Mass. Courts Need 'Sweeping Changes,' Says Prestigious Panel

Mass. Courts Need 'Sweeping Changes,' Says Prestigious Panel

By Ed Oliver

The Massachusetts Court system is "mired in managerial confusion" and in need of "sweeping changes" according to the scathing report issued to Chief Justice Margaret Marshall on March 3 by a panel of eight business and academic leaders.

Marshall appointed the committee last August, asking them to assess the system's managerial strengths and weaknesses and to recommend improvements.

The panel found the court system to be "dysfunctional" with only pockets of excellent performance. "The existing organization of the courts is unmanageable, inefficient and lacks accountability," it said.

Due to inequalities in the system, "some citizens receive better justice than others." Also, "morale is near the breaking point, and there is little concern for customer service. Employees cry out for leadership. The public wants reasonably priced, quick, and courteous justice, but often receives the opposite," the report states.

It states further, "These shortcomings affect a broad range of constituents, as well as court personnel. Taxpayers bear the burden of an unreasonably expensive system, witnesses and police officers are away from other responsibilities as they wait to testify, and litigants wait years for justice."

Bolstering the arguments of those who suspect Beacon Hill political agendas are polluting the court system, the report revealed, "As the many line items of the Courts' budget wind their way through committee, individual judges, clerks, and other officials lobby for their units to be funded, and back room deals abound."

Mindful of the need to save money, the panel pointed out that mismanagement of jurors is costing millions of dollars. "Jurors called for jury duty but not utilized," it said, "cost the Commonwealth's employers tens of millions of dollars." It found that only 12.4% of citizens who appeared for jury duty in 2001 were utilized. "If utilization were raised to 24%, it would save over 150,000 workdays and approximately $23 million in wages for Massachusetts employers." The panel cautioned that, "Businesses avoid states with slow, unsteady courts."

Massachusetts courts have a reputation for being slow and costly, it says. A 2001 U.S. Chamber of Commerce survey of corporate attorneys ranked Massachusetts 45th in terms of timeliness, says the report.

Also, in a 2001 Massachusetts Bar Association survey of lawyers, judges received the lowest approval ratings for consideration, accorded to parties' time obligations and sensitivity to litigants' legal fees.

In another eye-opening statistic, the report says while the number of caseloads remained flat from 1994 to 2002, increasing only a fraction of a percent, the court budget increased a whopping 79 percent and the number of personnel increased 25 percent (even with layoffs).

Despite all that extra money and personnel, Massachusetts has four of the slowest counties in the nation in terms of time to disposition of civil trial cases, according to a 1996 Bureau of Justice Statistics survey of 45 of the most populous counties.

"Stopgap, piecemeal measures will not eradicate these deficiencies," said the Chairman of the Committee, Chancellor J. Donald Monan of Boston College. "The fundamental problem is that no one really knows who is in charge-at the local, regional or statewide level."

Some in the Courts expressed concern to the Committee about interference of the Legislature in the management of the courts.

The Committee pointed out that although the SJC has general powers of oversight over all the courts, the authority within the Judiciary is often directly assigned by the Governor or Legislature, rather than delegated by the SJC. "For example," it said, "the Chief Justice for Administration and Management [Justice Barbara A. Dortch-Okara] has been established as a nearly autonomous authority to manage the Trial Court. The SJC is prohibited by statute from exercising or overriding those powers except in egregious circumstances."

It is the same story at each layer of management, said the report. There is little ability to direct those below and little accountability to the one above.

As an example of waste and misallocation of resources, an interesting exhibit in the report shows how Suffolk County has too many courts of overlapping jurisdiction within a short distance of each other. Also, the District Courts of Suffolk County and the Boston Municipal Court receive over 70% more funding than the four western-most counties of Massachusetts, despite a similar number of cases entered.

The committee advised that "only a major transformation would provide relief to the court's problems." It provided 14 specific recommendations organized into three initiatives:

Commit to new leadership norms and structures.

Create a culture of high performance and accountability.

Establish discipline in resource allocation and use.

The report should not be used as an excuse for courts to plead for more money, because the Committee says, "Reaching this goal does not require additional funding. Full implementation of this report would result in a less expensive and more effective Court system."

The name of the panel is: "Visiting Committee on Management in the Courts."

Sidebar:

SJC Studying Ways To Improve Trial Transcripts

The panel which reported to Justice Marshall did not address the problems of recording trials and transcribing them because the SJC just established a separate Committee in February to see how they may be improved.

Chief Justice Margaret Marshall announced at the time, "The accurate and timely recording and transcription of trial proceedings is crucial to the fair, prompt and efficient judicial review of cases. Transcripts that are unduly delayed or that are incomplete or inaccurate seriously compromise the delivery of justice at every level of our court system. I am grateful to the members for devoting their time to this new endeavor, which will provide enormous benefit to the courts, the bar and the public."

Might this new study have been prompted in part by coverage in the past by MassNews of Zed McLarnon's missing and edited court tapes and his subsequent SJC and federal lawsuits over the incidents?

SJC spokesperson Joan Kenney tells MassNews, "The impetus for the Study Committee on Trial Transcripts was not a lawsuit, but persistent delays in the preparation of trial transcripts, producing delays in the progress of cases through the appeals process; and, to some extent, concerns about the accuracy of trial transcripts. It was also the push to technologically integrate court records management, case management, electronic filing, and public access via the web. Other reasons for the study are the difficulty in recruiting court reporters to work for the state courts, and the general desire of the Justices of the SJC to ensure that our court practices are in line with the best practices of a modern Judiciary."

MassNews asked if the Committee would take testimony from the public in this study. Kenney said: "The Committee is soliciting suggestions from court reporters and transcribers, but anyone having an interest or perspective on the issue is invited to send a letter to the Chair of the Study Committee, Judge Mark Green, at the Massachusetts Appeals Court, 15th floor, Suffolk County Courthouse, Boston 02108. The Committee includes representative court administrators, bar members and judges. After the Study Committee issues its report at the end of June, it is expected that the Justices will invite comments from the public."

Atty. Barbara Johnson tells MassNews that there are too few court reporters in the area and no more schools training them. She says it takes four years to build up the necessary speed of 120 words per minute.

"Many court reporters make over $200,000 a year," she says. "I'm on a case where the court reporter is making approximately $2500 a day, more than the judge, more than the clerk and more than the lawyers."

Johnson said justice is denied at the higher levels, such as at the Appeals Court and the SJC, because the average litigator cannot afford the transcripts.

"The criminally-charged, indigent defendants can get their transcripts paid for by the Commonwealth. The rich will pay, but Joe and Jane average simply cannot afford to appeal," says Johnson.

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