R.I. courts plan on no shutdown

While the legal dispute over Gov. Donald L. Carcieri’s plan to shut down government played out in R.I. Supreme Court last week, Chief Justice Paul A. Suttell worked on some plans of his own.
A court spokesman said last week that Suttell and Court Administrator J. Joseph Baxter had been talking with the unions that represent the sheriffs and Capitol Police – both of which provide security at the state courts – as well as other court workers in their own effort to head off shutdowns in the judicial branch.
Being the head of an independent branch of government, Suttell “has the ability to negotiate with the unions,” said spokesman Craig Berke.
In fact, Suttell last week recused himself from the court battle between the Carcieri administration and the state’s public employees union over the planned shutdown days so he could avoid a conflict in his labor talks.
“Unfortunately, my responsibilities as chief administrative officer of the court system are in direct conflict with my role as an impartial adjudicator of the litigation concerning the potential implementation of a shut down of state government,” Suttell said in a statement released last week announcing his recusal. “As an independent branch of government, the Judiciary is committed to shouldering its share of the budget deficit. In an effort to achieve the necessary savings, it will undoubtedly be necessary for me, as an administrator, to sit down with the various parties to the litigation. … They need to know that any decision of this Court will not be influenced by anything that may be said to me or any member of my staff.”
Suttell sought to secure an agreement with state employees who work in the judicial system that would allow courts to stay open while saving the money Carcieri’s labor-cost-cutting plan had initially assumed, according to Berke.
“The chief believes there is a constitutional and statutory mandate to be open,” Berke said.
The issue of shutdown days was taken up by the Supreme Court last week, following a seesaw battle a week earlier in which a Sept. 4 shutdown – the first scheduled one – first was given a judicial green light then halted. Carcieri’s plan to shut down state government for a total of 12 days between September and next June is part of the governor’s proposal to close a $67.8 million hole in the fiscal 2010 state budget. The closures would save about $21.6 million, assuming both the legislative and judicial branches close down, too.
The state’s largest public employee union – Council 94 of the American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees (AFSCME), AFL-CIO, argued in legal briefings that Carcieri’s executive order on the shutdowns violated the Rhode Island Constitution and the terms of its labor contract.
But at the courts, such shutdowns raised special concerns about delayed hearings and a growing backlog of cases – and what that might mean for plaintiffs, prosecutors, defendants and witnesses.
As the first scheduled shutdown day approached, court officials appeared to be in a difficult position: They repeatedly said they planned to keep the courts open, because 1,300 cases were already on dockets across the state.
At the same time, however, Carcieri initially said sheriffs and Capitol Police officers – who work for the executive branch – would not be made available, making operating the court system impossible.
No one could screen visitors or packages, or transport prisoners from the cell block to the courtrooms.
Carcieri eventually relented, saying he’d make the security officers available to the court because he realized officials were unable to reschedule many of the cases with such short notice and a closure would play havoc with the court calendar.
That decision was made moot when Supreme Court Justice Maureen McKenna Goldberg sided with the unions, halting the governor’s plan to shut down state government until the full Supreme Court could deliberate on the matter.
Last week, Berke insisted that no matter what the Supreme Court decides, Suttell is committed to cutting the judicial budget by $2.2 million as assumed in the governor’s shutdown plan.
But, Berke added, the only was to do that was to reduce labor costs.
The judicial branch currently has 680 full-time-equivalent workers, and Suttell and Baxter hoped to work out an agreement for unpaid workdays, a solution that the Carcieri administration had broached with the unions, to no avail. Court officials raised several concerns about shuttering the judicial system, particularly when the shutdown days are tied to already-existing three-day weekends, as Carcieri has scheduled them.
Berke said in some cases – particularly with parole and probation violation cases – someone arrested on a Thursday before a Friday shutdown day could be held at the Adult Correctional Institutions in Cranston until a court hearing the following Tuesday, five days later.
Mirian Weizenbaum, president of the Rhode Island Association for Justice (formerly the Rhode Island Trial Lawyers Association) said a delay in some Family Court proceedings – particularly those involving child-support payments – can mean the difference between “staying in their home or not, or having food on their table or not.”
“I don’t want to overstate it, but [a court shutdown] will have an impact,” she said last week. “And it will test the capacity of an already stretched system. Not everything can be absorbed on the following day.”
A court shutdown also would put strain on the R.I. Attorney General’s office.
AG spokesman Michael J. Healey said last week that the department would follow the court’s lead on shutdowns: If the courts remain open, so will the AG’s office.
“If we don’t show up for cases, we’d have some explaining to do,” Healey said.
As far as the effects of a shutdown on prosecutions, Healey said a day’s delay wouldn’t have much impact on a trial. But he said a delay in a violation hearing – “the stuff of the everyday criminal calendar” – could mean a longer stay in jail for the accused or a guilty person going free.
Not everyone would be dead set against some shutdown days for the judicial branch.
Robert H. Humphrey, a busy Tiverton defense attorney who focuses on drunken driving cases, said he was looking for forward to the first government shutdown day before it was canceled by McKenna Goldberg’s Sept. 3 ruling.
“I would welcome a day at the office where I could prepare for cases, and not be called into court,” he said. •