February 28, 2006

State Supreme Courts: Engines of Court Reform

The Dwight D. Opperman Institute of Judicial Administration and the Brennan Center for Justice co-sponsored the 12th Annual Justice William Brennan Jr. Lecture on State Courts and Social Justice. Chief Justice Randall T. Shepard of the Supreme Court of Indiana presented his lecture, “The New Role of State Supreme Courts as Engines of Court Reform.” At a reception following the event, the National Center for State Courts honored New York State Chief Judge (and first Brennan lecturer) Judith Kaye ’62 with an induction into the prestigious Warren E. Burger Society.

What is the role of appellate courts in the United States? These courts hear cases, write opinions, shape laws and develop doctrine. “For state intermediate and federal circuit courts, this is a pretty respectable job description,” remarked Chief Justice Randall Shepard during his lecture, “The New Role of State Supreme Courts as Engines of Court Reform.” In the recent past, however, state supreme courts have undertaken not only important legislative duties, but have brought about significant procedural and jurisprudential changes along the way. Their decisions and reforms have not only affected the judiciary and the law, but increasingly influence scholarship and academics, and have changed the way generations of students learn about the law.

“State courts are common fodder for training first year students to think like lawyers,” said Shepard. Landmark decisions on civil unions and gay marriage have come from the supreme courts of Vermont and Massachusetts respectively, while changes concerning medical malpractice and criminal law have been affected by state rulings. “Opinions continue to play a leading role in the writing and reading that occurs in the nation’s law schools.”

With the greater importance of the state supreme courts come more expansive functions and, naturally, an increase in administrative responsibilities. Shepard noted a trend in the state judicial systems of California, Iowa, Kentucky and Minnesota toward “unification,” wherein the entire state’s court system, from top to bottom, is funded by the state. Previously, local trial courts were funded by county governments, while the appellate courts were the financial responsibility of the state government.

Jury selection and management has also been reformed by initiatives undertaken by state supreme courts. “Two state high courts (Arizona and New York) led the way out of the comfort zone of jury reform during the 1990s,” said Shepard. These efforts have changed summoning processes, allowed juror interaction and have made juries appropriately representative in regard to race and ethnicity. On an administrative front, Shepard’s own Indiana state court system completed the Herculean task of compiling an unduplicated register of names and addresses of over four million people eligible for jury duty, thus streamlining the summoning process in unprecedented ways.

States have been at the forefront of equalizing access to legal services for the poor. Since the 1980s, legal aid to the indigent has weakened due to federal budget cuts. States, however, have picked up the slack with programs such as IOLTA (Interest on Lawyers Trust Accounts), “pro se” legal services kiosks and state sponsored pro bono services in order to ensure the lesser heard voices in society are not silenced.

Fair treatment of minorities is another issue being comprehensively addressed by state supreme courts. Tthe federal government has its eye on cutting the budgets of the Council on Legal Education (CLEO) and the Thurgood Marshall Program—both of which increase the possibilities for low-income minorities to attend law school. The Georgia, Kentucky and Indiana state supreme courts have started their own CLEO systems by creating clerkships for minorities, something that Shepard says, “adds not only valuable experience, but valuable caché to a legal career.”

The vast changes induced by state supreme courts don’t simply affect those who choose to enter the American legal system. Alaska has pioneered “therapeutic courts” for those afflicted with drug addiction or mental illness. Florida has designated a public information executive to deal with laypeople such as teachers and journalists in an effort to disseminate more accurate legal information to the public. In Connecticut, through the Open World Program, judges from Russia have come to learn the rule of law in an attempt to export similar state procedures in foreign trial courts.

“There is a valuable lesson embedded in this assessment of the new work undertaken by these institutions that used to be solely appellate bodies,” Shepard said, looking toward the future of the state supreme courts’ role in American legal society. Shepard also siezed the opportunity to return to the past, and distilled the attitude of Justice Brennan by noting that it has always been the judiciary’s core responsibility “to help our fellow citizens in fostering a decent, safe and prosperous society by building a system of justice that befits a great nation.”

By Graham Reed