Looking for Judges

In response to Center’s push for reforms, the City of Spokane is seeking applicants for new Municipal Court.

Spokane Mayor Mary Verner announced this morning that the City of Spokane is seeking applicants to fill three Municipal Court judge positions and two court commissioner positions.

The announced public search for applicants comes a week after the Spokane City Council approved an ordinance to create a separate Municipal Court for the City. The city’s vote to approve the new ordinance came in response to litigation, brought by the Center for Justice, charging that under Spokane County district and municipal court judges simply don’t have authority to preside over cases involving traffic violations and criminal violations of city ordinances.  The law is clear, the Center has argued, that such cases have to be tried before municipal court judges who’ve won city-wide elections.

“We are looking for talented, qualified individuals who are ready to take on these important responsibilities immediately,” Verner said today in a statement issued by her office. “Those chosen for these positions will have a tremendous opportunity to help set a positive direction for the future of the City’s Municipal Court.”

A year ago a state Court of Appeals panel ruled in favor of two of the Center’s clients that their 2005 convictions by a Spokane County district court judge should be stricken because of a lack of jurisdiction. While the city’s announcement that it will create its own Municipal Court does not resolve all aspects of the litigation (the city has appealed to the Washington Supreme Court) both the Mayor and CFJ agree that the new court brings the city in compliance with state law going forward, and should better serve the city’s criminal justice needs.

“Urban criminal cases require urban justice,” says CFJ attorney and Chief Catalyst Breean Beggs. Given the higher incidence of drug offenses and crimes related to urban poverty, Beggs says, the city has markedly different criminal justice needs than rural Spokane County and the new municipal court system will allow “alternative criminal justice models that are more efficient and cost effective for the types of urban problems we face.”

“From the beginning of this controversy,” Beggs added, “we’ve been meeting with city legal representatives to find a solution that complies with the law and avoids a meltdown of the City of Spokane’s criminal justice system. This step means the city will now be in compliance with state law and be able to design alternatives to incarceration that are more effective and that save money for the taxpayers.”

Mayor Verner has also spoken to the reforms that she’d like to see implemented with the new court system.

“Through the establishment of the City’s own court,” she said last week, “we will advance our goal of better justice sooner. We will implement process improvements, provide a greater range of sentencing alternatives that will more effectively reintegrate defendants into society, and explore other cost-saving measures like adding a Saturday court to avoid keeping defendants in jail over the weekend.”

The redesigned court is scheduled to begin operations on January 2nd.