Release Date:  December 15, 2000	Release Number:  70

12 California Courts Win Top Awards

San Francisco—The Judicial Council of California today announced the winners of the 2000 Ralph N. Kleps Awards for Improvement in Judicial Administration, an annual awards program recognizing innovation in the state’s courts.

Selected from a field of 46 nominations, the council selected 12 exemplary programs for awards that will be presented next month at the California Judicial Administration Conference (CJAC), scheduled January 31-February 2 in San Diego.

Created in 1991 in honor of Ralph N. Kleps, the first administrative director of the California courts, the awards are given in five categories, according to the number of authorized judicial positions in each group.  Programs nominated for the awards are judged on four criteria.  The programs must be:

• Innovative.
• Transferable to other courts.
• In operation for at least one year.
• And improve the administration of the courts and reflect the intent of at least one of the goals of the Judicial Council’s Long-Range Strategic Plan (access, fairness, and diversity; independence and accountability; modernization; quality of justice and service to the public; education; technology).

Up Close and Personal with Division Six:  Second Appellate District, Division Six (Ventura)

• Up Close and Personal with Division Six is an outreach program to local high schools that was instituted in 1996. The court selects a criminal case on its calendar and sends copies of the briefs for the students to read and analyze. Students are then invited to oral argument to hear the lawyers argue the case. After oral argument students participate in a question and answer session with the lawyers. After the opinion is filed, a copy is sent to the high school so students and their instructor can discuss the issues involved in the decision. Students also receive a tour of the courthouse and are able to visit with each of the justices.

Reality Check: Superior Court of Butte County

• Concerned about the rising numbers of young adults involved in alcohol-related incidents, the court developed Reality Check. This is an interactive program designed and operated collaboratively by the Superior Court of Butte County, Butte County of Department of Behavioral Health and Enloe Medical Center, is an alternative sentence program for young adult, first time alcohol offenders. Offenders are exposed first-hand to the serious, often-deadly ramifications from alcohol abuse. Offenders are required to visit the Enloe Hospital Emergency Room and ICU, the Jesus Center, a food program for homeless individuals and Skyway House, a drug and alcohol substance abuse recovery program. The program is designed to assist young adults to realize and acknowledge the severe consequences of alcohol abuse, including homelessness, serious medical trauma and even death.

Keep Kids In School (KKIS): Superior Court of Fresno County

• Fresno County’s Keep Kids In School program, also known as KKIS, is an aggressive early intervention program that targets truant youth who, by definition, are more likely to drop out of school. Truancy has become a strong indicator of youth tendencies toward drug use and violent behavior. Since the problem of chronic truancy is not just a school issue or a court issue, but a community issue, the program leverages the expertise and support of the Superior Court of Fresno County, the Fresno County Volunteer Bureau, the District Attorney’s Office, the Probation Department, attorneys willing to provide pro bono services, Boys & Girls Clubs, Comprehensive Youth Services, Target Stores, and St. Agnes Medical Center’s Footsteps program. This collaboration, combined with enforcement and accountability, has made KKIS a unique and powerful program for combating school truancy and keeping schools safer.

• The Jury Duty Compliance Program is designed to achieve compliance with the civic-section of jury service and to provide litigants with as fair a cross-section of the community as possible from which to select jurors for trial. Additionally, delinquent jurors are provided with information about the importance of jury service and information about the county's One Day/One Trial rule. The program focuses on gaining compliance instead of punishing delinquent jurors. Between June 1, 1999 and May 31, 2000, 8,649 of the 14,831 people who failed to respond to a summons for jury service in the Stockton Branch of the Superior Court of San Joaquin County cleared their jury service obligation.  Without the compliance program, the court would have never heard from these individuals, and it is anticipated that as a result of going through the program, compliance with future summonses will be enhanced.

• The court acquired a Mobile Self-Help Center to expand the court’s existing self-help programs and meet the needs of those in the community who have difficulty accessing the Self-Help Legal Access (SHLA) and Family Law Self-Help Centers located in the courthouse and the Colonia neighborhood of Oxnard. The Mobile Self-Help Center provides the same informational assistance, educational materials and referrals to non-profit agencies and organizations that these centers provide, but does so in the form of a “bookmobile” type unit housed in a 35-foot custom-built motorhome. The Mobile Self-Help Center travels around the county visiting communities geographically remote from the courthouse on an established schedule. It is also used to respond to special requests from schools, health care agencies and community-based law enforcement programs to participate in educational forums.

Enhancement of Court Web Site–E-Commerce: Superior Court of Alameda County

• The court developed and implemented a new design for its Web site. The design reflects a unified superior court and the expanding level of Internet services and information made available to the public. The design perspective is that of a court customer and takes into account the kinds of information that will be helpful to the public, what topics are most frequently accessed. Information is organized for easy access, and the site provides access to e-commerce and interactive functions that are most in demand.

• Sara Berman Adoption Saturday evolved as a response to court’s growing backlog of incomplete adoptions. In some cases, children awaited adoptions for years. Through Adoption Saturdays, completed adoptions have increased at an unprecedented rate. Volunteer judge and attorney efforts are key to the program’s success. Pro bono attorneys assist prospective parents with adoption procedures and paperwork, which mitigates much of the delay associated with the process. Finally, these Saturdays provide decisive court action to address a persistent community issue.

• The Superior Court of Orange County, South Justice Center, in concert with the William Gillespie Foundation, Orange County Board of Supervisor’s Office, Capistrano, Saddleback Valley, Laguna Beach, Irvine and Newport-Mesa Unified School Districts, the Orange County Department of Education, the Orange County District Attorney’s Office, the Orange County Sheriff’s Office, Social Services Agency, Health Care Agency and many other supporters, are sponsoring the Second Annual Domestic Violence Training and Awareness conference for elementary, junior high and high school teachers, guidance counselors and psychologists in surrounding school districts. Attorney General Bill Lockyer is the keynote speaker and additional local and national experts will present state-of-the-art information to teachers, who are often the first person a child may reach out to for help. The goal is to further educate the teachers, counselors and other important school contacts on family violence issues and their effects on children. In addition, the program will provide community referral opportunities, as well as material and information to be passed on to students. The focus of the program is to train school officials to identify early warning signs, discuss teen dating violence, establish peer support groups for kids, and bring local county resources to the schools to support their programs.

• Several court supervisors and managers wanted more opportunities to develop and practice public speaking and presentation skills. As a result, Bagel (Brilliant, Awesome, Goal-oriented, Energetic, and Leaders Time) Time was born. Modeled after the international public speaking group Toastmasters, Bagel Time is an informal forum where court staff members can practice their public speaking and polish their presentation skills. The group meets once a month during the lunch hour. Membership in Bagel Time is open to staff members at all levels that want to better themselves.

• A series of nine public service announcements (PSAS) have been produced as part of a court-community education and outreach package that is designed to inform the residents of the county on court services and procedures. The project was designed to answer the most commonly asked questions of and about the court. These one-minute segments address universal needs of the community, feature the most-used services, and educate the public on court services, rules, and expectations. The topics of the PSAS include jury service, family court services, the Family Law Facilitation Center, and general courthouse rules. The Public Service Announcements have been distributed countywide and are now being aired on 12 community access television stations.

• The center offers, in one location, a unique collection of support services and consistent judicial oversight to victims, batterers, and their children. The center pulls together resources from the city attorney, mediators, public defender, volunteer lawyers and others. A recent study showed that cases are disposed of much earlier (cases settled at arraignment increased from 2% to 53%), and batterers are enrolled in domestic violence recovery programs in 23 days rather than 90 (75% less time).

Electronic Reporter’s Transcripts on Appeal:  First District Court of Appeal

• The project aims to capture reporter’s transcripts on appeal in an electronic format. It makes available to the court staff research material in an electronic, searchable format to reduce the time needed to review records on appeal. It also reduces storage costs of archived records by replacing paper documents with transcripts reduced to an electronic medium.

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