◼ The California Commission on Judicial Performance — a state agency charged with ”investigating complaints of judicial misconduct and judicial incapacity” — today issued a public admonishment of Humboldt County Superior Court Judge Dale Reinholtsen for failing to decide cases in a timely fashion, and for submitting false salary affidavits claiming that he had. - Hank Sims/Lost Coast Outpost
◼ Missing paperwork: Free and Afraid - NCJ
So the actual decision can read online here.
ReplyDeletehttp://cjp.ca.gov/res/docs/public_admon/Reinholtsen_Pub_Adm_09-03-15.pdf
There are several cases on here, and at least two can be described as high-profile, Tooby Ranch and Floyd Squires. A fair assumption is that the complaint on the delay in deciding the cases came from the lawyers involved in the cases discussed in decision, since they are aware of the time limit and intimately know when the case became submitted. A further deduction can be inferred that in each of those decisions there were winners and losers. The winning attorney rarely is so upset with a Judge that they would be motivated to complain. They are just happy they won. So the one case which jumps out at me as being a huge one-sided almost total victory was Floyd Squires. The winning attorney on that was Brad Floyd. The losing attorney was (in my opinion deserving of her very own watchcyndy blog) none other than Cyndy Day-Wilson. This woman really rubs people the wrong way. So much so that Lance Madsen planned and did everything possible to orchestrate her firing. He did this to be launched after his death. She is a terrible lawyer. She is really incompetent and has the personality to want to rat out Judge Reinholtsen. We will never know. (Complaints are naturally secret.) I bet Wilson was behind this and bet that she leaked this to LoCo.
You will find Judge Reinholtsen working in the law library on his days off......his case load is unmanageable, as is the work load of the other bench officers that he "could have assigned his cases to". Can we get to the real problem at the Court? Kerri Keenan decimated the operations of the Court. Mr. Tozzi has the same management team that implemented and carried out her tyranny reorganizing the Court. There is no reorganization, just a moving of the players around. unscrupulous and unethical behavior continues at the Court. That is why so many people have severed their employment. It seems as though the bench officers continue to keep their heads in the sand.
DeletePerhaps one of the causes for the late rulings is that fact that Judge Reinholtsen uses the old school method of actual books from the law library instead of coming into the age of the internet to look up his cases. Humboldt Court probably has to spend quite a sum each year to fill the law library. With all the budget cuts, perhaps they should cut the books and give raises to workers who have not had one since 2008.
Deletehttp://www.courts.ca.gov/partners/documents/County_Budget_Snapshot_Humboldt_2015.pdf
DeleteSome of the issues pointed out in a post I recently did.
We have not provided cost of living adjustments since FY 2008- 09. Pay equity gaps between the classifications are making it difficult to recruit and retain employees.
Counters / Clerks / Telephones Counters and telephones close every day at 2pm instead of 4pm due to our inability to unfreeze positions. The Court was understaffed prior to freezing positions. This has resulted in operational backlogs which directly impacts the public.
Thank you to both anonymous commenters for speaking out about the real issues.
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