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Extracted from Consolidated Report

This investigation was originally published as part of a larger consolidated report containing multiple investigations. View the consolidated PDF for the complete document.

Monterey County Grand Jury • 2013-2014

Public Safety and Cost Reduction Considerations In the Monterey County Superior Court Criminal Arraignment Process*

Published: April 29, 2014 10 pages

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⚠️ Translation Notice: This content has been automatically translated. The original English text is the official version. Translation may contain errors.

⚠️ Este contenido ha sido traducido automáticamente. El texto original en inglés es la versión oficial. La traducción puede contener errores.

Findings 14 findings

Virtually all of the personnel in the Agencies and Departments we interviewed either concurred in principle or fully agreed with our Grand Jury Recommendation that an Arraignment Courtroom facility should be provided either as part of the expanded Natividad Jail facilities, or immediately adjacent to it, so that all the Arraignment Public Safety and Cost Reduction Considerations In the Monterey County Superior Court Criminal Arraignment Process hearings for incarcerated prisoners can be conducted on the grounds of the Natividad site of the Jail.

The recent establishment of Department 11 Arraignment Court by the Monterey Superior Court has made these Recommendations a near perfect solution for both the County and the Sheriff, as well as for the County taxpayers, and for the State which funds much of this security process. There are also potential financial and operational benefits to the Superior Court, itself, which benefits can be enhanced by careful joint planning of this proposed new facility, and its future operation, by all concerned.

The Sheriffs' Department is in a unique position to benefit from incorporating an arraignment courtroom co-located at the Jail. Once the new Jail addition is built and occupied, there may eventually be more prisoners held in the Jail which increase will undoubtedly result in a larger number of required arraignment hearings. Additional prisoners at the Jail will otherwise create an immediate need for more prisoner transports and increased security concerns, if there is no Arraignment Courtroom on site.

The Superior Court and its Department 11 would also benefit by having a more flexible scheduling agenda for Arraignment hearings, which can even be shared with its Traffic and Misdemeanor Court facilities, as a logical way to avoid transporting incarcerated prisoners for cases involving relatively minor infractions and misdemeanors.

The consolidation of all these outstanding in-custody inmate cases to the one onsite courtroom would reduce the distance and risks of the present process of transporting felons, where appropriate and agreeable to the parties. Alternatively, an interim installation and lease of CCTV facilities at the Jail and the Marina Traffic Court could also save costs and risks. Accordingly, these alternatives for the Traffic Court could be considered, if an arraignment facility at the Jail were planned to be used only by the Superior Court.

Reducing the transportation of prisoners to and from the Natividad Jail to the Salinas Courthouse each year for brief Arraignment hearings is of obvious benefit to public safety. Such changes would mean that there is far less chance of an escape, or efforts to escape, and may reduce violence or injuries from altercations between inmates during transport. While such events are not common, reducing even the possibility is very important to the Public and the County.

Any effort to quantify the specific financial savings to the County and the Courts by adopting the Recommendations is a more difficult process. Nonetheless, there are several aspects of this proposed change that show the likelihood of major financial savings even if not a specific amount. With all the pressures on cutting budgets at all levels of Public Safety and Cost Reduction Considerations In the Monterey County Superior Court Criminal Arraignment Process government this could help reduce costs over the next many years without the necessity of laying off badly needed Sheriff's Department law enforcement personnel.

However, we do recognize that even if all arraignment proceedings were moved to the proposed Court Arraignment facility at the expanded County Jail, the Sheriff's Office will still have to transport a number of prisoners daily to the Salinas Courthouse for the actual Court criminal trials, as well as for all the attendant pre-trial and other case related hearings and appearances. There appears to be no other alternative to this.

If we assume, for example, a reduction of two full-time deputies because of the proposed change in transporting prisoners, this could reduce salary and benefit costs by more than $200,000 per year, plus eliminating significant vehicular operational costs for fuel and wear and tear and the carbon emissions associated. Each trip avoided saves a 4+ mile roundtrip to and from the Salinas Courthouse. Some of the current contingent of personnel and vehicles will, of course, still need to be used for transport and backup of other Sheriff's Office activities, and deputies are still going to have to escort prisoners from their cells to the Arraignment courtroom. Yet, based on data provided to the Grand Jury by the Executive Offices of the Superior Court, it is clear that the actual number of prisoners would be reduced from the large number presently being transported.

F10

The Superior Court Executive Offices have advised the Grand Jury that the actual total number of Arraignment Hearings in Department 11 during the last three calendar months of 2013 was 2,885 cases - with 1,043 such hearings during October, 929 in November and 913 in December. Such statistics for a longer period would also give more conclusive evidence of the reduction involved, but were unavailable to us at this time. It should be understood that these figures include some out-of-custody defendants who do not normally have to be transported, and that these numbers reflect only the number of cases, and not the number of defendants appearing for a particular case. Some defendants may have multiple cases against them, each of which is treated as a separate arraignment matter. Misdemeanor cases seldom involve transport of the defendants because most are released after citation, while felony cases almost always involve arrest and incarceration. Nonetheless, on a projected annualized basis, this data projects out to a total of 11,540 required Arraignment hearings per year.

F11

Examination of those Superior Court statistics against further Court data indicates that during the period of October 2013 through the end of December 2013, there were a total of only 18 actual criminal trials at the Salinas Courthouse – 10 of which were felony trials while 8 were misdemeanor cases. These trials and all the pre-trial hearings before the trials almost always mean daily transports back and forth, day after day, for many days during the actual trial. Public Safety and Cost Reduction Considerations In the Monterey County Superior Court Criminal Arraignment Process

F12

Assuming that these statistics were to be typical year to year, and although they undoubtedly would vary month to month, this means that the number of transports which would be needed, if there were a Sheriff's Natividad Jail Arraignment courtroom, is far smaller than at present by a significant reduction of prisoner transport trips. This is a ratio of 72 annual criminal trials to 11,540 annual Arraignment hearings. Thus, the potential reduction of the number and costs of such Sheriff transports for arraignments is significant when viewed in this light. As noted above, there are still going to be some cases of need for transporting prisoners in case of appearances and hearings occurring after the initial arraignment has taken place.

F13

County and/or State/Superior Court capital funds would likely be involved in the cost of planning and the actual construction of the proposed Arraignment Courtroom, but it would seem that amortization of any such courtroom construction costs over a twenty five year life, and the location of the new Arraignment courtroom, as an example, would still show a significant savings to the State, the Sheriff's office, the County and its taxpayers. There are also other long term financial implications to both the County and the Superior Court because of the normal operating costs of Department 11 at the Natividad Jail; however, similar operating costs already exist for the present Department 11 courtroom. Any added operating costs to the Superior Courts are also offset, by the Court being able to make available the use of the existing Department 11 courtroom at the Salinas Courthouse for other types of hearings and trials by the Courts. According to the Executive Offices of the Court, there is presently a serious shortage of courtrooms there, which would become even greater were all the present authorized vacancies of judges to be appointed by the Governor. If the Grand Jury correctly understands the existing practices of the State of

F14

California (which effectively provides the funding for construction of all Courthouses), the State requires that the State own the land and the building for each of its courthouses. Therefore, the County and the Sheriff will need to verify the feasibility of this aspect and find a mutually acceptable approach to this factor, since the County currently owns the land around and under the proposed Jail courtroom. It is also possible that with special legislation introduced in the Legislature, the State might fully fund the construction of this special courtroom, as it already does for regular courthouses in other counties. This aspect of funding should be explored further with the Monterey County State Legislative delegation. Public Safety and Cost Reduction Considerations In the Monterey County Superior Court Criminal Arraignment Process

Recommendations 8

R1

A new Natividad Jail site plan should be developed that incorporates a fully equipped Department 11 Arraignment Courtroom on site and adjacent to the Jail, with appropriate and mutually agreed upon support amenities for staff offices and counsel conference facilities.
R2

The Superior Court, the Board of Supervisors and the County agencies and their department heads (most notably the Sheriff and DA) involved in the arraignment process should promptly have their representatives meet with the Monterey County CAO to determine the desirability, feasibility and means of accomplishing these Recommendations, including identifying possible funding sources to co-locate a courtroom at the Jail. Furthermore the Board of Supervisors and Superior Court should take into consideration the various other factors discussed in this Report, in order to reach a prompt and conclusive decision to move forward.
R3

Once the Board of Supervisors and the Court have preliminarily agreed on sources of funding and the need for the creation of the necessary facilities to operate Superior Court Department 11 at the Natividad Jail, the County Administrator, in conjunction with the Public Defender, District Attorney, the Sheriff and the Superior Court Executive Offices, should commence the detailed planning process, including aggressively pursuing the most likely and successful source of the construction funding.
R4

For the present time. these same parties might consider, as part of this same planning activity, providing for a temporary inexpensive closed circuit television (CCTV) system connecting the Traffic Court and the existing County Jail for the purpose of misdemeanor arraignments and traffic hearings; at least until the new Natividad Jail arraignment courtroom is made available for operation which likely would not be operational for several years. We do not, however, recommend the CCTV approach except as a necessary alternative because it is not consistent with the concept of encouraging early resolution of cases, in that it is difficult with CCTV to have counsel for the prisoners at the same location so they can discuss the possible pleas or settlement proposals to be made, if counsel and the prisoner are not both at the Jail.
R5

In the meantime, we recommend that the Court and the DA should encourage the voluntary transfer of all the Marina Traffic Court arraignments involving incarcerated prisoners to the Salinas Misdemeanor Court, with consent of their legal counsel, so a major portion of the transport costs and security issues of those prisoners currently required to be transported to the Marina Traffic Court can be eliminated. Public Safety and Cost Reduction Considerations In the Monterey County Superior Court Criminal Arraignment Process
R6

The Marina Traffic and Salinas Misdemeanor Courts could eventually use the proposed Arraignment Courthouse at the new Jail for all incarcerated prisoners within their jurisdictions. In the interim, Recommendations R4 and R5 would reduce transport costs and public safety. However, this particular additional use of the Jail facility should be worked out so that it does not interfere with the Department 11 misdemeanor and felony inmate case arraignments, which are the primary and most important purpose of these Recommendations.
R7

If the participants in this planning and implementation process feel that use of the Jail site courtroom by the Traffic Courts is inconsistent with the primary use by the planned Department 11 arraignment operations, prompt action should be taken to encourage use of one of the two other alternatives, discussed above, concerning the Marina Traffic and the Salinas Misdemeanor Courts.
R8

Finally, the CAO, the Superior Court Administrative office, and the Sheriff's Department should promptly investigate how to apply to the State for a further grant for the costs of planning and constructing the proposed on-site Arraignment Courtroom facility and adjoining conference and office facilities. If special legislation appears necessary, the parties should then promptly seek the assistance of Monterey County area State legislators since without funding this proposal, however valid, will go nowhere.

No Responses Found 1

Government entities assigned to respond to this report. No response documents have been linked in our database.

Superior Court of California, County of Monterey Court

* This report's PDF did not contain easily extractable text and required Optical Character Recognition (OCR) for analysis. There may be minor errors in the extracted findings and recommendations due to OCR limitations with scanned documents.