helped design and implement the consolidation, said Friday that she expected the legal challenge and welcomes it.

“All along I’ve assumed that they would make some type of writ,” Johnson said. “It’s the proper way to challenge it. I don’t mind it.”

Johnson insisted that the assignment of Curtis and Clark to felony cases is not permanent and therefore not a violation of law.

“These are rotating assignments,” she said, adding that even though she is a Superior Court judge she has been accepting assignments to the Municipal Court this week.

Dist. Atty. Michael D. Bradbury said his office supports the consolidation because it provides the courts flexibility to place judges in assignments where they are most useful.

Bradbury said cross-assignments “are badly needed, essential to our system of justice.”

He also called the objections to the consolidation “petty and territorial” and said municipal judges are as capable of hearing felony cases as their Superior Court counterparts.

“Relatively speaking, we have a good bench here,” Bradbury said. “There are a couple flaky people on it, but by and large we have a good bench.”

Officials in the public defender’s office stressed that they have no personal objections to Curtis and Clark. They just believe the courts are circumventing state law with the consolidation, they said.

In several cases this week, the public defender’s office has filed affidavits to disqualify Curtis and Clark from hearing felony cases.

Attorneys can file only one such affidavit per case under state law. So when Curtis has been disqualified, the case has usually been sent to Clark, and vice versa. Superior Court Judge Charles W. Campbell, felony division chief, made the reassignments.

“We file that disqualification, and what we are looking for is a duly appointed Superior Court judge,” explained Briles of the public defender’s office. “But rather than give us what we want, Judge Campbell is giving us the other Municipal Court judge.”

Presiding Judge Johnson said such cases have gone from one municipal judge to the other “because, frankly, they are the least busy.”

But Campbell said his goal was to make sure the new plan was not thwarted.

“The motive is not to allow the affidavit to break the consolidation plan,” he said.

In one felony drunk-driving case, the public defender’s office disqualified Clark only to see the case passed off to Curtis.

“This is all procedural gamesmanship,” complained Deputy Dist. Atty. Charles R. Roberts Sr., who bounced from one courtroom to another as cases were reassigned.