Davis’ Challenges on Courts

During his eight years in office, former Gov. Pete Wilson appointed close to 670 judges, more than one-third of the jurists now on the state bench. He championed California’s three-strikes sentencing law and radically changed the way trial courts are funded. Those wide-ranging developments, and others, pose urgent challenges in the fields of criminal and civil justice for Gov. Gray Davis.

As a group, Wilson’s judicial appointments were more diverse than many had expected. They included more women and more judges with civil law experience but fewer African Americans than were appointed by his immediate predecessors.

Davis needs to expand on Wilson’s record of judicial appointments. He should also work with the Legislature to fund new judgeships to keep pace with litigation and to entice good judges to reject early retirement.

Davis’ appointments will be watched and weighed against Wilson’s. So will his response to problems spawned by the three-strikes law. Wilson embraced the 1994 ballot initiative imposing a life sentence on anyone convicted of a third felony. Other states copied California’s three-strikes law, which within this state has contributed to overcrowding and violence in the prisons, including that perpetrated by poorly trained guards against inmates.

The new governor and his allies in the Legislature will have to find funds to ease the growing pressure in California’s prisons and to improve the training of guards. This newspaper maintains that a three-strikes law targeting violent felons, as opposed to all felons, would have been the better policy.

In a key structural change, Wilson presided over a major overhaul for funding trial courts, shifting responsibility from counties to the state Legislature and supporting unification of municipal and superior courts in most counties. He also encouraged long-overdue reforms to make jury service more attractive. The changes are far from complete. Davis must fight for funding to achieve the savings these policy shifts promise.

His No. 1 priority, however, should be to secure permanent funding for the state bar, resolving a situation Wilson needlessly precipitated more than a year ago. Angry at the bar over a number of petty differences, Wilson suspended its ability to collect its own dues, essentially shutting it down. Since June, Californians have been without recourse against unscrupulous or incompetent lawyers due to this rift. More delay in resolving this crisis would be intolerable.