Massive reforms to California juvenile dependency courts

Judges vow to fix state's foster-care court
Judges approve reforms - can state pay for them?
de Sá, Karen. San Jose Mercury News, Sept. 16, 2008.

The California courts approved massive reforms on Friday to the state's troubled juvenile dependency courts that would ease the overwhelmed system and ensure fairness for those who are "literally and legally the children of the state."

Finding unconscionable the overloaded dockets that leave only minutes for hearings that determine critical issues for 75,000 California children in foster care, the state Judicial Council approved measures that would include more judges to hear dependency cases and more lawyers to represent impoverished family members.

"Children are our future, and I can't imagine any more effort that's as integral to society and our judicial system," said Chief Justice Ronald George, who led the council in calling for change.

The vote of the Judicial Council - the governing body for the state courts - adopts the recommendations of a statewide commission that George appointed in 2006 to study the problems of the dependency courts, which operate largely in secret and are often treated as the less-prestigious stepchild of the court system.

The measures approved by the council would address many of the critical problems identified in the February Mercury News series "Broken Families, Broken Courts," which revealed an overburdened system that too often poorly serves both the children it is designed to protect, and the parents accused of abuse or neglect. The series documented a system in which overloaded attorneys routinely meet with clients minutes before their hearings, if at all, and often fail to properly investigate or present their cases.

The next question will be funding changes to the system - the state Legislature is already at an impasse over how to solve its $15.2 billion deficit. As Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed one bill last month that sailed through the Legislature in response to the newspaper articles - a measure designed to make sure that children are aware of their hearings and given the chance to attend - he expressed concern over the costs at a time when the state is strapped for money.

But the chief justice Friday said a "golden opportunity" exists to enact the 79 specific measures - many of which do not involve significant costs. Court officials intend to push implementation of the widespread measures both at the state and county levels in the coming months.

Among the 42 members of the California Blue Ribbon Commission on Children in Foster Care that drafted the recommendations is newly named Assembly Speaker Karen Bass, D-Los Angeles, who has focused her career on improving the state's foster care system.

Smaller caseloads
The Judicial Council's newly approved list of reforms calls for attorney caseloads of no more than 188 clients, although in some counties, lawyers for children and parents attempt to juggle as many as 600 cases. The council called for all dependency cases to be heard by judges, although in many counties referees and commissioners serve as substitutes for judges. In great swaths of the state, judicial officers are assigned upward of 1,300 families at any given time - hundreds more than the 250 recommended by national experts. The Judicial Council will now seek to lower judicial caseloads, but in return will ask for minimum three-year assignments.

William Vickery, administrative director of the statewide court system, said California became too reliant on lower-level judicial officers in the critical, but low-status dependency courts. For judges, he said, "it's never been on the radar screen. It's something that's been in the back room or the cellar."

In calling for more judges and more reasonable caseloads, blue ribbon commission members told the Judicial Council that it is the only "ethically defensible" position to take, given that "dependency cases represent the most intrusive form of governmental intervention."

Friday's Judicial Council vote embraced the commission's list of proposed reforms, in some cases with strengthened language.

Attorneys' competence
The council is seeking a system to ensure attorney competency and effectiveness, and the appointment of attorneys for all children when their cases are appealed to the higher courts.

The Judicial Council also is seeking action to address the longstanding problem that hearings to remove children from their homes disproportionately involve families of color. The council approved steps to reduce the number of African-American and American Indian children in the system, while increasing the diversity and cultural competence of the courts' workforce.

To highlight the need, Supreme Court Justice Carlos Moreno pointed to San Francisco, where African-American children are 9 percent of the city's population, and 70 percent of those in foster care, he said.

Central to the reform efforts ahead is a plan to prevent the removal of children from their homes whenever possible, and to call on federal authorities to grant more money for child abuse prevention and reunification services.

But California dependency system reformers believe the courts can do a better job whittling down the number of cases in which children must be removed from homes - which, they say, will lower the costs of caring for children in foster care. Those savings should be reinvested in supports for troubled families before they enter the court system, the commission reported, resulting in a long-term savings "by reducing the number of former foster children who become homeless, dependent on welfare, and incarcerated as adults."