Michael Roddy silent after receiving reports of shenanigans by clerks at San Diego Superior Court

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UPDATE JANUARY 30, 2013

In the same case discussed below, Stutz v. Larkins, we now have documents missing from the case file.

UPDATE JANUARY 3, 2013 re Michael Roddy silent about document falsified by clerk

Karen Dalton, in charge of public relations for the court, was able to get a response for me from Mr. Roddy. Here it is:

Dear Ms. Larkins,

The October 2012 inquiries cited in your blog were received and investigated by the court. After investigating the issues you raised, we concluded that no improper action has been taken by any court employees related to your case. The matter has been closed.


Sincerely,
Mike Roddy
Executive Officer

(I guess this means business as usual will continue in the court.)

Maria Hayes is the Supervisor of the Superior Court Appeals Division. Kathy Williams is the Manager of that Department and several other departments. Stephen Cascioppo is the Assistant Executive Officer, Central Division. And of course, Michael Roddy is the Executive Officer. Michael Roddy has clearly approved the creation of a false document to get rid of Appeal regarding one of the decisions of Judge Judith Hayes and her research attorney, Monica Barry.

ORIGINAL POST:

At a time of layoffs of clerks, why is the court forcing clerks to spend time creating false documents and then more time correcting the record?

Michael Roddy is silent regarding the bizarre and unsuccessful effort of the San Diego Superior Court Appeals Division to default my September 6, 2012 appeal regarding an injunction in the Stutz v. Larkins case.

The Court of Appeal has already ruled one of Judge Judith Hayes' injunctions unconstitutional in this same case. It would seem that Mr. Roddy wants to protect judges who ignore the law. He has not responded to either of the two letters below.

Notice the two signatures on the document at left. Someone has merely written "/s/" on each signature line! This suggests that the clerk didn't like having to sign this document, so she applied this imprecise symbol. Perhaps she feared she'd lose her job if she didn't put something on the signature line.

It appears that Superior Court Appeals division clerk ZZZ ordered her subordinate to dismiss my appeal, claiming that my Designation of Record was unacceptable because there were no hearings on three of the dates I had listed in my Designation of Record.

Even if the court had been correct regarding this issue, it is normal practice to allow the appellant a grace period to correct such mistakes.

In fact, the court was completely, absolutely, wrong.

Not only were there hearings on those dates, but the transcripts of those hearings had actually been received by the Superior Court Appeals division in 2010 for my earlier appeal about the other unconstitutional injunction in this same case. The court apparently invented this excuse in an effort to find any reason at all to justify defaulting my appeal.

What would be the motive? To make sure than Judge Judith Hayes didn't have another injunction overturned by the Court of Appeal in the Stutz v. Larkins case.


October 23, 2012

Michael Roddy, Executive Officer
Stephen Cascioppo, Assistant Executive Officer, Central Division
Third Floor
220 West Broadway
San Diego, CA 92101

Dear Executives of San Diego Superior Court:

Following is not necessarily word-for-word accurate, but all the ideas expressed are accurate. Not every word spoken is recorded here, but this transcript contains about 80% of what was spoken. Some parts were repeated.

I spoke to deputy clerk XXX in the Appeals Section on October 22, 2012 about the fact that all three of the dates she used to justify Defaulting my Appeal were, in fact, dates on which hearings had occurred.

Ms. XXX went to her computer and checked all three dates, then came back to me and said, “There were no minute orders on those dates.”

“Were there hearings on those dates?” I asked.

Instead of answering this question, she repeated a couple more times that there were no minute orders on those dates.

“What if the judge took the matter under submission?” I asked. “There wouldn’t be any minute order, even though there had been a hearing.”

Ms. XXX told me that her computer does not show whether a hearing has occurred—unless there was a minute order!!!!

I showed Ms. Rodriquez two Reporter’s Transcript cover sheets for my 2010 appeal in the same case. I had drawn circles around the three dates in question. Ms. XXX made copies of the two cover sheets, and said that this cleared up the problem.

I said, “No, it doesn’t. The fact that this happened is a problem. Someone told you to do this, didn’t they?”

She said that no one had told her to do it.

I said, “You’re going to take the fall for this?”

I said I didn’t believe she could have made three mistakes like this, and she didn’t have any motive to sabotage my appeal.

When she went to her desk, her supervisor ZZZ came up to her and told her she should leave. Then she said, “It’s your break. I’ll take care of it.”

Then they both came over to where I was sitting, and XXX explained the situation to ZZZ.

ZZZ said to XXX, “Did you look it up on the V3 system?”

XXX said she did.

I said, “So the name of the system you use is V3?

ZZZ waved her hand dismissively, ending the gesture with her palm stationary in front of my face, and said, “It’s nothing for you to worry about.”

I requested that she not stick her hand in my face and asked, “Do you not want me to have information about what system you use?”

ZZZ said she didn’t mind giving me the information, and said that V3 was the system used by the Court.

“Does it show when a hearing has occurred?” I asked.

“Yes,” ZZZ said.

“That’s interesting. XXX said that it didn’t,” I said.

ZZZ said, “No, it doesn’t show hearings. It shows the minute orders. The minute orders are printed on yellow paper and placed in the file.”

I said, “So there’s no record on your computer of hearings at which no minute order was issued?”

ZZZ said, “Well, yes, there’s a little one line notation showing that there was a hearing.” She held up her two index fingers, a short distance apart, to show how small the notation was, apparently to demonstrate how easily it could be overlooked. I said, “Someone must have told XXX to do this. Was it you?”

ZZZ said, “No.”

ZZZ turned to XXX and told her to leave.

XXX was obviously uncomfortable to be asked to leave. It was clearly not her normal break time. I happen to know that clerks sometimes take their breaks at their desks, so it was not necessary for XXX to leave even if it actually had been her break time. XXXX did not feel good to be told to leave; her facial expression and body movements revealed that she was unhappy and anxious. I interpreted the order to leave as ZZZ’s effort to prevent XXX from revealing that ZZZ had told her to create the Notice of Default. This was quite paranoid of ZZZ, since XXX was absolutely steadfast in sticking to the story that the Notice of Default was entirely her own idea.

I asked to speak to Ms. ZZZZ’s supervisor, but Ms. ZZZZ said the supervisor had her door closed and was in a meeting.

I gave ZZZ my 1-page letter with three attachments, addressed to Mr. Roddy, Mr. Cascioppo, and XXXX, and she stamped it received and stamped my copy. I went to Michael Roddy’s office, but it was closed for lunch. I went back and asked ZZZ to put another copy in Mr. Roddy’s mail box. I saw her put the letter in a mail box on the west wall.

It’s worse to force a young, vulnerable person to subvert justice than it is to simply subvert justice oneself. And whoever pressured ZZZ was worse than ZZZ. Sincerely,

Maura Larkins



October 21, 2012

Michael Roddy, Executive Officer
Stephen Cascioppo, Assistant Executive Officer, Central Division
XXXXXXXX, Deputy Clerk of the Superior Court, 3rd Floor, Room 3005
220 West Broadway, San Diego, CA 92101

Dear San Diego Superior Court:

Deputy Clerk of the Superior Court XXXXXX states in her October 18, 2012 Notice of Default (attached) that for the dates 4/25/08, 4/03/09 and 3/05/10 “there are no minutes/hearings for those dates according to our record.”

I can’t begin to imagine how Ms. XXX could come up with not one, but three separate mistakes of this type. Not only did hearings occur on all three of these dates, but court reporter Marvie Votaw delivered the transcripts of these three hearings to your Appeals Section in connection with my March 2010 appeal. I have attached Ms. Votaw’s cover pages showing that transcripts were prepared for these dates. Also, in September 2012 the court reporters had no trouble preparing estimates for the cost of preparing the current record because I obviously designated the record with adequate specificity.

It is bizarre that the Superior Court would interfere in this way with my appeals process. If the deputy clerk didn’t have enough time to check carefully, why would she go out of her way to prepare a Notice of Default? Left to her own devices, she would have left it alone rather than picking three dates and declaring that hearings didn’t happen on those days. More likely, someone else picked those three dates and told Ms. XXXX that no hearings occurred on those days.

I suspect that someone in San Diego Superior Court who wanted to get rid of my appeal asked XXXX to prepare this Notice of Default.

Please investigate this shocking subversion of the judicial process.

XXX had no motive to do this on her own initiative, but obviously there is at least one person in San Diego Superior Court who does have a motive. Judge Judith Hayes almost certainly wants to prevent another ruling by the Court of Appeal that finds one of her injunctions to be “exceedingly broad.” But Judge Hayes probably didn’t talk directly to Ms. XXXX. More likely it would have been xxxxxx or xxxxxx.

Sincerely,

Maura Larkins



The clerk seemed quite happy to reverse the default she had been forced to prepare. She sent me the following:

Here's a recent court transcript revealing the judge's bizarre behavior in this case.

See all posts re Stutz v. Larkins.

Michael Roddy is employed directly by the California Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC).

Court executive salaries released by the AOC

This story was published 3 years ago. The salaries are most likely higher at present, and hopefully so are the ethical standards in places like Placer County.

Survey says: Pay for state's court executives released
By Greg Moran
SDUT
DEC. 3, 2009

As the head of the San Diego Superior Court, Executive Officer Michael Roddy runs the second-largest court system in the state, with 154 judges and judicial officers and 1,709 full time employees.

For his efforts, Roddy is paid $223,953, with another $41,000 in benefits per year.

Though San Diego’s court trails only Los Angeles in size, Roddy’s salary is not the second highest for court executives in the state.

He might consider the job in Contra Costa County, far smaller than San Diego with 38 judges and 428 employees. The chief executive there makes $229,338 per year, and another $37,000 in benefits. That's the highest paid court executive salary job in the state, surpassing even Los Angeles County, with 441 judges and 5,540 employees. (The CEO there makes $220,980 per year but gets the most in benefits -- $75,388, pushing the total compensation ahead of Contra Costa).

Or Santa Clara County, with 79 judges, 889 employees, and a chief executive who earns $225,528 per year.

In tiny Inyo County, with two judges and 21 employees, the chief executive there is paid $139,869 —more than half of what Roddy makes in San Diego overseeing a system dozens of times larger in terms of judges and employees.

These wide disparities in pay and benefits among the state’s 58 court chief executives are laid out for the first time in recently-completed survey by the state Administrative Office of the Courts.

Unlike state court judges, whose salaries are the same regardless of where they serve, the pay and benefits of the court systems top executives are set on a county-by-county basis. Each county has its own policy for setting and modifying salaries of court executives.

That patchwork system is a vestige of the time when individual counties funded the courts. That all changed 12 years ago when the state took over trial court funding.

Individual Superior Courts, however, remain the employers for all court workers. Court executive officers are employees of their individual courts, reporting to the presiding judge for each court system.

All of that has led to a spectrum of pay and benefit policies, and some controversy.

The survey done by the AOC was sparked by revelations that the salary of the former chief executive in Placer County increased 11 times in seven years, rising from $162,000 in 2002 to $304,0000 in 2008. A special audit conducted by the AOC said that for many of the increases there were no records showing who approved it.

This month the Judicial Council, the policy making arm for the state courts, is expected to review the survey and propose policies and guidelines for setting pay for court executives.

The council can’t set individual policy and benefits for the state’s court systems, said Peter Allen, senior communications manager for the AOC. But it will be presented with a model personnel policy each court could use when setting CEO pay, he said. It will be interesting to see how widely that model is accepted in the current contentious environment between some trial court judges and the Judicial Council/AOC...

Federal judge denied Michael Roddy's Motion to Dismiss lawsuit by Michael Coulter

See also recent shenanigans on Michael Roddy's watch.

See decision in Coulter v. Roddy

Michael Roddy seems to be compiling a record of repeated efforts to deny justice.

From the Coulter v. Roddy ruling:

"...According to Plaintiff, in May of 2009, Murrell obtained a “request for dismissal” of the state court action executed by Plaintiff on an outdated form, knowing the form would not be accepted by the superior court clerk’s office.

"Plaintiff alleges Roddy, the Executive Officer of the clerk’s office, enacted and enforced “policies, regulations and customary practices” which caused the clerk’s office employees to “improperly and illegally deny filing” the request for dismissal.

"Murrell’s and Roddy’s actions allegedly prevented Plaintiff from proceeding with the state court action, in violation of his due process rights. In addition, during the six-month period between when Plaintiff signed the request for dismissal form in May of 2009 and when the state court finally dismissed the action in November of 2009, the Estate of Daniel T. Shelley was depleted, leaving nothing to satisfy his claims...

"Roddy’s only argument is that Plaintiff fails to sufficiently allege a conspiracy between Roddy and Murrell. Roddy cites Simmons v. Sacramento County Superior Court, 318 F.3d 1156, 1161 (9th Cir. 2003), for the proposition that conclusory allegations that the lawyer was conspiring with state officers to deprive him of due process are insufficient to support a § 1983 claim.

"However, in Simmons, the Ninth Circuit held that such conclusory allegations were insufficient to support a § 1983 claim against a private attorney who was not acting under color of state law. Id. Here, Roddy does not dispute that as Executive Officer of the clerk’s office, he was acting under color of state law with respect to the allegedly unlawful conduct.

"Thus, the only issue is whether Plaintiff sufficiently alleged Roddy’s conduct violated Plaintiff’s rights under the Constitution or federal law. Construing the FAC in light most favorable to Plaintiff, as the Court must, the § 1983 claim against Roddy does not depend on a conspiracy theory.

"Indeed, Plaintiff only alleges the clerk’s office confirmed for Murrell that the outdated form would not be accepted. (FAC ¶ 5.) Plaintiff alleges Roddy, by enacting and enforcing certain policies and practices, caused the deprivation of Plaintiff’s due process rights."

signed by Judge Irma Gonzalez

California State Auditor blasts Superior Court Executive Michael Roddy for kowtowing to judges who ignore the law

Michael Roddy has been complaining about budget cuts, but he's been falling down on the job when it comes to procedures for making sure that violent criminals make appropriate payments.

San Diego Superior Court judges blasted by state auditor for waiving domestic violence payments
Matt Potter
San Diego Reader
October 1, 2012

The California State Auditor has issued a blast at the San Diego Superior Court, saying that judges here have been waiving legally required payments due from those convicted of crimes of domestic violence.

According to the state auditor's report, issued September 6, San Diego courts have the worse collection record of four counties the office sampled over a four-year period. The other counties were Los Angeles, Santa Clara and Sacramento.

The money paid by the domestic violence probationers is earmarked to fund a network of local shelters for domestic violence victims.

"Because of the relatively low rate of collections of payments in the four counties, fewer resources are available for local shelters to provide services to victims of domestic violence."

"Some counties had higher collection rates than others—collections in Los Angeles County averaged 57 percent of the amounts owed while collections in San Diego County were only 12 percent," the audit found.

The state auditor identified one San Diego court problem in particular: its judges, who according to the audit have been arbitrarily reducing some probationers’ payments.

"Although state law specifies that assessed domestic violence payments may be reduced or waived if the court finds that the defendant has an inability to pay, judges in one of the counties reduced or waived the payment for other reasons, such as the probationer’s successful completion of batterer intervention programs."

“This practice results in fewer resources being available for domestic violence programs."

"In San Diego County, of the probationers in the 16 misdemeanor cases that we reviewed at San Diego Court’s central division, eight had completed batterer intervention programs. For each of those eight cases, the court reduced domestic violence payments, and the reductions ranged from 25 percent to 43 percent.

"San Diego Court should ensure that procedures are in place so that courts do not reduce or waive domestic violence payments for reasons other than a probationer’s inability to pay."

In their response to the audit's findings, San Diego court officials generally agreed with most of its findings and said they would implement the auditor's recommended reforms.

But San Diego Superior Court executive director Michael Roddy said in a letter dated August 17 that he didn’t have the authority to overrule judges when they reduced the domestic violence payments.

"Judges are independently elected officials and have the discretion to impose a sentence that they deem to be appropriate for the offense," wrote Roddy.

"Court administration is not in a position to establish procedures to ensure that domestic violence payments are not reduced or waived for reasons other than inability to pay.

"The court has established Sentencing Guidelines, which include a recommended fine amount and also include information about each fine and fee and whether they can legally be reduced for reasons other than inability to pay.”

That drew this response from the auditors:

"We recognize that the San Diego Court administration is not in a position to establish procedures unilaterally that affect sentencing practices.

“However, as discussed at our exit conference, we would expect the court administration to discuss our report findings with the court’s judicial officers and work together to establish procedures so that the San Diego Court can ensure that domestic violence payments are not reduced or waived for reasons other than inability to pay.”

Comments
SurfPuppy619
Oct. 2, 2012 @ 1:32 p.m.

"Judges are independently elected officials and have the discretion to impose a sentence that they deem to be appropriate for the offense," wrote Roddy.

That is an outright, whopper lie. Roddy better go back to court executive school and get a clue.

Judges must follow the laws passed by the state legislature, they are not kings and courtrooms are not their fiefdoms. They cannot impose, or not impose, legally mandated laws-including fines. The Auditor should file for a writ of mandamus with the DCA and force the idiot judges to comply with the law.

Stenographers to be cut from some San Diego Superior Court courtrooms

Justice slips further out of reach for lower middle class and poor people.

Stenographers to be cut from some courtrooms
By TERI FIGUEROA
North County Times
September 10, 2012

Important note: Starting Sept. 3, the San Diego Superior Court will close all business offices on Friday afternoons...

San Diego Superior Court officials said that by Nov. 1, budget cuts will force them to stop providing stenographic reporters in courtrooms that handle many civil cases.

And by January or so, court reporters may also disappear from some family law court hearings, where divorce and child custody matters are addressed.

Court officials will cut the jobs of 41 stenographic reporters, commonly called court reporters, who take verbatim notes of hearings. And without the reporters, there will be no record of who said what in court proceedings, which are already adversarial by nature.

Critics of the planned layoffs say not having a verbatim record troubles them, more so if there is no such record in the high-stakes personal cases, such as those dealing with child custody.

Without a verbatim record of the proceedings, litigants are hamstrung if they need to appeal. There will be no clear record to provide to the appellate court to review a judicial ruling. Also, having no record reduces a litigant's ammunition in a complaint about poor performance by an attorney or a judge in the courtroom.

So any party to a civil who wants a record will have to pay to hire a freelance court reporter. Can't afford it? Too bad. There will be no verbatim record of the proceedings.

Not everyone can afford to bring in a freelance court reporter, particularly those who are acting as their own attorneys in order to save money, critics said.

"The loss of court reporters in civil proceedings is going to put access to justice out of reach for average San Diegans. Shifting the cost of justice to those who can least afford it is an inappropriate solution to the state's budget problem," said David Garcias, the president of the local union representing the reporters at the local courts, in an emailed statement to the North County Times.

Even without court reporters, courtroom clerks will keep a record of rulings by the judge. But exactly what the judge said to attorneys, and exactly what a witness said on the stand, will be lost.

And forget about tape recording the civil proceedings for an official record. State law does not allow it.

Stenographic reporters and the service they provide will be the latest victims of the court's budget cuts, as officials look to reduce spending by $11 million this fiscal year, which started July 1. The courts will save about $6 million by slashing a third of the 120 or so of its court reporter jobs, said Michael Roddy, the executive director of San Diego Superior Court, which runs the county courts...

Eleven court reporters agreed to an early retirement and 30 court reporters will be laid off, Roddy said. Most will be gone by November. Other layoffs will probably take effect in January, he said.

"Court reporters play an invaluable role in providing checks and balances. These cuts put us one step closer to a two-tiered system of justice which offers transparency only to those who can afford it," said union board member Jim Partridge, who is also a stenographic reporter in the local courts, in an emailed statement to the North County Times.

Citing budget cuts, officials earlier this month shut down Vista's probate court and Ramona's small courthouse. They also closed court business offices at noon each Friday, and opened Vista's traffic court an hour later each weekday, at 8:30 a.m.

By next summer, local court officials said they plan to shut down small-claims offices and courtrooms in all branch courts ---- including Vista ---- in anticipation of deeper cuts in the fiscal year starting in July...

However, the courts are required to provide a court reporter for criminal matters.

Roddy said court officials are still working to keep the reporters in family courts as often as possible, citing concerns of local judges...

In about 90 percent of all cases in family court, at least one side does not have an attorney, usually because they can't afford one...

Court reporters use a special machine as they take verbatim notes in shorthand in the courtroom. Many of the reporters are also able to plug into a judge's computer to give the judge a real-time transcript of who said what. Many judges often refer to the live transcription during hearings, sometimes doing so as they make decisions regarding objections raised by lawyers.

In cutting court reporters, San Diego is following the blueprint laid out by Los Angeles and San Francisco counties, which cut court-reporter jobs in recent years.

Overall, officials say they will cut $11 million, or 5.8 percent of the budget. But next year, San Diego courts face a 17 percent revenue cut, with no reserves to help. Officials say courtroom closures and service cuts are required to operate the court system on a $157 million budget next year...