Category: News

Please join us in welcoming the following new NASJE members:

• Ms. Laura Bassein, Senior Attorney, New Mexico Judicial Education Center, University of New Mexico, Alburquerque, NM
• Ms. Kylie Burke, Conference Coordinator, Texas Justice Court Training Center, Austin, TX
• Ms. Christine Christopherson, Judicial Branch Educator, South Dakota Unified Judicial System, Pierre, SD
• Mr. Robert W. Godfrey, Conference Coordinator, Administrative Office of the Courts, Salt Lake City, UT
• Hon. Georganna A. “Jody” Petry, Judge, Uintah County Justice Court, Vernal, UT
• Ms. Amanda Sharp, Education Manager, Texas Justice Court Training Center, Austin, TX
• Ms. Sara E. Thompson, Director of Judicial Education, West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals, Charleston, WV
• Mr. Bronson Tucker, General Counsel, Texas Justice Court Training Center, Austin, TX
• Ms. Jesse Walker, Court Education Professional, Administrative Office of the Courts, Olympia, WA

The past year has seen the NASJE News continue to be a publication that contributes substantially to our profession. We have continued to add new areas of focus for articles and continue to invite new people to manage the sections of our issues. The improved web-based format continues to be well received.

The newsletter would not have been possible this year without the hard work, great ideas, and commitment of all the people who wrote articles for us, as well as the following recent editorial board members:

Lee Ann Barnhardt, Daphne Burns, Steve Circeo, Jo Deyo, Shawn Marsh, John Newell, Danielle Pugh-Markie, Michael Roosevelt, Nancy Smith, Kelly Tait, Wendy Schiller, Kelly Tait.

I also want to acknowledge the offices, agencies, and sponsoring organizations that made it possible for these wonderful people to devote their efforts to educating us all. I especially want to thank the Supreme Court of Ohio and Milt Nuzum, Director of the Judicial College, for the support and encouragement that has enabled me to act as chair of this committee.

Often, being a committee chair for any organization is a thankless task, and at times it is hard to comprehend why one would put oneself through it all. For me, getting to work with the people named above has been just as great a reward as being able to bring our membership a valuable publication on a regular basis.

It is thus a bittersweet decision I have made after 15 years on this committee to step down as the editor of NASJE News, effective with an appointment of a replacement by incoming President Marty Sullivan. If any of you are interested in working with a great group of people to produce a valuable product, please let Marty know. There is space on the committee for an editor as well as members.

Thank you all for this opportunity.

Respectfully submitted,
Philip Schopick, Editor NASJE News

Administrative Office of the Courts and ABA Commission on Homelessness and Poverty
San Francisco, CA, Friday, May 11, 2012
Reported by Michael Roosevelt, CJER, California

According to the 2012 Judicial Council of California Homeless Court Fact Sheet, homelessness is a major problem affecting the country, states, cities and counties. In a 2008 study by Nieto, Gittelman, and Abad published the International Journal of Psychosocial Rehabilitation, the average number of homeless people at any given time in the United States is 750,000, 1 percent of the U.S. population. Nationally, the largest percentage increase of homeless subpopulations between 2005 and 2007 was in the number of family households, which increased by more than 3,200 households, or 4 percent, according to the National Alliance to End Homelessness.

In California, an estimated 133,000 people were homeless in 2010, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. Statewide, veterans are thought to comprise 10 percent of the homeless, and according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), approximately 50,000 homeless individuals have mental illness. California’s homeless courts reflect a partnership among the courts, justice system partners (such as the American Bar Association’s Commission on Homelessness and Poverty), service providers, community groups, and the homeless to address a common concerni.

Homelessness has only increased with the economic, employment and housing downturn. Recognizing the problem, the California Administrative Office of the Courts Center for Families, Children & the Courts, in collaboration with the ABA Commission on Homelessness and Poverty, convened a day-long statewide program in San Francisco to explore promising and best practices for addressing homelessness among youth, adults, veterans, and parolees. Among the invitation-only attendees at the “Homelessness Summit” were service providers, attorneys, judges, law enforcement, and representatives from the VA, the military, and churches – all who are considered experts in the field of homelessness. The day began with a keynote plenary session on veterans issues, followed by a discussion of experiences and challenges facing those programs working to reduce homeless. The late morning and early afternoon consisted of breakout sessions that focused on specific target populations (namely, veterans, youth, parolees and adults). In these sessions, participants discussed the challenges facing homeless programs in light of California’s poor fiscal condition. The afternoon focused on solutions. The day concluded with breakouts reporting challenges and solutions or recommendations for addressing the challenges.

Some Recommendations
While there were a number of recommendations offered for moving forward, the summit planning committee plans to compile the findings into a single report, share it with the summit attendees and follow-up with action steps. Not surprisingly, there are significant barriers to overcome in order to serve the homeless population: the stigma associated with being a homeless veteran, youth, parolee or adult; the lack of funding to sustain programs to serve this population, federal housing rules that prevent parolees from living in subsidized housing and difficulty placing people who are both homeless and mentally ill. Solutions or recommendations for addressing some of these problems include changing federal housing rules to allow former offenders to live in subsidized housing, and educating the public about the cost-benefit and public safety benefit of serving and providing housing for the homeless in the community. Finally, programs that serve the homeless must collaborate on funding.

Conclusion
Attendees at the Summit left with renewed energy to improve and expand programs and services for and to the homeless.

Every four years, Nevada holds a week-long Judicial Leadership Summit for judges from all jurisdictions within the state. The 2012 Nevada Judicial Leadership Summit was held April 30th through May 4th in Las Vegas, and included federal judges from the District of Nevada. The keynote speaker was U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy. Justice Kennedy spoke at Boyd School of Law at the University of Nevada Las Vegas during the morning of May 1st and then joined the Nevada Judiciary (and about 250 members of the Bar) for a luncheon and address at the M Resort.

“A functioning legal system is part of the capital infrastructure. It’s as important as roads, bridges, schools,” he said. “You have to have an efficient, fair, decent, transparent, open legal system.”

Justice Kennedy discussed the state of American legal education and the role elections play in choosing judges.

“It is up to the members of the bar to step up and show that judicial elections work. Since Andrew Jackson, judicial elections have been a part of the American political landscape, and it seems to me somewhat unrealistic going around and saying we should have no elections,” Kennedy said. “The question is: Can we use these to teach what judicial integrity is? … Judicial independence isn’t so the judge can decide as he or she chooses; it’s so he or she can decide as they must.”
Justice Kennedy said legal professionals must work to uphold the integrity of the judicial system to show the importance it plays in functioning democracies, addressing the roles of law schools, the Bar, and the Bench.

Justice Kennedy’s speech dovetailed nicely with a plenary educational session later in the week that saw former Iowa Chief Justice Marsha Ternus address the judges on the topic of “The Rule of Law Versus The Will of The People.” Former Chief Justice Ternus spoke about the ramifications that the Varnum v. Brien decision had on the Iowa Supreme Court. Former Chief Justice Ternus and two of her colleagues who were turned out of office as a result of the decision (a textbook civics lesson on Judicial Review) received the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award the week after speaking at the Summit.

The 2012 Nevada Judicial Leadership Summit was comprised of multiple tracks over two and a half days, with over 50 faculty, and was more than 14 months in planning.

The Nevada Supreme Court hosted a delegation from the Egyptian Court of Cassation on May 18th, 2012. The group of four visitors and two interpreters had been invited to the United States through the Department of State’s International Visitor Leadership Program. Mr. Mohamed Said Mohamed Alaaeldin, Chief Judge of the Technical Bureau of the Court of Cassation, was accompanied by three Chief Prosecutors, Mr. Hany M. Bakr, Mr. Omar El Farouk, and Mr. Tamer Seoudy.

The Egyptian delegation participated in a discussion with Mr. John McCormick, Court Services Supervisor, regarding the role of Nevada courts in the issuing of search warrants and bench warrants. Later Mr. David Gordon delivered a brief presentation on continuing judicial education, and the role of NASJE. Judge Alaaedin expressed interest in NASJE, and received the link to NASJE’s web site.