Courtroom: Break for lunch, see ya tomorrow

By Brian Eckhouse, Jeff German

Sunday, Feb. 17, 2008 | 2 a.m.

On weekday afternoons, most of the courtrooms of Las Vegas’ 10 elected justices of the peace are among the quietest areas of the Regional Justice Center — a stark contrast to the heavy pedestrian traffic jamming those courtrooms before the lunch hour.

Most of the justices of the peace, whose salaries range from $128,700 to $154,440, simply don’t hold court after lunch each day — a pattern courthouse officials and those who work with them acknowledge has become the norm.

“If you’re trying to get a search warrant signed in the afternoon, the Regional Justice Center is not the place to go,” said Chris Collins, executive director of the Las Vegas Police Protective Association, the union that represents Metro Police officers. “You have to go find the justices of the peace wherever they are.”

Collins said he was unsure where that typically is.

The Justice Courts stand empty in the afternoons even as court officials lobby to build a new tower of courtrooms near the 17-story Regional Justice Center — at an expected cost well over $200 million. New space, the officials say, is needed to accommodate a mounting caseload.

Las Vegas Justice Court, which is a step below District Court in the state judicial system, is to add two judges in January. The plan also involves adding ­two courtrooms expected to cost at least $1.5 million each.

A debate about courtroom efficiency erupted after Douglas Smith, the chief justice of the peace, circulated a letter Jan. 14 seeking comments about a proposal to establish a night court. Such a court, sought by some members of the Clark County Commission, would cost at least $5 million and would provide another venue for misdemeanor arraignments.

Smith and other court officials have been skeptical that night court would be worth the cost, but now he and the rest of the hierarchy at the Regional Justice Center are studying the concept.

Ten days after he distributed his letter, Smith got a response from District Attorney David Roger. He wrote: “While our deputies welcome the idea of having additional court time to prosecute our cases, we suggest that the court modify the scheduling of cases before asking the county to fund additional staff.”

Roger then took note of the schedules of the justices of the peace: “While there are a few judges who hear matters in the afternoon, most courtrooms are not used between 1 p.m. and 5 p.m.”

Indeed, visits by the Sun to the courtrooms of the 10 justices of the peace found most empty each afternoon from Jan. 29 to Feb. 1. Not a single justice worked in a courtroom the afternoon of Feb. 1, a Friday, and most confirmed they were out of the building.

In Justice Court, the mornings are busy and typically overwhelming. A flood of arraignments, sometimes as many as 120 in front of each judge, rolls in by 8 a.m. Those are followed by scheduled preliminary hearings, at which the justices of the peace determine whether defendants should be bound over to District Court for trial.

Roger’s letter noted that preliminary hearings are rarely heard as scheduled — and on most days, hearings that aren’t concluded by noon typically are postponed.

“Because of these delays, many victims and witnesses are reluctant to return to court for the next hearings,” Roger wrote. “Additionally, we are forced to expend valuable resources preparing for an additional appearance.”

Many hearings scheduled the week of Jan. 29, for example, were postponed.

In an interview with the Sun, Roger defended his criticism of Justice Court.

“I wouldn’t presume to tell the judges how to do their jobs,” he said. “But when they attempt to issue an order mandating that our prosecutors work a swing shift, it’s fair game to discuss the way that they schedule cases.”

Roger added he was concerned about the health and effectiveness of police officers who get off work at 8 a.m. and then have to wait all morning to testify in Justice Court. Those officers are deprived of sleep and time with their families.

“There’s nothing more frustrating for our guys and gals,” said Collins of the police union, “than to sit around in court until 10 a.m. or 11 a.m. I think if all the cops are working 10-hour shifts and the judges are working eight-hour shifts, you would get more cases handled in a day than what are being handled now.”

The justices of the peace say when they’re not on the bench they generally pore over stacks of civil cases, write legal opinions and issue arrest warrants. They sometimes work from home and are on call 24/7.

But they acknowledge the public perceives a darkened courtroom as a sign that justices aren’t at work. “That’s a hard perception to overcome,” said Justice of the Peace Melissa Saragosa, adding it’s one she shared while a prosecutor in Roger’s office. She joined the bench last year.

“But when I got in Justice Court, I had no idea what happened behind the scenes,” Saragosa said.

The justices of the peace say they start their days by 7:30 a.m. and generally work in chambers until at least 3 p.m. when not on the bench.

Justice of the Peace Joe Bonaventure, in documents given to the Sun, says he’s at work most mornings at 6.

But the judges’ offices are hidden from public view behind the courtrooms and they have access to private elevators. The public generally does not know what the judges are doing after their courtrooms are locked or whether they are even in the building.

The Sun asked all 10 justices of the peace to provide their schedules from Jan. 29 through Feb. 1. They presented what appear to be reconstructions of what they did during the four-day snapshot.

Smith indicated he had a post-lunch civil calendar to attend to Jan. 29, yet he acknowledged in a subsequent interview that he was not on the bench that afternoon. He said he had been scheduled to hear a civil trial, but it was postponed.

Only Saragosa, Karen Bennett-Haron and Abbi Silver were in their courtrooms by 1:30 p.m. on Jan. 29. At 3 p.m., only Silver was on the bench.

According to Justice of the Peace Nancy Oesterle’s response, she spent more than an hour that afternoon at a local elementary school, talking with fifth graders. She writes that she worked more than three hours at home that night.

The following day, Jan. 30, Oesterle, Smith and a substitute for Justice of the Peace William Jansen presided over their courtrooms at 2:15 p.m., but their colleagues were all gone. Jansen was off that week; Justice of the Peace Ann Zimmerman was recovering from surgery. She, too, was replaced by a substitute.

On Thursday, Jan. 31, four of the judges remained in session at 1:30 p.m. Only Justice of the Peace Deborah Lippis and Zimmerman’s replacement remained at 3:30 p.m. Bennett-Haron was off.

Saragosa, a military reservist, spent that afternoon at Nellis Air Force Base attending to obligations.

On Friday all the judges had left their benches by noon. Oesterle was off. Silver went home early to be with her sick 5-month-old, and Bonaventure took most of the afternoon off to attend to personal matters, according to their reports.

The following week, while discussing the empty courtrooms, Lippis grew irate at the implication that she and the other justices of the peace aren’t working full days. She pointed to a 12-inch stack of civil court briefs on her desk that she said required a review.

“I’m telling you we are working,” she said.

Lippis is, however, one of a few judges open to considering a new daily court schedule. Not all share her view, no matter what they may say publicly, courthouse insiders say.

“We are not saying that we’re satisfied with the status quo,” Smith said. “We’re looking for ways to improve.”

Roger’s letter to Smith outlined a plan for improvement: Conduct preliminary hearings in the morning, beginning at 8, and move arraignments to the afternoon from 1:15 to 3. Any cases not concluded in the morning could be heard from 3 to 5 p.m.

But years ago, Smith said, the court moved away from conducting afternoon arraignments because they posed scheduling conflicts for attorneys. Forcing defense lawyers to attend afternoon arraignments in Justice Court tends to disrupt trials in District Court, Smith said.

Under the current system, most arraignments are concluded before the district judges start their morning trials, Smith said.

Although Roger didn’t mention it in his letter, another way to make the most use of the available space at the courthouse would be to designate courtrooms for specific hearings rather than for specific judges.

“Everything’s on the table,” said Chuck Short, the Regional Justice Center’s courts administrator.

According to Short, in addition to Roger’s recommendation of afternoon arraignments, officials are considering extending hours, designating one court specifically for initial appearances and assigning justices of the peace to either civil or criminal dockets instead of continuing to have each judge handle both.

Justice of the Peace Tony Abbatangelo has a different view: If the court had more staff to help prepare him and others, more afternoon cases could be scheduled. He likens himself to a NASCAR driver who would presumably complete more laps in better time if he had additional RPMs.

Perhaps the judicial system needs a better handle on the effectiveness of judges before rejiggering the schedules of the justices of the peace. Today the court has no electronic tracking system to determine whether the judges are keeping up with their caseloads.

Such a system, akin to one used by District Court judges, should be in place by summer, Short said.