Sacramento Superior Court Scandal: RoadDog Announces Sacramento Family Court 2012 Public Service Awards - Sunday Funnies

Sacramento Superior Court Clerk Wins RoadDog Efficiency In Government Award, Facilitator Locks 1st Runner Up Spot

Sunday Satire by RoadDog

Court Executive Officer Chris Volkers and other court supervisors
are invited to the annual RoadDog Family Court Public Service
Awards ceremony held at the Dante Club in Sacramento.

P.R. Brown, my esteemed colleague on the news and analysis side of the newsroom, has recently published a series of articles that some readers may have found unsettling. 

Court administrators flagrantly ignoring state law, the Family Law Facilitator dispensing less-than-accurate advice to indigent, unrepresented litigants, family court judges concealing conflicts of interest, and an appeals unit clerk unlawfully rejecting appeals by lawyer-less, financially disadvantaged litigants. And the ongoing Color of Law series is particularly compelling. Bravo, P.R. Brown. 

But while these muckraking revelations may disturb the Constitution-huggers among our readership, RoadDog's exclusive access to the Sacramento Family Court News newsroom allows the Dog to go behind the news to retrieve the exposé within the exposé. A superficial review of the meticulously documented facts reported by P.R. Brown may convey to the gullible the impression of rampant illegality, cronyism, hometowning, fraud, corruption, malfeasance, willful omission to perform duty, and gross misconduct, incompetency and inefficiency. 

Several paranoid, tin foil hat wearing readers have even suggested that the totality of the evidence reported by SFCN suggests that Sacramento Family Court operates as an organized criminal enterprise, meeting the elements required for a federal RICO prosecution. However, on closer inspection, and with supplemental facts purloined by RoadDog from the encrypted SFCN servers, the complete factual record reveals a dramatically different picture. 

To continue reading, click Read more >> below: 

While our hard news brethren on the sterile and efficient side of the Sacramento Family Court News HQ building enjoy an array of perks - including janitorial service - here on the paper coffee cup littered, fast food wrapper strewn end of the building we opinionated satirists toil away, ostracized and unappreciated. 

And what we see in the investigative reporting work product of the newsroom prima donnas is a silver lining of improved and innovative government efficiency. What they infer is scandal, we know is, in fact, laudable: Dedicated public servants cutting costs and streamlining the delivery of family court services to the taxpayers who pay them. Handsomely. 

In recognition of these outstanding efforts selflessly made even at the risk of public ridicule, job discipline, termination, civil liability, and criminal prosecution, RoadDog presents the Bicentennial Edition of the semi-annual 2012 Efficiency in Government Awards.
  

2012 RoadDog

Efficiency in Government Award - Second Runner Up

Julie Setzer & Colleen McDonagh

Outstanding Accomplishment in Paperwork Reduction

Sacramento Family Court Director of Operations Julie Setzer and Court Manager Colleen McDonagh are two reasons the court stands out as a model of efficiency. To reduce unnecessary paperwork, the court chieftains implemented a policy directing staff to ignore state law requiring court clerks to file and serve a Judicial Council mandated FL-190 Notice of Entry of Judgment form for appealable orders issued at motion and OSC hearings. 

Reporter P.R. Brown would have our readership believe the policy is a flagrant violation of state law that deprives mostly unrepresented family court litigants of important rights. And while that scurrilous allegation may be true, when subjected to a cost-benefit analysis, the increase in efficiency combined with the decrease in public financial expenditures far outweigh the potential consequences of blatant lawbreaking and deprivation of constitutional rights civil liability exposure. 

The policy has not only eliminated superfluous paperwork in hundreds of court files, it also has eliminated an incalculable number of appeals by indigent, unrepresented family court litigants who, due to the FL-190 omission, were not notified of their appeal rights. "California law recognizes that every person is presumed to intend the natural and probable consequences of his acts," according to the CACI Jury Instructions for intent. 

Thus, it is fair to credit Setzer and McDonagh with not only the paperwork reduction, but also with the natural and probable consequence of the policy: saving taxpayers the cost of appeals by the indigent who, if they cannot afford an attorney, have no business in the Third District Court of Appeal and Casino anyway. 

For Outstanding Accomplishment in Paperwork Reduction, RoadDog salutes Sacramento Family Court Director of Operations Julie Setzer and Court Manager Colleen McDonagh, the 2012 Efficiency in Government Award Second Runners Up.  

First Runner Up

Supervising Family Law Facilitator Lollie Roberts

Outstanding Accomplishment in Disinformation Dissemination 

Lollie Roberts, the Sacramento Superior Court Supervising Family Law 
Facilitator is required to assist the financially disadvantaged with 
gaining meaningful access to family court. 

While family court kingpins Julie Setzer and Colleen McDonagh operate in relative obscurity behind the Wizard of Oz courthouse curtain developing and dictating policy, Supervising Family Law Facilitator Lollie Roberts and her staff face the unenviable task of dealing face-to-face with the great unwashed. 

In fact, Roberts' statutorily prescribed duty requires her to assist the unrepresented and financially disadvantaged riff-raff in gaining meaningful access to family court. But as Sacramento Family Court News reported last month, Roberts unashamedly ignores the requirements of her job description and boldly does the opposite, all to benefit the taxpayer. 

As the overzealous P.R. Brown reported, Roberts acts as the ultimate wingman - endorsing and implementing at ground level the paperwork and appeal reduction policies of Setzer and McDonagh. Roberts possesses the undefinable, yet commendable leadership skills that enable her to train Family Law Facilitator Office staff to misdirect and confuse the rabble into believing that what they may have read in the California Rules of Court, or in a gold standard family law reference is, for lack of a better word, wrong.

For her outstanding utilization of timeless, Soviet-style disinformation techniques to keep the great unwashed masses where they belong - outside the courthouse doors, RoadDog salutes Sacramento Superior Court Supervising Family Law Facilitator Lollie Roberts, the 2012 Efficiency in Government Award First Runner Up.  

RoadDog 2012 Efficiency in Government Award Winner

Deputy Clerk Stephanie Hinman

In Sacramento Family Court, and other jurisdictions, testilying often is used by government employees to increase efficiency. It is so common, it has a Wikipedia page. Click here.

While family court shot-callers Julie Setzer, Collen McDonagh and Lollie Roberts were banging shoulders in the race to win first place in the RoadDog Efficiency in Government Awards, a dark horse entry was quietly plotting to snatch victory from the jaws of the higher ranking threesome. Against the unprecedentedly innovative tactic employed by lowly Deputy Clerk Stephanie Hinman, team hat trick was left in the dust. 

Hinman achieved the same cost-effective end result as the clerk's mismatched competitors - reducing paperwork and blocking the futile appeals of indigent, unrepresented family court users - but was willing to take on even more personal risk than these wily opponents. All to benefit the taxpayers of California. As Sacramento Family Court News reported earlier this month, Hinman was willing to in writing and under penalty of perjury dispense demonstrably false information in order to confuse and disorient a self-represented family court litigant into believing a timely appeal was in fact untimely. The deputy clerk also was not deterred by California Rules of Court rule 8.23, which made Hinman's actions an unlawful interference with court of appeal proceedings. 

Hinman's Three-card Monte trickery worked like a charm: the attempted appeal was quashed, and taxpayers saved between $8,500 and $25,500, the current government cost of an appeal. In a county with a functioning criminal justice system, Deputy Clerk Hinman would face criminal prosecution for this supreme act of efficiency, which some might misconstrue as perjury. 

Thankfully, as a diplomatically immune employee of Sacramento County Superior Court, Hinman is above the law and will not be forced to endure such an indignity. If it hasn't already happened, the deputy clerk instead likely will receive a promotion for this outside-the-box-and-the-law fiscally prudent policy initiative. As RoadDog's good friend and mentor George Carlin convincingly argues in the video below, perjury is in any event an antiquated concept that deserves to be relegated to the dust bin of history. 

For the exceptional innovation of using perjury to preserve and protect the financial resources of the People of the Great State of California, RoadDog hereby presents Deputy Clerk Stephanie Hinman the 2012 Efficiency in Government First Place Award. The first place prize package includes a deluxe, leather-bound edition of the Code of Ethics for the Court Employees of California, personally autographed by RoadDog. Well done Hinman! Your prize package is in the mail!