By Malaika Fraley
STAFF WRITER

ContraCostaTimes.com

Article Launched: 08/14/2007 06:47:33 AM PDT
Contra Costa County Superior Court violated state law with a rule that prohibited people in divorce trials from presenting oral testimony, the state Supreme Court has ruled.
The ruling means a new divorce trial for Jeffrey Elkins, a Danville business consultant who challenged the county court's rule that required evidence to be submitted exclusively by written declaration, except in unusual circumstances.  More...

Justices strike down Contra Costa family court rules

East Bay Business Times

by Marie-Anne Hogarth
Article Launched: August 10, 2007

The California Supreme Court sided with a Danville man who sued Contra Costa County Superior Court saying that local rules adopted to speed up trials in the family courts robbed him of justice.

The rules requiring parties to submit testimony in writing ahead of the trial haven't been enforced in Contra Costa County since state Supreme Court justices held oral arguments last May. The case could be the beginning of a larger discussion about balancing efficiency and justice in the family courts.  More...

State may ease laws on divorce trials

By Bruce Gerstman
ContraCostaTimes.com

Article Launched: 06/18/2007 03:04:51 AM PDT
As the final step to end more than 20 years of marriage, Danville residents Jeffrey and Marilyn Elkins showed up in Contra Costa Superior Court for their divorce trial.
Marilyn Elkins had an attorney. Jeffrey Elkins, like the majority of divorce litigants, represented himself.

Jeffrey Elkins, a business consultant, was in for several surprises.

First, he learned that Contra Costa family court rules only allowed him and his wife to provide written declarations. Any oral testimony had to come from that written material, including any questions he might ask his wife if he called her to the stand.

Then he found out that he was prohibited from presenting nearly three dozen items of evidence -- ranging from e-mails to documents about his salary.   More...

The Justices' Opinion...

• The Court of Appeal explained that “a measure implemented for the sake of efficiency cannot jeopardize the constitutional integrity of the judicial process [citation]. In other words, court congestion and ‘the press of business’ will not justify depriving parties of fundamental rights and a full and fair opportunity to present all competent and material evidence relevant to the matter to be adjudicated.” (Id. at p. 1319.)
• Courts must earn the public trust. (See Cal. Stds. Jud. Admin., § 10.17, subd.(b)(5)(A) & (B).) We fear that respondent’s rule and order had the opposite effect despite the court’s best intentions.
• Executive Summary, p. 2 [80% of the cases have at least one unrepresented party by the time of disposition].) In its 2006 report, the Judicial Council estimated that “although family and juvenile cases represent 7.5 percent of total filings, they account for nearly one-third of the trial courts’ judicial workload . . . .” (Judicial Council of Cal., Ann. Rep. (2006), p. 26, italics added.)

• Actually, in its use of courtroom time the present judicial process seems to have its priorities confused. Domestic relations litigation, one of the most important and sensitive tasks a judge faces, too often is given the low-man-on-the-totem-pole treatment.” (In re Marriage of Brantner (1977) 67 Cal.App.3d 416, 422.)
• Although authorized to impose sanctions for violation of local rules (Code Civ. Proc., § 575.2, subd. (a)), courts ordinarily should avoid treating a curable violation of local procedural rules as the basis for crippling a litigant’s ability to present his or her case.

Supreme Court's Opinion

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Exhibits to Amicus Curiae Brief

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About the review
By the Mercury News

Article Launched: 01/22/2006 04:06:29 PM PST
The Mercury News obtained the appellate record for 727 criminal jury trial appeals. Those cases encompass virtually every appeal of a Santa Clara County criminal jury trial decided by the 6th District Court of Appeal from mid-1998 to mid-2003.  More...

PART ONE: Review of more than 700 appeals finds problems throughout the justice system
Investigation turns up justice system problems
By Fredric N. Tulsky

Article Launched: 01/22/2006 02:38:31 PM PST
Sermeno was arrested on felony hit-and-run charges after walking the half-block from his house to the scene of an accident. An overzealous deputy district attorney ignored evidence that pointed to a more likely suspect, instead winning a wrongful conviction.  More...

PART TWO: Prosecutors over the line
FOR THREE VETERAN LITIGATORS, WRONGFUL CONVICTIONS PUNCTUATE ACTS OF QUESTIONABLE CONDUCT TOLERATED BY THEIR SUPERVISORS
By Fredric N. Tulsky

Article Launched: 01/23/2006 04:15:18 PM PST

Three veteran deputy district attorneys -- Benjamin Field, Terence Tighe and John Schon -- made misjudgments or missteps in cases that ended in wrongful convictions. And in each instance, the district attorney's office missed opportunities to correct the injustices, by failing to react to warning signs in those cases and others the prosecutors handled.  More...

PART THREE: The high cost of a bad defense
Shoddy, inept representation routinely infects cases, a review finds -- and the damage to a defendant often lingers far beyond trial.
By Fredric N. Tulsky

Article Launched: 01/24/2006 04:50:47 PM PST
At first, after he was wrongfully accused of assault, Bobby Herrera believed he would find a lawyer who could prove his innocence. But in the last emotional minutes before he walked into court, attorney John Pyle was pressuring him to plead guilty.  More...

PART FOUR: How judges favor the prosecution
IN A FOURTH OF ALL JURY CASES, A REVIEW FINDS, MEMBERS OF THE BENCH APPLY THEIR TREMENDOUS POWERS IN WAYS THAT HURT DEFENDANTS
By Fredric N. Tulsky

Article Launched: 01/25/2006 05:35:45 PM PST
The first sign that the proceedings seemed biased against her client came when Judge Edward Lee began questioning a witness, attorney Elissa Eckman would later recall. More...

LAST OF FIVE PARTS
PART FIVE: Last chance, little help
A REVIEW FINDS THE 6TH DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL OFTEN MINIMIZES IMPACT OF MISCONDUCT, GOING TO GREAT LENGTHS TO PRESERVE GUILTY VERDICTS
By Fredric N. Tulsky / Data analysis by Griff Palmer

Article Launched: 01/26/2006 05:53:44 PM PST
The justices of the 6th District Court of Appeal agreed that Timothy Parle suffered from one bad ruling after another during his trial on charges he murdered his wife. But as in so many cases the court reviews, they did not consider the errors bad enough to do anything about them.  More...

The myth of a fair trial

www.gradethenews.org

Miguel Sermeno of East San Jose was separated from his children for eight months awaiting a trial and appeal for a crime he didn't commit. (Mercury News photo by Anne-Marie McReynolds.)
Bouquet to the San Jose Mercury News for an ambitious, must-read, nearly book-length five-part series this week on how the criminal justice system sometimes grossly fails to protect the rights of the accused.

More...

By Reynolds Holding

This may not come as much of a surprise, but going to court can make you sick.

No, really. "Sick" as in headaches, exhaustion, numbness, depression, even strokes and heart attacks.

So says Karin Huffer, a marriage and family counselor in Las Vegas. She's identified a new disorder for a nation already reeling from chronic fatigue syndrome, Internet addiction disorder and other new-age afflictions.  More...

By Bruce Gerstman

Public Defender David Coleman has asked that a justice from the state Court of Appeal order Contra Costa Superior Court Executive Officer Ken Torre to provide documents associated with a new contract for juvenile dependency attorneys.  More...