Articles & News

December 3, 2008

City of Spokane, WA to set up municipal court system

Jonathan Brunt, Staff writer

Spokane leaders this week severed a partnership with county courts that has lasted since the early 1960s.

Starting Jan. 2, the city will leave the Spokane County District Court and operate an independent municipal court to handle misdemeanor cases originating within city limits.

The separation, which was finalized in a unanimous vote Monday by the Spokane City Council, will force a series of rapid decisions to create a new city court system and revamp the county’s District Court within one month.

Challenges include the transfer of thousands of open city cases to the new court and determining if some court partnerships, including programs focused on domestic violence and defendants with mental health problems, will withstand the separation.

It’s even uncertain where the new court will be located. City officials hope to continue using space at the Public Safety Building, but county commissioners say they have needs for the space and may charge the city higher rent to stay. City Attorney Howard Delaney said the new court could be housed in a building the city leases on West Gardner Avenue.

Spokane Mayor Mary Verner has until the end of the year to appoint two judges and perhaps two court commissioners to the new court.

County leaders say they will maintain their nine elected judgeships, but will cut five court commissioners to make up for the lost caseload.

City Council President Joe Shogan said continuing with the District Court would have put city misdemeanor cases at risk.

“This is in the best interest of the city,” Shogan said. “I don’t have any doubt about that.”

But County Commission Chairwoman Bonnie Mager called the city’s decision a “giant step backwards.”

“It creates another level of separation,” she said.

City and county officials have met for about a year to decide how to respond to a decision from a state appeals court that overturned DUI convictions of two Spokane men represented by the Center for Justice. That ruling said that District Court judges had no authority to hear city cases because state law requires city misdemeanor charges to be considered by judges elected only by Spokane city voters. District Court judges are elected county-wide.

As of last week, county leaders said they thought they were close to crafting an agreement that would keep the city within the District Court.

But that proposal would have taken the chance that legislators next year would rewrite state law to allow judges that handle city cases to be elected county-wide.

Until the law is changed, city leaders say there is too much risk that cases could be challenged.

“I thought we had complete agreement,” said District Court Presiding Judge Richard White, who expressed “profound disappointment” at the separation. The mayor “evaluated the risk as being too severe and we have to respect that evaluation.”

Breean Beggs, executive director of the Center for Justice, said the city made the best and safest decision.

“There’s no doubt that it’s completely compliant with the law,” Beggs said.

The case that started the recent controversy, City of Spokane v. Lawrence J. Rothwell, is scheduled to be heard by the state Supreme Court next year.

Under state law, the city had to make a decision on whether to create a separate Municipal Court by Monday. The city determined that there still were too many unknowns with proceeding with a combined system, said Spokane City Attorney Howard Delaney.

The city’s decision is a significant shift from five weeks ago when Verner and White announced in a press release that they were on track to crafting an agreement that would keep the city’s court system within the county’s District Court.

Delaney said the bottom line is that the city determined that changes made to state law earlier this year did not eliminate the risk of continuing within the District Court.

“We had originally envisioned (the new state law) being more flexible than it actually was,” he said.

County Commissioner Todd Mielke points to studies – including the city’s own Matrix efficiency report – that say a combined court system costs less.

“On behalf of the taxpayers, it works better to have a consolidated court system,” he said.

Delaney questions the studies and says a separate municipal court won’t cost much more than what the city pays now.

White said he had hoped that the city and county could work toward a consolidated court. In such a system, a defendant accused of crimes inside and outside city limits would only need one public defender, one prosecutor and one judge. That isn’t the case currently and is more unlikely with a completely separate municipal court, he said.

Recent negotiations were “laying the foundation for continuous discussions toward consolidation,” White said. “There was an opportunity and it’s been lost, and I don’t believe it’s coming back for a long time.”

Delaney said the city and county could still move forward slowly on consolidation, perhaps through domestic violence and mental health courts. If those efforts are successful, more efforts could be tried, he said.

But a consolidated court should be made up of the best parts of the county and city, he said, adding that too often the county has dismissed city ideas.

“Being equal partners is what was missing,” he said. Negotiations in recent weeks made progress on those concerns, but the risk couldn’t be overcome by the Dec. 1 deadline, he said.

Delaney, who has expressed interest in being a judge in the past, said he will not apply for any of the opening judgeships.

A separate city system likely will improve service to the city since judges will answer only to city voters, Delaney said.

“The taxpayers will find the court far more responsive to the needs of the community,” he said.