House Judiciary Committee
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Bills discussed (1)
| Bill | Title | Sponsor | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
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HB1869
· 2 mentions in transcript, chapter
Matched: “Meaning creating all of these districts that's in House Bill 1869? Right.”
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Pre-2017 bill |
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Speaker 1
0:00
Let's start back where we left off. I want to make sure that we're correct on our order of who was still left to speak. Representative Steele, you were speaking at the time. You still have questions?
Representative Nate Steel
Unverified
0:16
I do, Madam Chair. I don't know whether if we have to have a particular number for
Speaker 6
0:25
a quorum or if we could proceed. I was talking a
Representative Nate Steel
Unverified
0:35
little bit about a lot of these questions are aimed at Mr. Gingrich
Representative David "Bubba" Powers
Unverified
0:40
and I don't see him here. Representative Steele, let me tell you that Mr. Gingrich is on his way along with Chief Justice Hannah is going to be here to answer some of your technical questions,
so we'll entertain anything that we could until those two arrive. Okay. Well, I guess this is going to
Representative Nate Steel
Unverified
0:59
be a semi-real and semi-rhetorical question then because I've asked you most of these personally, but since we're sitting around waiting on people to come, I guess I'll just keep asking the same ones.
Do you know whether, and I think I raised this question a while ago, Now, do you know whether the districts that have full-time district judges either in the planning phase or currently are equal in any way to population to other districts that are planning on having these full-time district judges? Or, in other words, is it, as I mentioned earlier, mostly based on caseload? Well, I think Keith
Representative David "Bubba" Powers
Unverified
1:36
can be a little more helpful in that. We do have, and I'm assuming he has it with us today,
There is a list that shows how they rank in caseload. Am I mistaken, Keith? Yeah, we have a list along those lines, and that would take in, you know, certainly the ones that are the 25 that are already full-time state courts. So we do have that. We may just have to hunt around for it. Well, Mr. Kavanaugh says when we use the word
Speaker 2
2:06
caseload, I know you can't hear three things at once, so I'll wait.
Representative Nate Steel
Unverified
2:23
That's okay. Mr. Kavanis, when we use the term caseload, are we referring to any violation or misdemeanor in district court? Or, for that matter, maybe even small claim in
Speaker 19
2:34
district court? That would be correct. One citation equals one case. So if
Speaker 20
2:38
a district judge is fortunate enough to have maybe a truckway station or something
Representative Nate Steel
Unverified
2:44
in that district, I would assume they're going to have a heck of a lot more violations than a district judge who does not have a major interstate or a truckway station.
Is that correct? Yes, sir. That is correct. So despite the fact that we may be dealing with a district that has the same population, perhaps the same crime rates, we'd still have a district judge that in one district where he doesn't have an interstate or a way station spread much thinner of a greater geographic area than a district that's so fortunate as to have a truck stop or an interstate. Is that fair to say? I think that's fair to say.
Was there any attempt to consider, I know you discussed geographic area, But was there any attempt to consider population and maybe numbers of actual misdemeanors or small claims or separate those out from the violations and
Speaker 25
3:47
citations? I mean, this DECRAB we keep referring to, District Court Resource Assessment Board, who forwarded this proposal, when they started studying this,
We, they did consider population, geography. We used Tim Humphreys from the Secretary of State's office. He presented maps and presentations on all that. So more than just the caseload was considered. We tried to consider shopping patterns and voting patterns and geography. And as J.D. said this morning, initially this was based on a weighted caseload
where a small claims case might take longer than a bond forfeiture traffic case. Well, that just proved to not be an effective way to judge the need for a judgeship. As it ended up, could you
Speaker 2
4:44
tell me maybe what percentage? I know you probably don't know
Representative Nate Steel
Unverified
4:47
exactly, but what percentage of this calculation is based on caseload? You said you considered geography and all these other things, but what percentage would you say is...
Speaker 27
5:01
Meaning creating all of these districts that's in House Bill 1869? Right.
Speaker 25
5:09
I mean, it all factored in. I don't think there was a percentage assigned to the caseload, although that was very important in determining the need for a full-time judge. Okay.
Representative David "Bubba" Powers
Unverified
5:22
Let me assure you, Representative Steele, that we didn't
just take the caseloads, one through ten, and say this is what we will decide that will be a part of our state district court.
So to, and I think what Keith's trying to say, and he said very well, is simply it was a factor. It was part of the formula, if you will, of what we used. But there were many factors that, as I mentioned to you earlier, we certainly wanted to stay within our circuit districts as much as possible. So there were a lot of factors, not just caseload, even though it may appear,
because when we start talking about this, you know, the question we usually run into is when someone says, well, why can't I be, I say, well, your caseload doesn't warrant that. Well, that's very obvious in some of these districts. In your district, I can tell you unequivocally that one county doesn't warrant a full-time judge for its caseload. Now, I'm fairly certain that two counties would not pass the muster of the D.C.R.A.B. board, obviously, when we went through these choices.
So I agree with Keith that there were several factors that we used during the determination. Would
Representative Nate Steel
Unverified
6:48
least look at not just my district but several others and determining, I don't know what the criteria was used, but would it be possible to appeal to the DCRAB board and show them numbers in terms of population, in terms of numbers of misdemeanors compared to misdemeanors in other districts as opposed to just violations in others?
And if a compelling case could be made, would it not be feasible to consider a two-county district that might have a smaller,
Representative David "Bubba" Powers
Unverified
7:20
quote-unquote, caseload? And my answer to that simply would be, yes, it's been very possible for the last four
years. And that has been one of our problems because I think I only missed one D-CRAB board meeting. And I know that the district court or the district judges association, this has been one of their front burner issues. And Kay Palmer, I know who is the secretary of that organization,
has provided as much information or certainly tried to answer the questions she's received. But at this point, the DECRAB board recessed, I believe it was in November, with their recommendations to the legislature. Now, this is not a one-time board meeting. This is something that we've been certainly going over
since two years ago when I created the legislation in 2009. Just a couple more
Representative Nate Steel
Unverified
8:10
questions, if I might, Madam Chair.
As far as the plan here on what district judges will do under this plan, my understanding is the primary goal is to have circuit judges refer out certain cases to district courts. Could you tell us a little bit how much of that would be discretionary among any particular circuit judge? How much is prescribed by law? And just kind of describe that for us a little bit. Well, I
Representative David "Bubba" Powers
Unverified
8:35
would love to do that, but what I would like to do much more than that, Madam Chair, if you would allow
me to introduce the Chief Justice, I think he can answer those questions much better than I can.
Speaker 45
8:46
Please do. Thank you very much. Is that on? Yes, sir. Thank you very much. Representative Steele, this has been a work in progress
Speaker 44
9:04
that's been going on since the Supreme Court issued a couple of procurements is seeing that as the division of Amendment 80, which is a judicial article which was passed in 2000, of having a true three-tier system of courts is to have full-time district courts in the entire state of Arkansas.
As this developed, there's a lot of legislative history. The legislature made a commitment to the judiciary, and the judiciary likewise made a commitment to the legislature. And one of those was to look at our rules and change them, as the case may be. And what we've done, we've looked at them several times. It has been a work in progress. There was the argument made that these full-time district courts, that it should be the same over the entire state.
And that's a very valid argument, something we wrestled with long and hard in conference. We finally decided the best way to do this would be to pass some rules which gave more flexibility, more jurisdiction to our district courts. And it would be up to the circuit judges and to how much they wanted to implement and utilize the district courts. We have some of our district judges who had more on their plate
with the jurisdiction they had as the old municipal judges that they couldn't assume any other work, especially those where we're confined in a small urban area. We had others in the rural areas where the caseload perhaps might not justify a full-time district judge, but you also had circuit judges that were having to travel, not being in the counties on a very regular basis. So they opted out, some of these districts opted out for this flexible plan, such as under our rules, which we modified,
we allowed the district judges to hear uncontested divorce matters, probate matters, which were uncontested, and other things of that nature. And it's worked very, very well. It's up to the circuit judges when they submit their plan, that's how they're going to handle their cases. They advise the Supreme Court, this is what they recommend, and we sign off or agree to what they're wanting to do. So it's very flexible. Just recently, the most recent matter that we did is to give more flexibility and more jurisdiction to our district courts.
There's some thought about the possibility of expanding our drug courts. in these rural areas for the district judges to do. There's also some thought about expanding the – there's a program that's been developed in Hawaii. Alaska has adopted it. It's called the HOPE program, which is basically modeled after the drug courts, which allows – but it's probation. But it's very similar, very comparable to our drug courts,
and it's been very, very successful. Well, when you start doing some of these things, and also the domestic abuse matters, and I know you're very well aware that they need to be attended to very promptly, but that they would possibly have jurisdiction of that. The point is that it comes that they have to be a court of record, and that's one of the things we dealt with, and it was recommended actually from the DECRAB board. It also came from – this all came from a meeting with the administrative judges and district court judges and some recommendations they made.
And we have – our rules now provide that we can have a court of record in the district courts with some digital – very similar to what they have in the federal courts. So we're moving in that area. To answer your question, it's very flexible and depending on the area and what the circuit judges, how they
Representative Nate Steel
Unverified
13:17
want to utilize it. Thank you, Mr. Chief Justice, and it's an honor to have you
Speaker 2
13:22
here. Just a couple more questions, and I'll yield to a colleague. But has there been any concern under the new plan with circuit judges, I guess,
Representative Nate Steel
Unverified
13:31
yielding some authority to the district courts in that regard, as well as it looks like under our new Public Safety Act that we expect to become law soon. We're going to focus more on local punishment, more on misdemeanors than on other crimes, and it looks like it will focus more on district courts. Has there been any concern that we may take so much out of the circuit courts and put them in the district courts that we will be looking at creating some kind of problem on a circuit level, maybe expanding circuit courts in terms of lessening their caseload
or anything like that? Maybe even getting to pay
Speaker 41
14:07
them less. Please don't tell my circuit judges, particularly the
Representative Nate Steel
Unverified
14:10
one that's my uncle, that I said that. But is there any chance that it would actually lessen the load on circuit courts and that that could have any
Speaker 44
14:20
other consequences? That's one of the matters that comes into play here, certainly. And one of the things we talked about is it's possible that the district courts could be taking on some of the caseload that the circuit judges had, And I'm certain that some of the decision-making processes, what these circuits are allowing or agreeing for the district courts to carry it to do,
they're also concerned about their own caseload as well and what they're able to do and what they're not able to do. But what it has allowed, especially in the rural areas, is allowed better access to the people, the lawyers. And when the lawyers have access, that means the people are better served. They don't have to wait several days when the judge is there to get their orders entered or what needs to happen. We're also talking about entry of pleas. But one of the things we talked about and discussed about back when we first started is the very possibility that this would allow a better bang for the buck,
better use of our manpower that we have, and it could possibly lead and would hopefully lead not to asking for an increase of more circuit judges, which, as you well know, is, what, $400,000, $500,000, $600,000 every time you add another circuit judge. But that was certainly a
Representative Nate Steel
Unverified
15:30
goal that we have. Thank you. And just a
final question or comment. I understand that we've only got a little over a month left in the session, and I know I've asked some difficult questions, and I commend Representative Powers and DCRAV Board and everyone for working so hard on this.
I would submit that since we haven't had a meeting set particularly for discussion, as we did with the Public Safety Act and several other big pieces of legislation like this, that based on my particular map and other concerns, I don't know that I could support this legislation at this time, but that said, there's still a lot of time left in the session. So I hope you all understand that I don't want all your work to be for nothing, and I appreciate everything that Representative Powers has done, and I hope that if this bill does not pass today,
we can still sit down and look at the map and consider some other numbers, consider some other things outside of just caseload, because I think that's a very arbitrary standard, as I've mentioned, and see if there's other ways to work the map and other ways to accomplish
the same goal. And I thank you all for being here. And I guess
Representative David "Bubba" Powers
Unverified
16:36
since this is supposed to be a question, I'll say, don't you agree? Well, obviously I don't. But I would say
this, whether the legislation fails or whether it passes, you're still going to have the opportunity to look at that map. And I'll just make a little bit of a statement here, Madam Chair.
If I were bringing the same legislation, and I think I've talked to you about this, If I were bringing the same legislation that I brought before this committee in 2009, the question wouldn't be, because if I came here and said this is not costing us anything, this may even save us money, this is something that's working very well in the 25 courts that we already have, and we were just going to add the six or seven or eight that we did in 2009, then I doubt we would be having this expanded conversation.
What has created the problem now that we have a map, and the purpose of having the map is because we knew the legislation wanted us to have the consolidation completed by the end of 2012. We knew as a board we could not do that. But to keep with the intent of the legislation, we wanted to at least provide a map or the guidelines to go forward. That, in and of itself, has created the biggest problem
because everyone thinks they're going to be pigeonholed in to what this map is. And I'm going to be the first to tell you that your map looks like the top of my head. It's not fun to look at. But I can't do anything about either one of them right now. But I do know that yours, unfortunately my problem, is not flexible. Yours is flexible, and it can be changed. But we don't have time. Now, I take exception to that because I've seen the calendar on the other end,
and we do not have time to waste on this. You know that that's why we're sitting here today is to try to get a determination on this legislation today because time is of the essence. This is a very important piece of legislation, something that's been being worked on for many years. We're doing the best we can to convince you that you do have the flexibility needed to fix your problem. And, frankly, you do have a problem.
Representative Nate Steel
Unverified
18:58
One more question, and I mean this with absolute, you know, Representative Powers, I have more respect for you than I'm going to stand by the Chamber.
I think you're an excellent legislator. But was it assumed that the D-CRAB Board itself would make all of these decisions and this committee would be a rubber stamp when it got here? I mean, it seems like if we were truly, if our back's against the wall and this has been going on for so long, it must have been assumed that everybody on the committee would just vote yes when it got here after being told how important legislation was and how long
Representative David "Bubba" Powers
Unverified
19:28
it's been worked on. Well, since the Chief Justice has been in most of our meetings and he's heard me rail about this,
there were no assumptions made at all. In fact, we discussed the ins and outs many times of passing this legislation. The first 19 that were passed, since there was no cost to the state, and these were folks that were ready to go in, I think Representative Harrelson had a relatively easy time of getting that legislation in on the pilot court program. It was a little bit harder last time, but it passed out of here, as I recall, unanimously after some questioning just like I'm getting today.
So there's never been an assumption on the DECRAB board or my part that anything is going to be rubber-stamped by the legislature. In fact, my experience in the 88th General Assembly is that's an obsolete phrase. So, no, that never came. I don't think anyone ever assumed that. Next on the list was Representative Wright. Thank you,
Speaker 60
20:28
Madam Chair. before I start questioning
Representative Marshall Wright
Unverified
20:37
the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court which a lawyer doesn't get a chance to do very often you know I'm not treating him like that district judge both of you within the table I don't think I need to say how much respect I have
Speaker 64
20:52
for both of you but I do have I do have problems with this my first problem is how is the jurisdiction going to be at all uniform across the district courts if the circuit judges are going to be able to decide across each district,
and especially when the district courts, my understanding, don't align with the judicial circuits, the circuit courts. Well, I'm going to
Representative David "Bubba" Powers
Unverified
21:18
let the Chief Justice answer this, but I want to answer the circuit situation. And Keith can tell you full well that that was one of the great pains that was taken to do the best possibly and to align these maps with the circuit districts. Now, I don't think we can be 100 percent, but there were great pains taken by the folks drawing this map
Speaker 68
21:40
to make sure that that happened. Representative Powers is exactly correct. That's one of the things
Speaker 44
21:50
we looked at very closely to make sure to keep it within the judicial circuit districts as much as possible for the problems you're talking about. and in most instances we're able to do that. Some we just were not able to do that. But certainly we weren't looking, we've never just looked at numbers. We've looked at all the things about the rural area, the aspect of the rural area, the number of courthouses. You know, in 2012 our city courts are no longer, our district judges are absorbing them.
You know, in White County I think there's some eight city courts that the district judge, one district judge is taking over. So you have to consider that, and the entire workload is together with whether it's just traffic cases or if it's misdemeanors or what the matters are. These are things that we did consider. To answer your question, where they do cross lines, and there's not very many of them, but they would be part of that judicial plan that is submitted by the circuit judges to us.
and they would like if there's a Monroe County over in Arkansas County, then they would be subject to whatever county they happen to be setting in if that's the counties that are together. I'm just using that as an example. But to go back again, we just felt like that the people were better served if we had some flexibility because we feel like that the district courts, the circuit courts know their districts probably perhaps better than we do, and we felt like that they would better serve their people as opposed to just having a uniform.
We discussed this about whether to just have a uniform plan for everybody because, like I said before, some of our district judges got more on their plate before
Speaker 45
23:28
this all happened without adding any additional jurisdiction. But that's what we're
Representative Marshall Wright
Unverified
23:33
trying to do. So we're going to have situations where district judges
Speaker 64
23:37
are looking at one set of circuit court judges for their plan as well as a separate set of circuit court judges in a different district for the plan. Is that correct?
Speaker 45
23:53
That's possible, but you have to understand that they
Speaker 44
23:56
will be only doing that not every place they sit. They're just what the county they're sitting in. And I have looked at all these plans, and I can promise you that there's not a whole lot of difference and the plans, what they utilize from district to district, except from
Representative Marshall Wright
Unverified
24:14
the urban to the rural. Okay. Thank you. If I may, some more questions, Madam Chair. The cases that the district courts will be handling, you mentioned that they will be uncontested cases.
Is that correct, that we have some uncontested divorces, uncontested probate, things
Speaker 76
24:33
like that? That is what they have at the present time. But what I said before, we have
Speaker 44
24:40
been working at our rules are a work in progress, and we've added some more flexibility because there has been discussion about the domestic abuse, which obviously could lead to some possible contested matters. You know, you're talking about taking pleas and things of that nature where it needs to be a court of record.
The Supreme Court has modified the rules to allow that they become a court of record by using a digital system, and we just did that. Here's where I'm
Representative Marshall Wright
Unverified
25:10
getting at, Chief Justice. Case goes to uncontested right now, and it's a divorce case. Those cases typically are the cases that quickly turn from uncontested after you sign the decree with a child support agreement and a child visitation agreement in place and then shortly after that they become highly contested.
Where does that person go for relief at that point? I
Speaker 44
25:34
would suspect, in my estimation, that they would go to the circuit judge. How do they get back
Speaker 82
25:40
to the proper circuit judge? If the case has
Representative Marshall Wright
Unverified
25:44
been assigned to that district court judge, who do they know which judge to go to? I mean, they can't just pick one.
Speaker 44
25:51
No. It is my understanding that those cases are supposed to be done by some type of a random choice and assigned, and that will have a number, and it will go back to the number it was assigned to that circuit judge.
Representative Marshall Wright
Unverified
26:06
I don't see a problem there. Well, I see a problem
with efficiency because, especially in cases like that, Your Honor, a judge who may have handled divorce has great knowledge of that case, and now what you're asking is that a judge that has absolutely no knowledge of the background of that situation or that divorce would now be placed in the position of having to determine the
Speaker 45
26:30
custody or make the call. Representative Wright, what
Speaker 44
26:34
we're talking about originally is hearing an uncontested matter.
So the judge is not aware of the facts except what's been presented. You've
Speaker 78
26:41
been to those procedures last maybe five minutes. Yes, sir. And they're signing a decree, so that's
Speaker 82
26:46
not a problem. But what I'm saying, Your Honor, is when it becomes contested and it has to go to a circuit judge, a circuit
Speaker 77
26:54
judge will not have had any knowledge of the
Speaker 44
26:57
background of the case. Is that correct? What I'm saying is that the district judge will not have that knowledge either. I served for 22 years as a circuit judge, and when an uncontested matter came before me,
Speaker 45
27:09
I heard the testimony and what the agreement was. If I agreed to it, I signed the decree. If it later develops in a change of custody, that's a whole different fact. I was not privy. I was not aware of that information that they were talking about other than what was presented to me in a five-minute
Representative Marshall Wright
Unverified
27:29
or less hearing. What about – thank you, Chief Justice. What about in a probate case? Do
Speaker 64
27:34
you see it the same way as probate cases often take several years to dispose of?
Speaker 44
27:39
What we're talking about is a district judge hearing an uncontested matter, and I know you practice law. and normally probate uncontested matters are presented uncontested and it's a matter of an exclamation and an order entered, such as appointing a court, an executrix or an executor or an administrator of the estate or a guardian. If it becomes contested, then the circuit judge would hear the matter. Thank you, Chief
Speaker 64
28:04
Justice. And this one more question, and this is for either one of y'all. What impact is this going to have on the public defender system
and how is it going to add the need for more public defenders to staff these courts? Well,
Representative David "Bubba" Powers
Unverified
28:23
I can certainly tell you that over the years that we've been dealing with this, that's never been a problem with DeeDee and the public defenders. They have never had a problem with what we're doing. And since she does her business, knows her
business, I haven't heard any complaints from the Public Defenders Commission in regard to that.
Speaker 45
28:44
Thank you, Madam Chairman. Thank you. Next on our agenda. If I could just respond, Madam Chairman, that I can certainly tell you where I'm from in White
Speaker 72
28:54
County that that matter is not an issue that has been resolved. Thank you,
Speaker 91
29:03
Chief Justice. Thank you. Next on the agenda was Representative Ratliff.
Speaker 92
29:08
Okay, now, guys, I had never, the only court I ever had was my dad took me in the back of the woodshed, and he always won every time.
But I've got a couple of questions. If in 16, I think, is the district that my county, Lawrence and Jackson County, is going to be in, we're going to have one judge for the two counties. Is that correct? Thomas, yes. Will that judge be where they can be accessible for warrants at any time, day or night? You know, that's one
Representative David "Bubba" Powers
Unverified
29:46
of my sheriff's concerns. Well, let me just answer that.
They already are. But let me say this, that technology being what it is today, That happens throughout the state of Arkansas at this point because I have two circuit judges in two counties. Right, right. And they don't always end up, both of them at home, one in Hempstead County, one in Nevada County. So somehow they make that work, and that hasn't been a problem. Well, at Lawrence County, Judge
Speaker 92
30:17
Hazel is behind the courthouse, and they just run over and knock on the door.
Representative David "Bubba" Powers
Unverified
30:23
Well, the circuit judges are still going to be available. for warrants, and so that's not changing at all, Representative Ratliff. In fact, you know, a district judge may or may not be more accessible, you know, just in a physical sense, but I really think that's probably a moot point with the technology that we have today. Okay. Will they
Speaker 92
30:43
hold trials in all the towns still like they do now? That's correct.
Representative David "Bubba" Powers
Unverified
30:48
And, you know, the old term circuit preacher, circuit judge, and I guess, you know, in a sense, these district judges will be the same way,
But that's correct, and that's how the practice is right now with the 25 that are currently in place. Right. Thank
Representative Mary L. Slinkard
Unverified
31:12
you, sir. Representative Slinkard. Well, I feel a little bit, thank you, Madam Chair, I feel a little bit out of my league here. But under the rules prescribed where a state district court could hear circuit court cases,
Those are cases that are already filed in circuit court, and then would the clerk have to do the random selection? Maybe I'm not making any sense there. Let me see
Representative David "Bubba" Powers
Unverified
31:45
if I can decipher what you're talking about. In other words, if a case is filed in circuit court and you have multiple circuit judges, you're asking how the clerk is going to, she pulls a number out of a bottle.
I'm not sure how you all do it up there. But then I don't, unless Keith or the Chief Justice has a different answer, I don't know that anything is going to change in regard to that. The case, I'm assuming, once a circuit judge, and Chief, correct me if I'm wrong, If it's going to be assigned to district court, I think he simply enters an order doing so. Would that be correct? Okay, thank you. Thank you.
Representative Mary L. Slinkard
Unverified
32:31
If I may, Madam Chair, one other thing. As I said, I'm kind of out of my league here, but in here it's talked about local district courts. Are those city courts or the departments are now being changed to departments of the state district court?
Representative David "Bubba" Powers
Unverified
32:50
Well, I'm going to let the Chief Justice or Keith answer that, and they
Speaker 25
32:56
can explain it better than that. I can answer that, Representative Slinkert. Right now we're calling, we have pilot state district courts,
and we have district courts. This bill would change the terminology to be a state district court served by a full-time judge, and then those district courts that aren't served by the full-time state district court judge, the local district court, paid by the cities and counties just like they are now, calling them, there'd be a, if it's a full-time judge paid by the states, a state district court, if it is part-time and paid by the city and county, we would refer to it as just a local district court.
Representative Mary L. Slinkard
Unverified
33:40
Thank you. Thank you very much.
Speaker 2
33:48
Thank you, Madam Chair. Representative Walker.
Thank you, Madam Chairman, Chairperson. I want to echo what the lawyer members of the committee said. Chief Justice, we are honored and in awe of your presence here, and we respect the court so much, and also we respect the work of the committee and hate to be in a position where
we question anything this fine committee has done, and, of course, anything that the Supreme Court has authorized, but I have a few questions. I mean, I'd like, maybe this goes to Representative Powers to begin with. Why was it necessary, with the authority of the Supreme Court, to have the legislature create this structure that is
being proposed? And I guess the question is, why couldn't the Court have done it itself?
Representative David "Bubba" Powers
Unverified
34:44
I'm not sure if I can answer why the court couldn't have done it itself, but the legislature did create the District Court Resource Assessment Board to come up with a way to create the pilot district courts or to put those in place. And the legislation also suggested that we create a way to consolidate those courts. by the end of 2012, I think, is what the original intent was.
So the Resource Assessment Board is simply doing what the legislature is asking to do to present their findings to the legislature and
to allow the legislature to draw up and pass whatever type of
Speaker 2
35:32
legislation they could. Well, my question, of course, goes to this. Either the Supreme
Court under, is it Amendment 80? has the authority to do this, or it doesn't. If it...
Speaker 117
35:45
Yes, sir. Representative Walker, Amendment 80 is where the
Speaker 25
35:49
authority for this plan, as it's presented
to you today, comes from. It says that the General Assembly establishes district court districts and the geography of them and the number of judges. All right. It doesn't give the Supreme Court that authority. All right. Supreme Court's authority in the matter is to establish civil jurisdiction for district courts. All right.
Speaker 2
36:16
I appreciate that explanation. Now, I want to hasten to add,
Chief Justice Hannah, I'm always reluctant to be in a position
to ask you questions, because in my experience in dealing with people who are in judicial positions, you never know when you antagonize them, and you all have so many different ways to retaliate against us until I'm reluctant, but here I go. I know that judges do that, in my
experience, and I hope you won't hold my questions against me. Can I
Speaker 81
37:00
Well, I know you, but I'm talking about with the court. And you've known me a long time,
Speaker 2
37:09
and you know that you don't have to ask that question. All right. Well, now, that being the case, the first question that I have is how with the prisons being full of black folk, more than half of the prison population is African American. There were no African
American persons on the committees that were set up to address
this issue? None. MR. Of course, Senator. MR. Mr.
Representative David "Bubba" Powers
Unverified
37:43
Powers and I have addressed that. MR. Yes, and I want the committee to know how I answered your question, sir. Senator, was it Brown, Senator? MR. Irma Hunter Brown. MR. Irma Hunter Brown was on the original board. MR. That was four years ago. MR. Yes, that's correct. And I not only agree with your premise, there were several different folks that it wasn't just one appointment process.
I was appointed by the chairman of judiciary who, in fact, as a freshman legislator, and I was a good soldier on this judiciary committee, he thought he was rewarding me by giving me this appointment. And I take exception to that now. So that's how I got my appointment. The Speaker of the House, the pro tem of the Senate. But I do think, and my commitment to you in private, I think that was an excellent point. It should be addressed. But to answer, sometimes people's intentions, they don't think through situations well enough,
especially when it's expanded like that from the different folks appointing to the boards. And I certainly think, as I suggested to you in talk with Representative Fielding on Friday, that that's something that we definitely need to focus on as we go forward. In fact, as we do go forward, I think I will probably be the only one, unless there are reappointments of
current members, I'll be the only one that's still on the board because I have,
Speaker 2
39:13
unfortunately, the longest term. Well, I guess my concern, of
course, was that we own the punishment end,
but never the planning end, and that's the concern. Can I
Speaker 45
39:23
just add, and I agree with what Representative Powers had just said. You and I are fine, but I want to hear it from the court. This provided that there would be certain the state players make recommendations to us, and I know that you forgot that Mr. Eddie Walker from Fort Smith also served on this committee. That's right. Well, somehow or another,
Speaker 2
39:44
I didn't think of Mr. Eddie Walker. I understand he may be black, from what you're saying.
Is he an African-American in Fort Smith? He's a very fine lawyer. All right. Well, I'm not personally familiar with him. I mean, I've heard the name. Yes. All right. But one out of 20. I think he's a representative of the Bar Association. He may be. But one out of 20 still is just totally inadequate to address the issues. But we'll go on from that. The next one is that we have had some concerns about geography. and are concerned about the concept of single-member districts.
Now, we have dealt with single-member districts with respect to the appellate court. Apparently, we have four levels of the appellate court, and they are geographic. I mean, not four levels, four divisions of the appellate court, the Court of Appeals. You're talking about districts? Yeah, districts. I think that's right. All right. But they are geographic, and each of them is set up pursuant to the single-member district
one-man, one-vote concept, if I'm not mistaken. I was not privy. Again,
Speaker 44
41:03
that, and I think about 10 years ago after the last census, they did redistrictate it. At that time, there were six districts. Originally it was set up at 6, and they tried to follow district lines as best they could and tried to do it based on population. And there were six original members of the Court of Appeals, and then it was increased to 12.
So there was two from each of those districts. And then at this last, well, about eight, ten years ago, whatever it was, after the session, and I don't think there's, as I understand, there's nothing that requires the legislature to change the boundaries. But they did. And at that time, then they created, I think there's one district which is a single-member district, and
Speaker 45
41:49
the others are, no, I guess there's two single-member districts and the rest are
Speaker 2
41:54
two. Well, my understanding was that
this is a creation of the Voting Rights Act
and that all of the legislators are now selected pursuant to single-member districts because of one vote plus the Jeffress case. And the judicial districts were set up in pretty much the same way. And the only courts which were not affected were the district courts and the Supreme Court. Now, you frown a bit,
but assuming that there is some standard that is universally recognized in order to... These are elected positions, if I'm not mistaken, the district judges. All right, now, if they're elected, they have to be elected pursuant to some standard. And the legislature has to set a standard for election after these people are no longer the incumbents for the position. Apparently, they're grandfathered in, the district judges that you have. Many of them will be grandfathered in and become full-time judges.
but I'm saying that they will be elected and they have to be elected pursuant to some standard and that goes back to what Representative
Steele said I think what territory do they cover
is that a floating territory who are the electors who determine which territory will be represented which people, who are the people who will be represented and what is a report system I mean, you generally will have a flow system and a three-tier system
where things flow from a district court to a circuit court, at least from a district court to the circuit court, I guess, and then from the circuit court to the appellate court, and then to you all. And, I mean, the flow isn't well set out as I see it here. Am I not making myself clear? Well, I thought we addressed that as best. That's
Speaker 44
43:57
what we said. We try to keep the recommendations in the map. Of course, you know, in my opinion, the district court is the most important court that we have
because they see more people than any other
Speaker 121
44:12
court. And, you know, what the people, how they're treated, what they observe, how they're
Speaker 44
44:18
treated there is the perception that our people have of the judicial system. So that's why the court is so concerned about that. But that's where we get the trust and the confidence
Speaker 45
44:28
of the people is how they are treated when they come to court. Are they heard? Do they have a chance to be heard? Are they treated with respect, as you and I would want to be treated?
That's very important. So that's why that court is the most important. That's where we get the trust and confidence from the people about what all we do. So that's why this is so important to us. But now as far as the boundaries, we try to follow the district lines as best as possible to have this true three-tier, and that's what we try to do. Now, as Keith told you, Amendment 80 provides that it is the legislature's call to decide
Speaker 44
45:10
the numbers and the boundaries of these district judges and circuit judges.
Speaker 2
45:14
But it's not the court's call. All right. Well, it seems as if, do you agree that it looks as if you're trying to somewhat emulate the federal system? And if you are, would it not make more sense to have the circuit judges remain intact as they are and then just have magistrates, let the district judges become magistrates, which is the same thing in a way, and then the flow is pretty clear, and some of the questions
raised by some of the gentlemen here would be addressed. And it's an easy matter then because we know that they report to the judges, but we know that the authority is limited, and it becomes the kind of thing where everybody in the public just
knows what the authority is of the various persons with whom they'll be dealing. But as it is now, if the circuit judge controls, in effect, the district judge, and what he or she may do,
to me that looks like it's like a conflict of interest because the people have to work together and then some of the decisions that, well, there are a lot of things that will develop where the two judges will have to have some communication and they'll be communicating about cases which they're not really supposed to unless they have, well, you understand what I'm saying. Representative Walker, no,
Speaker 44
46:47
we didn't try to emulate the federal system.
Speaker 2
46:52
Well, I'm just asking, I mean, it seems like it would have been better to have done so because what you have here doesn't really make a lot of sense. As he points up, you've got in one little territory here, you've got about five counties, four counties and the territory overlaps and the number of district judges may vary is it one or four it's one judge and how many circuit judges two and there are several counties where it doesn't make sense
if you're going to have a a crazy quote that's one thing but you're either trying to have a uniform quote that makes sense and you're trying it seems to get the approval of all the people in the process I think the legislative role would be for us to develop a mosaic that would make sense and then let things play out as they should by way of elections which come about at
Speaker 121
47:48
some time in the future. Mr. Walker, that is the whole purpose of what we've
Speaker 44
47:54
tried to do because if you start just, if your goal is to have a true three-tier system,
courts, system, and to have full-time district court judges, you have to look at the state as a whole. And that's the reason the map was developed. So we wouldn't, because if you don't, you start cherry-picking some low-bearing fruit, and you end up with areas that are isolated, which would never be able to have a full-time district judge. It just wouldn't ever justify it. But to answer your question, again, no, we're not trying to emulate what the federal system
is. We're trying to take the system that we have. You know, I don't, first of all, I'm not sure that Amendment 80 would allow what you're suggesting that we do what the federal system does. The other thing is, and you may disagree with this, but, you know,
Speaker 71
48:44
I don't think that people want to give up the right
Speaker 2
48:48
to elect their district judges. Certainly, I don't. I'm not suggesting that, Mr. Chief Justice. And I'm suggesting that you want
to have that right, but you want to have it pursuant to some standard. And the standard has to be either something like geography, a population, or caseload.
And the problem with caseload is that one of the problems is definition of a case. I mean, a ticket may be a case. I think you can, one has been pointed out. Some places where you have trucks, wait stations, and the presence of other police, they may write a lot more tickets in some other areas. So it may look like they need more judges there, but that may not be a true reflection of the business that they are conducting.
Speaker 44
49:36
And here's the other thing about the... Can I answer that? Yeah. Maybe perhaps I didn't make myself clear, but I can assure you that we looked not just at numbers. We looked at the type of cases. I mean, we looked at whether or not there was just traffic. You know, I've served as a city judge. I've served as a district judge. I've served as a circuit judge. I've served on the committees making recommendations to this body on additional circuit judges when it needs to be made. And so I'm very conscious of those things.
There's cases and there's cases. One case may take two weeks to try it, whereas if you've got a traffic offense or an uncontested divorce, It may take five minutes. So, yes, you have to consider that. You have to consider geography. You have to consider the number of courts they're trying to cover.
Speaker 2
50:24
All of those things come into play. Well, Judge, I guess I'm not really communicating
with you, and I don't think that, and maybe we can't, but my understanding is that when you're dealing with matters where people
are voted upon and everybody has an equal opportunity to be elected to a judgeship or district judgeship or legislative position,
there has to be some objective standard put
in place at some point that is universally applied across the board whether it's 2017, 2020 you have to have that standard and it has to be known to all and it has to be followed by all across the state you can't have something for the four counties down in South Arkansas that differs from the one county right next to Pulaski County where you have one circuit jet You have to have some
uniformity, otherwise you're vulnerable to all kinds of attacks under the Voting Rights Act and federal law.
Speaker 2
51:21
try to do. Well, I guess I've said enough, but my concern here at this point is that I'm going to, I mean, I have such respect for my men, my homie, I'll call him from Hope, Bubba, that I told him that I was going to vote for this, but I'm going to vote for it even though it doesn't make a lot of sense what you all are doing. And it's not objective. It does not treat areas equally.
It does not have a system for assignment. It creates confusion by having district judges report to multiple authorities. The reporting system will be confused. And even the jurisdiction of the district judges will be confusing because they'll be going different places, oftentimes, beyond their assigned territory. And I understand that you can work this out and it'll take time, but it's just not in a posture where I believe it should be approved by the legislature, I'm sure it will, or by the court, I'm sure it will.
But I think it will be, when it's done, it will be subject to a challenge of
being violative of the Equal Protection Clause of
Representative Darrin Williams
Unverified
52:41
the 14th Amendment. MR. You'd like to end that with wouldn't you agree? Isn't that correct? Since we're asking questions. All right. Let's see if we can get our questions expeditiously
asked and answered. Next on the agenda is
Representative Matthew Shepherd
Unverified
52:57
Representative Shepard. MR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Powers, just a couple questions and one I think you and I
have discussed of course my district, my county is already part of the initial program and so this has already been implemented in Union County but my question has to do with the cost involved and you may have already touched on this and I know I was out for a little bit could you talk about the cost involved relative what the state and counties and municipalities are spending right now on those
Representative David "Bubba" Powers
Unverified
53:36
I'm going to let Keith talk about the funding formula. He
Speaker 25
53:47
knows it backwards and forwards. At the moment, the whole implementation of this program, 25 full-time state employee judges, There has not been one dollar of state general revenue used. There has been some, it is a combination of, in 07, there was added a fee in circuit court
for filing for non-judicial foreclosures. The civil and small claims filing fee in district court was increased by $15. And the fees that the extra revenue from those fees plus in the code at the moment there is a cost-sharing agreement by which the local governments which pay for the salary of a judge now contribute half of the salary of the state district court judge.
So between the cost-sharing from the local government and the civil filing fees and non-judicial foreclosure fees that's paid for the program and then I would add one more thing in this proposal for the new judgeships that would they would run for election in 2012 take office in 2013 when the remaining it's already in the code to that the remaining city courts go away January 1st 2012 when that
happens, there's a $25 difference in the court costs on a traffic case and a misdemeanor case in city court versus district court. When these remaining city courts become district courts, that increased revenue should pay for this portion of the program. Representative Shepard,
Speaker 67
55:39
can I respond? Sure, certainly. I echo what
Speaker 45
55:48
of the indicated our rules have been a work in progress,
Speaker 44
55:53
trying to address as best we can. And one of the things that came from our circuit judges together with our district court judges was a recommendation of the ability for them to be appointed to serve in the place of a circuit judge. It's been a lot of money that is spent on when judges recuse if the judges within the circuit can't handle that case because I have to appoint either a retired judge who has to be paid not only his or her
Speaker 45
56:22
expenses but also half of their salary.
And if I appoint, if a private counsel is elected, under our
Speaker 44
56:30
rules, if that happens, well, you have to pay them, of course, the full salary of a judge. With that
Speaker 45
56:37
ability now that we have, that flexibility, just one example, that up
Speaker 44
56:44
in Benton County, we had a circuit judge that his son was getting ready to go on active duty, being deployed, and he obviously wanted to take off a couple of days.
Nobody in the district could hear the case, the circuit. They had caseload full. It looked like the only one we could find in our certs that we could get to serve was in Texarkana, a retired judge, which meant we had to pay his expenses and also the salary. Well, we were able to appoint a district judge there in Benton County. It didn't cost the state one nickel. We've done that several times, So it's been a real savings for – that's one thing we've done, which has been a real savings for the state.
Representative Matthew Shepherd
Unverified
57:29
A follow-up, if I may. So it sounds like there's an anticipation that no additional general revenue from the state will be required to implement, at least initially. Is that right? Okay. And then two further questions, and I think you touched on one of these. does the implementation of this plan have any bearing on court costs one way or the other besides what you mentioned with regard to the, I guess, $25 difference between city and district court?
Speaker 107
58:05
There is no increase in any sort of fee or court cost in this bill, in this proposal. So, but by the implementation or not implementing it, it's not going
Representative Matthew Shepherd
Unverified
58:14
to, it won't change court costs any other way. I mean, I know in the bill itself there is none. Okay. And then finally, this may have been touched on, does the Bar Association have a position on this? Do we know? I'd say, I'd have to say they support it, but they're not here.
Representative David "Bubba" Powers
Unverified
58:37
I can't speak for them, but. I can tell you unequivocally that we have never had any negative feedback from the Bar Association, public defenders. You know, as a matter of fact, I'll just tell you this quickly, that the first time I ever met the Chief Justice was about seven years ago when he, J.D., Keith might have been there, along with other folks from the Bar and the Judiciary, were actually going from county to county introducing this plan.
And obviously it took a while to get it started and implemented. So by and large, I think we have a broad base of support except for a few pockets within our state judiciary. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you
Speaker 141
59:23
for your time. Thank you, Mr. Shepard. Mr. Wright, you're recognized for
Representative Marshall Wright
Unverified
59:28
a question? Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This question may be to anybody, either one of you all. Right now, the system with the pilot court programs, the submitting to their jurisdiction is voluntary.
Is that correct? There's nothing in there that forces me if I go to
Representative David "Bubba" Powers
Unverified
59:50
district court. Is that correct? Well, you're asking the question, and I'm going to let the Chief Justice and Keith talk to this. You're asking
the question, as I understand it. if you were in this legislation to be folded in, say, in 2017. If you decided you didn't want to be a full-time court, could you remain a part-time court?
Representative Marshall Wright
Unverified
1:00:12
Is that what you're... No, I'm sorry. If I file a case... I'm sorry, Representative Powers. If I file a case in circuit court, okay, and it is assigned, there's nothing assigned to a circuit judge, randomly assigned to the circuit
Speaker 64
1:00:28
judge. There's nothing that forces me to have to submit to the district court judge. Isn't that correct, the way it is now? It's
Speaker 25
1:00:41
voluntary, isn't it? I mean, that's... Well, there are two ways that a case filed in the circuit court
would get to one of the state district court judges. That would be by referral from the circuit judge or the party's consent to that case being heard.
Representative Marshall Wright
Unverified
1:00:58
but I don't have to accept the circuit judge's referral. Isn't that correct? It's completely voluntary jurisdiction at this point. That's just my understanding of it. It's completely voluntary right now, and nothing would be there to force me. And so when I file a case in
Speaker 64
1:01:17
circuit court with one of my circuit judges,
I can say, Judge, I want it heard
Representative Marshall Wright
Unverified
1:01:27
in your court. Yeah, if I want a record, I don't have to say I'm going to a district judge. I can say I want
Speaker 25
1:01:38
a record, and I get to hear it in front of the circuit court. Isn't that correct? The way I understand it, Representative Wright, is under the referral process. It would be in the circuit's administrative plan what cases are referred to that district court judge.
At the moment, we only have matters that don't require a verbatim recording, but under the new rules that the court issued in February, it will be possible to expand that and use a digital recording device, and you would have a record. So I don't know the answer to my
Representative Marshall Wright
Unverified
1:02:11
question. I mean, there will be something in place there that I can have a record if I want it? Yes, sir. Okay.
the revenue of these city courts that we still have in place throughout the state, how is their revenue going to be impacted? Right now, they keep a good portion. If there is a ticket or citation, that city keeps a good portion. Is that correct? Okay. Are they going to be losing a lot of money now because their money received from tickets, well, now a large portion will be paid to the state. Is that correct?
They will still receive all the
Speaker 25
1:02:53
money that they receive now. An abiding theme throughout this process was that it would be revenue neutral to the cities and the county. Nothing has changed as far as the flow of revenue from court fines and costs to the cities and counties. As a matter of fact, there are even generally, there may be a few exceptions where folks are paying the same amount of salary they were paying the judge
but generally they are saving money in the cost sharing agreement for the payment of the salary of this judge. So that city will
Representative Marshall Wright
Unverified
1:03:30
still keep the same amount of money for that speeding ticket that's written in their jurisdiction as they do now. Yes,
Representative Darrin Williams
Unverified
1:03:42
sir. That's all I have, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Mr. Wright. Mr. Ratliff, did you have a question? Ask and answer. Great. Any other members with a question? Mr. Steele,
Representative Nate Steel
Unverified
1:03:53
one more question. Just curious, since the court costs were increased from $140 to $165 for this program,
if for some reason this were to fail, would the
Speaker 25
1:04:06
court costs go back down to $140? It was two different things. It was a new $140 filing fee for nonjudicial foreclosures. Thank you, Mr. Steele. Any
Representative Darrin Williams
Unverified
1:04:18
additional questions from the members? Seeing none, we're going to go to the audience, those who want to speak for and against the bill. On the against side, first signed up is Tammy Harris from the Public Defender's Office.
Speaker 148
1:04:44
Actually, Mr. Chairman, I'm sorry, Tammy Harris from the Public Defender Commission. I guess I should be speaking more in terms of providing information. And since this bill was filed on March 3rd, we haven't actually had a chance to review it completely to look at what terms this would have as an impact to our agency, but with With all due respect to representative powers, we do believe that there would be some impact to the Public Defender Commission.
With the precurium that the Supreme Court has issued, and I can't remember if it's 8 or 16, these new pilot programs, and Chief Justice Hanna, please correct me if I'm wrong, I do believe that these district courts will be allowed to do criminal matters and that circuit courts would have jurisdiction. And if these district courts are doing matters that circuit court would normally do, revocation hearings and those sorts of things, then an individual has a right to an attorney. And in most district courts, the public defender is not there.
So if that's the case, if these courts are going to be doing matters that would require an attorney present, that would mean that we would need more staff. If the drug court pilot programs are there, which we fully support, we want those drug court programs there, then we also would need additional public defenders there. So, you know, while we do support this, we need some additional time to see what impact this is going to have on our agency. You're done, Ms. Harris. Thank
Representative Darrin Williams
Unverified
1:06:13
you for your testimony. Yes, sir. Thank you. Anyone in the audience want to speak for House Bill 1869?
I don't have anyone signed up. Anyone want to speak for 1869? Seeing none, Bruce Anderson. Judge Anderson, I'm sorry. Judge, welcome to the House Judiciary. Sorry we've kept you here all day, but here's
Bruce Anderson
Unverified
1:06:39
your turn. I apologize. Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee. My name is Bruce Anderson. I'm the district judge in Bradley County. I live in Warren. I've been an attorney for almost 30 years.
I practiced law in Brinkley and Monroe County for about five years, and since then I have been in Bradley County. I live in Warren. And I say that one way to point out that I have practiced law in two different judicial districts in two different parts of the state. All of them do it a little bit differently. Before I became district judge of Bradley County, I was deputy prosecuting attorney for 15 years.
I was also county civil attorney for that same period of time. As deputy prosecuting attorney, I prosecuted cases in both circuit court and district court, and so I feel like I've had a pretty good exposure to both the circuit court system and the district court system. I do oppose House Bill 1869. When I was first made aware of the wording of this bill last fall, one of the first things that I did was I called a meeting of my local officials.
That was my county judge, the mayor of Warren, the sheriff of Bradley County, and the chief of police of Warren. And made them aware of the bill, the effect of the bill, and asked them, are you for this or against it? Because if you're for it, then there's no need in me worrying about it. And they were unanimous in their opposition to the bill and to the effect that it would have on Bradley County. Under the bill, Bradley County would be consolidated into a three-county district.
The things that I heard them, the trepidation that I heard them expressing to me was a loss of local access and a loss of local accountability. District judges, traditionally called municipal judges, but now district judges, have been in every county as long as I've been practicing law. They have been the local judge that law enforcement went to for their needs.
It's been a local judge that the people elected. The judge is traditionally elected from one county. He's a judge that's familiar with the county. He's a judge that's on site at all times because he lives in that county. And he's available or she is available for first appearances. That's very important because we have the federal requirement of a 48-hour first appearance after arrest. Also there to do search warrants, which many times have to be done after hours, on weekends,
things of that sort. And so that time factor is very important. If you have one judge in one county, then you do not have the geography problem or the time problem. By my count, House Bill 1869 would do away with the local district judge in 33 counties. So that's 33 counties that would not have a local district judge anymore.
And I think that's reflective of the concern that my local officials had and that have been echoed by other district judges that I've talked to is that loss of local access and loss of local accountability. It's the legislation, this legislation is not grass roots legislation.
This was not requested by county judges, by mayors, by law enforcement, if you will. It's more of a top-down situation is where the bill came from. For this reason, I think that the bill needs to have more input from the people that it's going to affect.
As has already been mentioned, district court is where the vast majority of the population encounters the legal system, both on a criminal side and a civil side. There are, in a typical circuit court in the rural areas of Arkansas, hundreds of cases, maybe into the thousands. In district courts, there are tens of thousands of cases every year. There were, to borrow an analogy, where the rubber meets the road
for a lot of the population of our state. There's been some discussion about the pilot court systems, and there's been a suggestion that the pilot court system has been smooth, and therefore we'll just make a smooth transition from the pilot court system into the new system that is proposed by this legislation.
The difference is all the pilot court systems, as has already been pointed out by some comments, was voluntary. It has, to my knowledge, has only been done in counties where there was no consolidation. There was either one judge in that county, it became a pilot court. There may have been more judges than one in that county, but there was no elimination of courts. There was no consolidation of counties.
That's why you cannot make the analogy between the pilot court system and what's being done by this legislation. Another, let me say it to make clear, I'm a part-time judge. I've been a part-time judge for seven years. I'm going to say this with respect to all the comments that have been made but I hear this overtone
that for some reason there's something wrong with part-time judges that for some reason we can't be as fair or we can't be as efficient or we can't be something else I make it a point to treat every case that comes before me importantly I make it a case to treat litigants fairly and courteously because I understand I am for a lot of them the only contact they will ever have with the legal system and I take that responsibility very importantly
and so I guess one of the questions that I have as a part-time district judge is why Why is this necessary when a lot of counties don't want that? There are three other district judges here today that are like I, part-time district judges. I have at least ten other part-time district judges that I've talked to that do not favor this legislation. And they've reflected to me the same thing on a local level.
Their local officials do not agree with the legislation and how it eliminates local access and local accountability there I would like to address one issue that came up that's the issuance of warrants and it was that work that remark was made in the issue of warrants issued by circuit judges one fallacy I see and that is a lot of the warrants are issued by district judges that I would I would
Imagine that in any typical rural county, there are more warrants issued by district judges than by circuit judges. And so if you eliminate district judges, you are eliminating access. You cannot analogize between circuit judges and district judges when you have a circuit judge who's writing a county and you're taking the district judge out of the county.
Speaker 155
1:15:38
For these reasons, I would just restate my opposition to the bill. I appreciate your
Representative Darrin Williams
Unverified
1:15:58
time. Thank you, Judge Anderson. Is there anyone here who wants to speak for House Bill 1869? I don't have anyone else signed up to speak for. I only have against. So I want to make sure no one here to speak for.
Seeing none, next on the list to speak against House Bill 1869 is Judge Bill McKim, I believe. Am I saying that correctly? Judge, welcome to House Judiciary. You're
recognized. Keep to that. My name is Bill McKim. I'm here from
Bill Mckim
Unverified
1:16:27
the District Court of Montgomery County. We hold court in Mount Ida. We're one of the smaller courts in the state, and I'd like to talk with you for just a few moments
about what I believe would be the impact of this legislation on my community. Judge Anderson has already described some of the duties of this court. You've heard a lot about that today. I'm going to skip over that sort of conversation with you. I'm going to cut right to what I regard as one of the cores of this situation, and that is that Montgomery County has a district judge all the time. Montgomery County has a district judge 24-7.
That's me. I'm a part-time judge and paid, as I should be, as a part-time judge. But I'm there and
Speaker 166
1:17:22
I'm available for the law enforcement officers primarily, for the circuit
Bill Mckim
Unverified
1:17:28
judge, for all aspects of the district court system, including the district clerks who have been kind of left out of this a great deal. I'm there all the time. Those officers, the game and fish officers, the state troopers, the deputy sheriffs,
Speaker 166
1:17:45
they know where I live. They know where my law office is. They know what kind of truck I drive, what my wife's van looks like. They know where I hunt. They know where I fish. They know where my deer camp is, for the love of Pete. Now,
Bill Mckim
Unverified
1:18:06
they find me any time they want. With this proposed legislation, I respectfully submit that they would have a part-time judge in Montgomery County. They would have a judge from a neighboring county, because it would be very, very rare that Montgomery County would ever elect a district judge under this proposed legislation.
The existing boundaries stretch from Arkadelphia to the Oklahoma line. I just cannot comment, I will not comment on the workability of that. It is not workable. I have the permission of Judge Randy Hill from Arcadelfia and Judge Jerry Ryan from MENA to express to you their deepest concern with this legislation.
You know, in theory, Judge Hill would be a beneficiary of this legislation coming from the most populous county, but he doesn't like it a bit. He doesn't want to have to be traveling on our roads to Montgomery County or Polk County. He doesn't want to have to be figuring out how to
Speaker 166
1:19:12
get out of his home county into our counties to take care of our courts a certain number
Bill Mckim
Unverified
1:19:22
of days every month. I do have those officers, those judges' permission to make those brief comments
and to express to you their concern and their
Speaker 166
1:19:35
displeasure. A lot of technical things have been talked about here. just a couple of sentences, two minutes or less on
Bill Mckim
Unverified
1:19:44
another subject. If Montgomery County no longer has a local district judge, Polk County doesn't, Polk County does not, Clark County really does
Speaker 166
1:19:52
not because he's gone all the time or a good portion of the time.
Bill Mckim
Unverified
1:19:58
Who's going to go around to the schools and talk to the kids about the civics classes, about the role of the courts in our society?
Speaker 166
1:20:09
Who's going to go talk to the kids in the schools on the Red Ribbon Day, which is what we call our
Bill Mckim
Unverified
1:20:19
Drug Awareness Day? Who's going to go talk to kids on Operation Prom Night? Who's going to go in the communities that have active service clubs or Rotarians,
the Kiwanis, the Lions? Who's going to go talk to those agencies and those people about the impact of the district court on their counties? it won't happen all of those folks know where to find me in my particular jurisdiction one of the one of the agencies that by the grace of God in this legislature is in existence is the Deborah Dunstan Center a rehab center for alcoholic and drug addicted adolescents
Speaker 166
1:20:59
I go out and talk to those kids every now and then I'm honored to do it It would be awful hard for Jerry or Randy to get up to
Bill Mckim
Unverified
1:21:12
the middle of the woods north of Mount Ida to talk to those kids. These are important things because that's part of accessibility. It's not just a police officer having somebody to go to and to take a warrant to, to take a probable cause finding to. It's the public knowing
Speaker 166
1:21:26
that we're there, knowing what our face is like, seeing us at the football games in the stands, seeing us at the basketball games shouting for the local team.
These are all important parts of this system.
Bill Mckim
Unverified
1:21:39
We are the entry-level justice system. We're not circuit court light. We are a separate, distinct, local, traditionally local court, and I
Speaker 166
1:21:48
strongly recommend that it be maintained that way. Before this legislation is passed, there has been so much good work done on it, so much
Bill Mckim
Unverified
1:21:58
good work, but I feel that I must comment on the impact of this legislation and how different it will be
Speaker 166
1:22:10
and how potentially harsh it will be in the rural environments, in the small jurisdictions, and how different it will be from the way it is applied and has been applied under the pilot program to the more urban and more populated districts. Before
Bill Mckim
Unverified
1:22:27
you vote on this, if you would please talk to your local sheriff, share it with your police chief, the deputies, the troopers. See if any of them support it.
Ask your county judge if they support it. Ask your mayor if they support it. In my community, the answer is no. If you're from a larger jurisdiction that already has the services of full-time judges, God bless. I supported and continue to support the pilot project. that has enabled full-time judges to come on board in the last few years.
But please realize that before you impose your will on the smaller jurisdictions that there may be different and harsh applications of this statute in those jurisdictions. A little different orientation to my comments, but I promised I would be brief, and I thank you for listening.
Representative Darrin Williams
Unverified
1:23:33
Thank you, Judge. Next on the list to speak against the
bill is Judge Jessica Gunter. Judge Gunter, welcome to House Judiciary.
Speaker 171
1:23:42
You're recognized. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank
Jessica Gunter
Unverified
1:23:46
you, members of the committee. My name is Jessica Gunter.
Speaker 171
1:23:50
I'm a Howard County District Judge serving in Nashville, Arkansas, and I'm serving my first term. This is my third year serving as a Howard County District Judge. I'm here to testify that the map proposed by this House bill is not feasible for my district. My district includes Pike, Howard, Sevier, and Little River counties. Those four counties are served by two circuit judges.
It's interesting that the bill proposed only proposes one district court judge when that same territory is served by two circuit court judges. Representative Ratliff, your sheriff is correct. when he voices his concerns about accessibility. If the district court judge is elected from a different county other than Howard County, that law enforcement is going to have to call that district judge from out of their county to come over to sign those warrants and review those affidavits.
The district judge is not going to be as accessible as with the current plan. Of the four counties, I have the consent of the other three district court judges. Judge Dana Stone from Pike County, Judge John Finley from Little River County, Judge Steve Tedder from Sevier County to voice their opposition to this bill as well. Thank you. Thank you, Judge.
Representative Darrin Williams
Unverified
1:25:20
I believe it's Judge Reed Herrod. Would you like to speak? Would you? Please. Welcome
Speaker 179
1:25:31
to House Judiciary. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the committee. I appreciate the opportunity to voice my strong opposition to this proposed measure as well. Judge Herrick, before you start, you
Representative Darrin Williams
Unverified
1:25:41
have a read there. I assume you're a judge. Is that correct? Yes, I am. And for our record, can you tell
Speaker 181
1:25:47
us which county? Yes. In Ashley County. Ashley County.
Speaker 179
1:25:50
Thank you, Judge Herrick. Thank you very much. I would like to stand also for the and voice my opposition to this legislation or oppose legislation. I'd like to follow up with Judge Anderson. We serve in adjoining counties. He has stated our opposition fairly concisely, and I won't belabor that. I would note that the remaining district judges in our five-county district are uniformly opposed to this as well,
as are the sheriff and law enforcement, county judge, and the mayor in our area. In addition, I would like to address one point, and that's the issue of accessibility. And I think that's one point that's been made by those who are in favor of this legislation and certainly one that we would like to stress to this committee. We're in rural counties. Ashley County is approximately 20,000 to 22,000 people, depending on which census issue you believe.
Bradley County is a little smaller. Drew County, about between our sizes. At present, we're served by four part-time judges. We can be reached, as noted previously, by a phone call. Everybody knows where we are and how to get in touch with us. The proposal before the committee or in this draft would consolidate all three of those counties. I would submit to you that Ashley County will not be served as well by a judge, albeit full-time,
who may be located in Warren or Monticello or parts unknown at this point. I appreciate the committee's consideration of this proposal, and thank you for your time. Thank you, Judge.
Representative Darrin Williams
Unverified
1:27:53
I appreciate your testimony. That concludes, well, I'm sorry, we have one person who signed up
additionally now to speak for the bill, Roger Smith. You recognize Roger?
Roger Smith
Unverified
1:28:10
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, committee members. My name is Roger Smith. I happen to represent the District Judges Council, and I want to make a couple of comments today about the bill. So there are roughly 114 district judges, district judgeships currently, 80, probably 80 of those judges are in favor of this bill. Roughly 17 of that 80 are scheduled to become full-time under this bill in 2017. Virtually all the rest of those judges and those judgeships will not be affected until
2015, 2017, or 2021. one the intent of the bill is to allow time to implement it is not a bill to mandate or force everybody to immediate change I think everybody recognizes that any map you draw will not please everyone and there must be some time allowed to work out those details and that's one of the reasons those things were put off so I would ask you today to understand that we have a lot of
counties that are ready to do this it's proven to be effective in many counties I think the voters of Arkansas wanted a different judiciary than they've had in the past full-time judges generally it's assumed aren't going to have conflicts that part-time judges might have so long term I want the representatives that certainly are opposed to it to understand that the district judges intent is to work with you work with your counties I think most of the objections you may have we can work out over time but the passage of this bill does not mean for
any reason that you will be unable to get that done and I might suggest this lastly I served in the house where you are you are you are all serving now and I know that any time a legislator brought a bill forward asking that something be amended or changed that affected just their area just their county just their district and had the support of their local officials no No legislator ever opposed them in doing that. So in the future, any changes you might feel you need to make to accommodate the wishes
of your community, I see no reason that that can't be done. The bill is not intended to force anybody in until those issues are
Speaker 183
1:30:29
worked out. So I appreciate your indulgence. I know you've put in a long day,
Representative Darrin Williams
Unverified
1:30:36
and thank you. Thank you very much, Roger. Appreciate that. Anyone else in the audience wants to speak for or against House Bill 1869? Seeing none, Representative Powers, I'm going to recognize you to close for
Representative David "Bubba" Powers
Unverified
1:30:49
your bill. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And if you would allow me, I would, the Chief Justice has taken the time and effort to come and be with us today. I'd like, with
your indulgence, to allow him to make a few closing remarks. Absolutely. Chief Justice Hanna, you're welcome to make closing
Speaker 44
1:31:06
remarks. Well, thank you very much. Mr. Chairman, thank you for allowing me to be here, and I appreciate the work that you've done. It's been a long day, and I know you've met earlier, and you also had a session. We appreciate your time and attention.
As I told you earlier,
Speaker 121
1:31:25
the district courts are the most important courts that we have because
Speaker 44
1:31:31
they do come in contact with more people than any other courts. And once again, without belaboring the point that what the people, procedural fairness and due process is just as important as what the rulings are by the court. So what the people see, what they perceive, how they're treated is what they,
the whole feeling they have of the entire court. But this is why this bill is so important for the Arkansas Supreme Court and I think for the people of Arkansas. I'll listen very carefully to the fine district judges that talked, and these are the issues that we talked and debated before, the concerns that everybody has and that we tried to address as best as we possibly could in trying to do what we felt like was the recommendations we come up with would be best for the people of the state of Arkansas.
that this debate, of course, took place at town meetings, as Representative Powell had mentioned, that I travel the entire state in each county about these matters. It also took place in this room several years ago when we all set out on the course to develop to have the district
Speaker 45
1:32:47
courts, full-time district courts judges for the entire state of Arkansas. And we started it, as you've heard with some of these pilot programs, which were voluntary, and then to achieve that goal,
something that the legislature had said that they wanted to do and also that the Judicial Department of the State of Arkansas wanted to happen as well, the decrab committee was established. That committee, and I also served on that committee along with Representative Power, put in a lot of work. And every time we met or considering whether or not new judges would be added, we always asked for comments and any suggestions
or had every opportunity to be heard at that time, and they worked hard. And obviously the feelings of the DCRAB committee is that we would never be able to accomplish the entire state of having full-time district courts unless we had a plan looking at the entire state and having a plan, and that's what you have before you today. This bill does provide for time some of those areas, and I agree completely with what the concerns that Representative Steele had mentioned.
That was an area that we labored long and hard over. It is a difficult area. It's a very rural area, like what I come from. But there is time that it can work out those problems, and that is the legislative process. As I said, we feel
Speaker 44
1:34:22
very strongly about it. We appreciate the work that you've done. We appreciate the opportunity to be here and the good work that you do. But we would certainly appreciate it if you could support us in this matter.
Representative David "Bubba" Powers
Unverified
1:34:36
Thank you, Justice Hannah. Thank you, Chairman. Thank you, Chief Justice. and I'm going to be extremely brief and tell you that this is progressive legislation. We're not staying the same. We can't afford to stay the same. I do think that it's a little disingenuous to appear and say that we just found out about this. This has been going on for years and years. I've never had the opportunity to have a conversation.
I've never missed a D-CRAB meeting except one. The District Judges Association, this has been a front-burner issue. You know, frankly, I have talked with a lot of judges prior to this during the legislative session, and we did talk. I had a long talk Friday with the judge from Magnolia and explained to him that we put flexibility in this for the reason that we've tried to explain today, and that is to work out the areas that we talked about.
Now, in some cases, we're not opposed to being district judges. We just don't like the map. Well, the map's not perfect. I understand that. We drew the map because the intent of the legislation was that we needed to get some type of guidelines going. We are not going to go forward in legislative sessions without taking into consideration what's going to be best. I know the Howard County area we're talking about. It doesn't work. It was the best we could come up with when it was put upon us to come up with some type of guidelines.
We understand that. And as we go forward, I just want to remind you that this pilot program, or whatever you want to call it, has worked very well. I live in a typically rural county. I live in Hempstead County. I'm going to, when we fold ours in, we're going to be Hempstead and Nevada County. Let me tell you how unaccessible it will be. I have a Judge Culpepper, I have Judge Wright, I have Judge Yoakum. When we get folded in, here's what I'm going to have. I'm going to have Judge Culpepper, I'm going to have Judge Wright, I'm going to have Judge Yoakum.
So the accessibility issue, for some areas it may be a little more of a hill to climb, but by and large we have tried to stay within our districts to make sure that that lines up with the electorate. It's tough. You can't draw a perfect map for this, but we're going to have to, If this legislation goes before the full House, we're going to have to work on it a little bit at a time, just as we have worked on it since 2001, a little bit at a time. At this point, all of the county judges and everybody that's against this,
Justice Hannah and myself and other people have been involved in this for a long time. The Municipal League is fine with this. The Arkansas Association of Counties has no problem with this. Even the Public Defenders Commission, who supports the legislation and certainly so, says that there may have to be some staff added, and I admit that that may be the case. So, you know, and I apologize to you. You're all my friends, and it's been a long day,
and I certainly hate to be the culprit that has created this issue for you. But, again, we can be progressive or we can stay the same. This is a progressive move, and it has been over the last several years, and these issues can be worked out. Thank you, committee, and thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your patience and indulgence. Thank you, Mr. Powers. Mr.
Representative Darrin Williams
Unverified
1:38:15
Powers is closed for the bill. What's the pleasure of the committee? Mr. Powers has made a motion of due pass.
That's a proper motion. Any question or discussion? Seeing none, all in favor of passing House Bill 1869, indicate by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, no? No. Ayes have it. Thank you, Mr. Powers.
Agenda
Documents
No documents posted.
Speakers
Speaker 1
Representative Nate Steel
Unverified
Speaker 6
Representative David "Bubba" Powers
Unverified
Speaker 2
Speaker 19
Speaker 20
Speaker 25
Speaker 27
Speaker 45
Speaker 44
Speaker 41
Speaker 60
Representative Marshall Wright
Unverified
Speaker 64
Speaker 68
Speaker 76
Speaker 82
Speaker 78
Speaker 77
Speaker 72
Speaker 91
Speaker 92
Representative Mary L. Slinkard
Unverified
Speaker 117
Speaker 120
Speaker 121
Speaker 81
Speaker 71
Representative Darrin Williams
Unverified
Representative Matthew Shepherd
Unverified
Speaker 137
Speaker 67
Speaker 107
Speaker 141
Speaker 148
Bruce Anderson
Unverified
Speaker 155
Bill Mckim
Unverified
Speaker 166
Speaker 171
Jessica Gunter
Unverified
Speaker 179
Speaker 181
Roger Smith
Unverified
Speaker 183