Special Commission on the Future of the New York State Courts

The issues concerning the Justice Courts are not new. As
long ago as 1926, Governor Alfred E. Smith referred to them as
“a farce in these days,” and a long line of commissions and other
groups have since called for wholesale changes to the system.
Proposals have ranged from the complete elimination of these
courts in favor of an expansion of the district court system, to the
requirement that all of the Town and Village justices be attorneys,
to more modest suggestions of increased funding and training.
In November 2006, OCA issued an Action Plan for the
Justice Courts detailing an array of reforms, some of which are
already being implemented. The more significant of these
initiatives include (1) a plan to supply the Justice Courts with
digital recorders and to make them, in effect, “courts of record”
where the proceedings are recorded and cases can be more easily
appealed; (2) doubling the current required training period to two
weeks and also adding at-home supplementary training sessions;
and (3) providing laptops and other much-needed technical
support that will make the courts more efficient while allowing
OCA to more easily exercise oversight. 157
Given the issues that have been previously raised, we
are deeply concerned about the Justice Courts and the people
around our state who must come before them. On the other
hand, it has become clear to us that the issues are sufficiently
serious and complex as to merit a much more intensive study
than we have been able to conduct in the seven months that we
have been studying the broader issue of the structure and
efficiency of the court system. We also note that the recent
OCA initiatives, and the recent hearings by the Legislature,
themselves warrant further consideration and study.
To this end, we have proposed, and the Chief Judge has
agreed, that the term of our <strong>Commission</strong> be extended, so that we
may conduct an appropriate review of this important issue. Our
report on the Justice Courts will be submitted in the Fall of
2007. In the meantime, we note that this additional study
should not be seen as a reason to delay initiation of the broad
restructuring that we recommend in this Report. Instead, a
157
See N.Y. UNIFIED COURT SYS., ACTION PLAN FOR THE JUSTICE COURTS
1-7 (2006).
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A Court System for the Future, February 2007