New justice

The lines start in the parking lot, with people queuing up at balky machines to pay for parking. For those without cars, they can take their chances dodging busy traffic on their way over from the light-rail station on Power Inn Road.

Inside the Sacramento Superior Court, just past the security checkpoint, a laminated sign provides flow-chart-like directions. Decorated with a colorful traffic signal and with red, yellow and green instructions, the sign brings to mind kindergarten. Other than the guards, there is no one around and the information desk is empty. So the sign will have to do.

In a room to the right, long lines to receive a traffic-court appointment bring to mind the Department of Motor Vehicles. Those in family court get to wait almost all day.

Perhaps the lines and lack of staff are not surprising. The court has reduced its employees from 950 to 700 during the last three years. The future does not look much better. With the state mandating $350 million in permanent judicial-system cuts, the Sacramento Superior Court plans to slash funding by $5.7 million in this coming fiscal year, and $13 million for 2012-2013. As part of this, more reductions in staff and service are on the table, as are backlogs in case resolution and such things as restraining orders.

In the meantime, the public and the court staff make do.

In traffic court, the judge runs the proceedings with military-like discipline. She calls out the names of six people—one of them in a blue shirt that reads like a promise, “Obey”—and they line up single file in the aisle. One by one they march before the judge, and in a few sentences, she determines guilty or not guilty.

For those who are not native English speakers, this quick summation proves particularly difficult. The judge asks one woman to wait on a bench to the side for an interpreter and another woman to wait to watch videotaped evidence. The others are sent on to the “fines room” or assigned community service.

One older woman, her fingernails not shining like justice, is determined guilty for not paying a light-rail fare and then jaywalking.

In words the rest of the room can relate to, the woman promises the judge, “I promise to walk the straight and narrow.”

Presumably, walking that straight and narrow will not include jaywalking.