Travis County Commissioners Court
February 15, 2005
Item A1
A 1 is to consider and take appropriate request [indiscernible] to -- call up a 1 first, if we can. I understand there are a few judges here on this them. Then let's go to -- to the other one which probably should take a little bit longer. But a 1 involves the -- involves the creation of a new county court at law number 8. Is it fair to say this would be the last item before we hit the lunch break. A lot of folks are lingering thinking we are going to go back to other business.
>> I would be real surprised if we finish both of these items by 12 noon unless I saw chris here a moment ago. There are some specific pieces of legislation that we need to discuss. Under the legislation item, right.
>> yes, there are two presentations, I think, from the staff.
>> I mean, so -- so -- it would be very close. So let's see. County court at law number 8.
>> good morning, judge Biscoe and commissions. I'm jan breland the judge of county court at law number 6. I'm here with my brethren and sisteren in the bar. We also today have betty blackwell the past president of the Texas criminal defense lawyers investigation, janet keiner from the criminal defense lawyers association. If they can help with information or if you have any questions for them, we appreciate their support. You had asked us to reconsider our request for the new court and we've had several meetings to discuss that and we've worked up, a lot of numbers for you. After our consideration, members of the court, we really believed that the new county court is necessary. We understand the bind that you are in financially and space-wise. But -- but deborah put together some -- some pretty shocking numbers here in this document that -- that is titled justification for request of county court at law number 8. These are things that I know that we had spoken with you about before. But -- but things are just not going to get any better. And if you have any questions about -- about these numbers, we'll be glad to talk with you about them. We -- among the five largest counties in Texas, we have significantly higher caseloads per court. And elizabeth can tell you a little more about exactly how many more, but it's significantly more. The population of Travis County, as you know, continues to grow. The backlog continues to grow especially in the area of the request for the jury trials. The -- bultd number 1, population growth is a 94% increase in the past 20 years, of course that's reflected in the courts. We -- we also would like to point out to you deborah has put together in charts attached to the memo. I hope that you all have this memo dated January 28th.
>> I don't think we got the charts, did we? Maybe there's a -- maybe there's a -- another --
>> attached to that. I know that you are aware of this, I would like to point out, that the county courts are non-revenue producing parts of the county government. And in fy '04 the Travis County courts collected almost two million in fines. Court costs and attorney's fees. -- reviewed our discussion about the -- about the court parts of the court's dockets meeting in del valle, we continue to believe that that's just not good policy and that's for the reasons that we have discussed earlier. Deborah put together a -- a -- some numbers about that and -- and in reality it doesn't look like that would save money, in fact would end up costing more money. Deborah was able to get some revised figures from the jail. I think some of the earlier figures were kind of -- were kind of misleading. Not intentionally, but didn't take into account a lot of things that we need to take into account. We continue to not be in support for that being part of the legislation. We realize that space, if there should be a new county court at law, we realize that there's a space concern. We would be glad to meet with the space use committee and try to figure out a solution to that problem.
>> is this court you wanted in place by what date? My intent '06.
>> if that's possible. We would surely appreciate that. And we -- we would work with -- with whatever committees, you know, and you guys to -- to figure out where to put it. We have -- we have some renewed efforts to work on more efficiently dealing with our dockets. And in fact randy left have it and dan -- levitt and dan from the county attorney's office have met with us, in the process of meeting with all of us to discuss some ways to more efficiently deal with our caseloads, we've always had a good communication with the county attorney's office and that just continues to get better. There are several defense attorney groups that we -- that our communication with them just continues to get better and we -- we truly do talk about efficiency, about -- about jail reduction and those issues and we do make progress. It's just the -- the numbers just continue to grow and we are not going to be able to deal with them with -- as effectively as -- as the public would like without that new court and -- and in addition to flat efficiency there are public safety concerns. Like judge earl pointed out, it's not unusual for us to be dealing with for example a dwi case that may be filed as a first when the person in the meantime has had a couple more waiting for the first one to -- to be resolved.
>> there are public safety issues, also.
>> may I make three or four points. I think the court heard you loud and clear when we had the work session several months ago about workload increases and basically the needs for another court. I think that we were pretty much in agreement. The other thing is that -- that our understanding was that it would be general jurisdiction, to be honest I had a different set of facts that I was working with when we had our last full discussion in court because frankly I thought we would save a whole lot more money if we were able to process some of these sort of routine misdemeanor criminal proceedings at del valle rather than bringing them down, I thought that amount was a whole lot more than 170,000 a year. The reason I think that's important is that my thinking was that we would figure out a way to pay a little bonus to get defense lawyers to be willing to go to del valle. And based on several conversations that I had with ms. Hail, it seems to me that if in fact we follow that thought, then chances are whatever savings we would generate by having proceedings at del valle would be neutralized or eliminated by the additional costs that we would pay to get lawyers to go out there. So -- so I don't think that -- I don't think that -- I don't think the significant financial savings is there that I anticipated.
>> it doesn't appear to be.
>> so I think -- I think that -- that the court is needed and whether I like it or not,, you know, sitting in Travis County, you know, may not be that important, all of the courts that we have had to date I guess sitting in Austin, for those listening for the first time, the del valle jail is outside of the city of Austin, the court sits in Austin legally the court does not have authority to handle criminal matters outside of Austin. But I think if we can get from the misdemeanor judges a commitment to continue to work creatively and innovate actively with us to -- to promote efficiency in how we handle cases, I think you all have done an outstanding job to date over the last couple of years. We appreciate that. But if we keep working toward promoting efficiency, trying to reduce costs at the same time, trying to efficiently move cases and the defense bar's notion that it makes sense for a defendant to see a real judge, especially before his position, that makes sense to me, too. I guess from my own thinking, we have sort of come around. We have never doubted the need for the court. We just thought if this court spent some time at del valle, we would realize substantial savings, I don't think that that's true right now. If we figure out a way to get that done in the future, I think let's just deal with it them. Now, there is a serious situation on the space it seems to me if we create this court 18 months from now, we basically spend the next 18 months trying to figure that out. Whenever we add another court we create a space problem, some of that has got to be moved, we have to require additional space, et cetera. We have done it a for you times before. We welcome the opportunity. But it does seem to me that, you know, this is not a unique problem for us. But if we start in September '06 assuming the legislature agrees, it would give us 18 months basically to prepare for it, as well as to continue to work on some of the other things that we should try to do. That's just my thinking on it. I don't know whether the other court members fundamentally disagree with that and I -- I know -- I mean it was -- it was money and space.
>> yes, sir.
>> last time.
>> and -- and the money thing I'm just thinking facts don't support the -- the thought that I had. And on space, that is a real issue for us and the question is whether we think we can deal with it 18 months from now. I'm saying if we have to, we have to. But, you know, there may be other views on the court.
>> I'm one of those other views. And it's not that I don't agree that you have serious workload issues. You do, but I have come to the conclusion that the space issue at this moment in time, today, in February, 2004, is insurmountable. And I can't in good conscience say we need to push forward with something without at least having some good idea as to how we are going to get there in 18 months on space. It takes 18 months if not month to get these things accomplished. When we went to the -- the legislature on the creation of the new civil court, we knew that many months out and we needed every second of it, that -- that a good number of tenants within the historic courthouse were moving out. Because of the acquisition of the airport boulevard location. And some moving around and the constables office eventually moving across the street. On the new criminal district court that we are advocating for at this moment in time, we have got a thought process in our mind how imperfect it may be, that we do have a full-blown criminal district courtroom that is up there and we can swap from folks around so we know how we are going to handle it. We -- I don't know where to put it. I don't. And the only offices that are out there that you would have to figure out someplace else to move them, you can't move a partial, you can't move a piece of ronnie earle's office, you can't move a piece of amalia's office, you can't move a piece of cscd. I don't see itronix out there at this -- I don't see it out there at this point. However, judge denton, you were very -- very convincing. Last budget year of saying, you know, i've got a problem in my court specifically related to my docket. Which I think is shared by everybody else in a different kind of way. What we approved for you is a package of extra prosecutors. To help you push those cases and you gave us ways that you thought having another prosecution team could reduce the workload in your courtroom. And we funded it and I look forward to that occurring. I have to wonder why that same technique cannot be applied to the other county courts at law, especially given the new framing the budget process that we just approved this morning which specifically says that we are interested in hearing proposals that direct resources toward and you all are here, reducing the adult jail population. With special attention toward inmates with mental illness. I know judge crane and judge hoengarten you all have been working very vigil leaptly -- vigilantly along with many others about issues of mental health. There are things that could help with the workload issue related to mental health issues, judge herman has been working on that as well. That's something different and doesn't require extra space. If it does require extra space it's within this building in terms of the county attorney's office where we do have more flex than over in a building that we don't have room for a courtroom. So I'm just wondering rather than being discouraged that we take the opportunity to say what else can we do in terms of prosecution teams to adhere in the same way that we did it for judge denton related to the domestic violence court and especially I'm looking forward to finding out how can we -- because the mental health caseloads can be just as time consuming and difficult and special as judge denton's with domestic violence. I have not heard that idea brought forward as saying you know there's one other way we might be able to tackle this. It doesn't involve space in the cjc.
>> we have discussed that conclusion Commissioner Sonleitner. And judge denton will be the first to agree that his caseload with -- with additional prosecution and the result is -- is distinguishable from the regular general caseload. It's not that new prosecutors -- we all kind of agreed that it would be helpful to have new prosecutors, but we honestly don't believe that it would necessarily speed dispositions just because of the nature of the cases. We -- the -- the county attorney's office would -- would probably be able to -- well, not probably, they would be able to do more in depth preparation and investigation into their cases, but the number of cases that are called for trial, we don't believe would decrease in family violence cases the prosecutors need to talk to a non-police victim. Usually in every case, that's not the case in dwis, which seems to be the -- the big volume of our cases. They in fact make the number of cases that are requiring trial could -- could very probably increase with new prosecutors and judge crane have -- if he has any more inpout or judge hoengarten, I'm not going to ask judge earle, she's squeaky today. It would be of value, but we don't believe it would increase the contest the cases on our dockets.
>> all right.
>> well, what -- the presentations that we made both last spring and last fall, I think you all understood and we were trying to explain that the nature of the caseload has changed dramatically in the last two or three years on the general jurisdiction courts. It was -- well, back then it was chart 3. It shows this upward line here on the dwi cases, which I think is -- this was in October, the last time we made the chart. And since October i've been tracking the dwi cases. We've had 700 cases of dwi filed, three out of four -- out of the last four months in Austin. Tracking back just the four years before that, we reached 700 two times in four years. Now we've reached it three out of four months of this year. That's what's driving the bottom line, which is our total number of cases pending on the docket. It may be true some other issues could be fully addressed if we had more prosecutors. I don't feel it's the judge's place to say I need more prosecutors. I always take what they give me. For years and years i've had 2. My docket was around 2100, now I have three, it's 2700 because there's more law enforcement on the street in these certain issues and population growth. So the bottom line is let's take anybody's example, county court, I can only do between 25 and 40 and I might drop dead doing that this year. I have already done four this year, by the way. But -- but of more -- having more prosecutors to have those jury trials is only going to reduce the docket on the jury docket. Which relates to how quickly we can get and relates to safety in the community. If I can send -- if I can have two trials at once and I have a visiting judging over in another courtroom, which gets back to the space issue. Go try another case at the same time I'm trying mine. So -- I mean, it may or may not. It's hard to say whether it really would be cost effective, judge denton's cases are characteristically different than ours. In a lot of ways. It's hard for me to say that that would really reduce our pending backlog, which gets back to it does kind of get back to space. The ability to have trials in a timely fashion, so every time we have a jury trial they don't say why is this case two or three years old? Because it always gets back to where good in the trial, probably the defense is going to say well, you know, this officer can't remember this because it happened so long ago. The jury starts thinking, you get this process of the appearance that we are not timely reaching these cases.
>> any idea on how we ought to deal with the critical space issue?
>> well, you know the plan when they built the building over there was to go down the tower, nothing other than that seems to make any sense because of the transportation and safety issues if you have to take them out where they are being pooled downstairs or held downstairs, if you have to go out of the secure area, which is up through the elevators to the central holding area, goes to the courts on either side of the holding area, if you go outside of that it seems to be problematic I would guess from the sheriff's department perspective. That was the plan for expansion. If we can't do it now. We can't do it now. But -- but at some point in the future, at some point in the future I think you know if that's the plan for the building, there needs to be another plan or that's going to have to happen. That involves major departments and where they are located. We can't -- those are your decisions, we can't -- all we can tell you is what we think our needs are and get it on the radar screen or -- for whatever in the future. If it's this session, I would hate -- I'm not going to say the word some other session, but there's a space committee --
>> no one ever thought it beyond well the third floor. The third floor will go where? Nobody has brought forward any kind of solution that says where the first floor -- third floorings, unfortunately the only things that I see out there on the horizon is if we make a commitment and go with a new civil courthouse. Then we will have folks that will be moving out of the historic courthouse into new facilities and you've just opened up space. But we're not there yet and we're for the going to have a new civil courthouse in the next 18 months. It's extraordinarily expensive and difficult to figure out these space issues. It just -- I don't see it. Are we going to kick out the district attorney? Are we going to kick out the cscd, are we going to kick out --
>> that may be a little strong.
>> selectively ask to move? [laughter] how about that?
>> the d.a. Said he would go, but he wants to be moved in toto.
>> exactly. They need to be in the courthouse complex. I don't see where these folks are supposed to go.
>> well, if there was a space committee that talked about these issues in a-- you know less than -- more organized way, I mean I think then they would have -- the issue would be who is it fundamentally important to have right next to the courtroom?
>> you are exactly right, judge crane, I'm on that space committee. When we looked at all of those things and I wished judge dietz were here because we have been talking about clearing the pallet so we can turn all of our focus and attention to a new civil district courtroom -- courthouse, so we have done strategic things to get folks out of downtown. Dana's election group didn't need to be downtown, accounting folks didn't need to be downtown. Printing folks didn't need to be downtown. Nelda's group didn't need to be downtown. We have done all of those things. You are talking about one more thing that says the needs of the criminal district courts and county courts are more critical than what's going on with the civil courts. And I -- I'm not going there.
>> judge hoengarten, enlighten us.
>> I wanted to say I'm not sure that we all -- I have a different feeling about whether or not the additional prosecutors will help. But the issue is that we will work with the county attorney's on that. That's something that they need to request and I would be supportive of, but it's not something that we necessarily can rely on to make a large enough difference. All of the things that we have talked about, helped to stem the tide, but they are no long-term solution. With regard to mental health, I don't see the need for a special court. I see the need to keep people out of the court system. Judge crane has been handling all of the mental health cases along with his regular don't. I think that the efforts that we are going to be making is to try to get those people out of jail and into some stable place. It doesn't change the tide of dwi's in this county. Maybe we need to invest in better treatment of alcoholism in Travis County to reduce the number of cases that we are seeing. Something is going on beyond perhaps the population. I don't know. But all of these things that -- that we can do, we will do, we are going to work together with the county attorney's office and whoever else but it's just -- it's not going to change the ultimate decision that you all need to make. And -- and --
>> two quick questions. When is the final deadline for new bills?
>> agains in March.
>> the first week of March.
>> second is if the legislature authorizes a creation of a new county court, 18 months from now, and we conclude 16 months from now that in fact we are unable to do it because of space, what happens?
>> I don't know.
>> I know in the district court the legislature budgeted money for the district judge, but in county court, 100% of the tab is picked up by the county. I guess my thinking is on one hand we could go over and file the bill and not get the legislative authorization anyway. And in which indication if you keep waiting session after session, I guess eventually it happens, but if you file early, there seems to be county support, you would think something like this would -- would sail through. What's clear to me is that -- even if it's blessed then there's a lot of work to be done, but the earlier you start the more time that you have to do that work. At some point, just because of the number of cases, and backlog that's are increasing, it does seem to me that this issue has to be addressed. And even if we hire additional prosecutors and try to help out that way, we may have to do that anyway, it will cost, you know, knight not quite as much as creating a new court and staffing it, supplying it, et cetera. But when I looked at the number, it was about 150 to $200,000 less, I think, but you still have to spend quite a bit of money if you really want to gear up and try to put a dent in an ever increasing problem. I don't think -- I think that we have heard all of the facts on this. Eastern the court is somewhat at odds. We do have another little issue that I just thought about. We had a policy in previous sessions that if we didn't have four people in support of legislation or in opposition we wouldn't formally take a stand. Now, I assume that that's -- still applies, although -- my motion is to authorize the creation of a new county court at law number 8 for Travis County and authorize our legislative consultants to draft appropriate legislation for expeditious filing. In order for that motion to new, it needs a second.
>> let me ask a question.
>> yes, sir.
>> yes, I would like a second. [laughter]
>> I know that you -- I know that you would. The obvious answer to me is -- why don't you do it in the evening? There's space. Would you all be supportive of that? Or is the defense bar going to get goofy crazy on me and tell me why we can't do that, too? I mean I --
>> why don't we do what in the evening?
>> have -- we are looking for space. I mean, courts, there's a ton of space you go over there at night, there are courtrooms, there's, you know, we could put 20 --
>> that's not a question that we alone can answer because it would involve the sheriff, the prosecution and the defense. I don't know how workable it would end up being with all of those different entities. So -- so I don't know if it would end up working well or not. If you are talking about a new court, saying they have to hold court at night. I don't think you could do that by legislation, it would also involve the new judge, whether they really want to hold court at night and whether they think the public, witnesses, meaningfully have access to trials that go on. I mean, I know they do it at some levels. I just don't know how it would play out, you know, a lot of people have to be at home with their children, taking care of their children that time of day. That's why I always end jury trials between 5:00 and 6:00, there's always somebody has to ha to go pick up the kids or they are going to get punished by the daycare, have to get them home, to the bed, all of that. It's always current through there. It's hard. The same thing with the police officers testifying for the prosecution. Home with a sick child. Defense counsel, my child is sick or something. It's always like that, I think that gets compounded with everybody -- most people having their family life together at night. Night court is hard.
>> I realize that would be hard. But it's a job. Some people say give me a job i'll take it I mean don't run for office nobody is forcing you to go. You know what I'm just looking at dollars and cents. That's the ball we keep in the air here. When I see that we collected $2 million, six of y'all, right?
>> five.
>> five? All right. So you -- you basically generate about 400,000 per court. These things are a million a court. So one of those deals maybe we ought to have -- ought to have 10 to be in the whole [indiscernible] that's not you all's fault. I will never question y'all's ability to take on the workforce. I mean, establishing a new court would reduce the strain on the current workload of the county courts and help to avoid a crisis. We are already in crisis. If you had another judge, I mean as opposed to having 5400 cases, you have 5100 cases. I have said that to the district judge's as well. I mean, we can only expect out of you all what any normal person can do in a day's work and that's all that I expect of anybody. Is justice being served, if we don't expedite and have whatever you all use in that legal jargon about fast and speedy, whatever it is, I -- I think, you know, what, i've never had one person as an elected official come up to me and say you know what you are not getting people through the court system fast enough. I get every once in a while, somebody will say god I tried to get something through the j.p. And it took me a long time. But very seldom is that something that comes because most people really don't know. Now that doesn't mean that it's right. But if we had an unlimited pot of dough, it wouldn't be any big issue. We would get this bond committee out here, you know what we need to do, more court space, jail space, we need all of this. I'm at least -- I'm glad deborah that you are putting together the information I guess the question that I would have is -- when you come up with your numbers, it's sort of like who is giving you the numbers? I believe the numbers, but yet I can see one set of numbers come to me. Kind of like going to lunch with you. You all convinced me you are not going to save any money Gerald doing that. Okay. Only to find a sit with a couple of jailers, why would you -- this happen, this happened, this happened, whenever you did these numbers, deborah, did you sit down with like major balagia saying I'm going to run these by you, I don't know whether it was major balagia, somebody said I was a little surprised about the defense bar when they came and said that was -- you can't do that, I mean, you are stripping people of their human rights or whatever it was. And it -- that person was just appalled. So that's not the case. There are ways, there are instances and places where you can show that you can expedite and you can make some of these things -- make some of these things work. You sit around and say, well, we could do that, but this is going to be difficult or this is going to be difficult. I realize it's going to be difficult y'all, but what we are trying to do is generate and find -- I would think that the biggest obstacle that we have in here, quite frankly the question that I always ask, if I'm willing to vote for it, where am I willing to put them? So I don't want to put myself in a box where I go, well, Gerald you just signed up for -- for three percent on top of the effective tax rate because that's what you signed up for. People tell us that. Well, that's what you voted for. Where did you think that you were getting the dough? And, you know, I'm -- I could get there as long as I could have you all say, hey, night court, defense bar, say night court, what do we have? I mean is it not have a court or we will find, I mean, that would be the first place that we would say there's the space. Could I get buy-off on that, jan.
>> back in my j.p. Days I had night court at least two nights a week, we were there a lot of nights until 10:00. And there were segments of the public that that was great for them. There were security issues. I mean, with -- I'm the first to say, I assume the other judges, we will be glad to consider that. I certainly would be glad to consider that. But it would -- it wouldn't just be the judge saying fine, we have security issues, clerks, probation officers, prosecutors. Many, many other departments would be impacted by it as well as the defense bar. Probably some of them it would be fine, but I'm -- I'm not going to shut that door.
>> legislative we have to, judge that --
>> no. There's another way to get there. That is that we talk about a master. We talk about an associate judge that can do some of this stuff and they can be told by their supervisors you are working these particular hours. And we do not need permission of the state of Texas to create these associate judge slots. They are also considerably less expensive, although valuable people, they are not as expensive as getting a county court at law judge hired on. So there are ways to get there. With the use of visiting judge time, associate judge time, neither which requires the permission of the state of Texas. And I actually do still believe that -- that there are places where additional prosecutors can be of great assistance and I -- I dearly look forward to recommendations on how to tackle not having folks that have -- have issues with -- with mental health and stabilization that have no business in the court system and unclog them in that way. I think there's some creative things here. Short of -- the most expensive way that we can tackle this is to create a new court, which -- which we could do, but we don't have anyplace to put people. That's not --
>> motion dies for lack of a second. Let's work on other creative matters. Other legislative issues today. Thank you all very much.
>> thank you, Commissioners.
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Last Modified:
Wednesday, February 16, 2005 8:38 AM