Tani Cantil-Sakauye Entrusted with Legacy of Chief Justice Ronald George to Preserve Public Confidence in Courts
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| Tani Cantil-Sakauye, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court is charged with maintaining the vision of former Chief Justice Ronald George to increase the availability of legal representation for indigent litigants. Cantil-Sakauye previously was a judge of Sacramento Superior Court. |
"Increasing the availability of legal representation for litigants who must currently represent themselves or face loss of their legal rights is a key priority of the Judicial Council and Chief Justice Ronald M. George. As the Chief Justice has noted, the large and growing number of self-represented litigants is one of the most challenging issues in the coming decade, imposing significant costs on the judicial system and the public by impairing the ability of the courts to efficiently process heavy caseloads, and eroding the public's confidence in our judicial system."Four years ago today a historic vote was held in the California Senate Judiciary Committee. The final vote tally was was 3-2, allowing Assembly Bill 590 to move forward in the legislative process. AB 590 included the Sargent Shriver Civil Counsel Act, which proposed to establish a pilot program for the appointment of legal representation for unrepresented low-income parties in civil matters involving basic human needs.
AB 590 - Sargent Shriver Civil Counsel Act.
"Legal and judicial leaders increasingly recognize the need to fix a system that is not only failing to meet the needs of so many court users, and the courts themselves, but also failing to honor basic constitutional and common law principles underlying the doctrine of equal justice under the law," according to a legislative analysis of the bill. "[AB 590] builds on a 2007 budget proposal advocated by Chief Justice Ronald George and backed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger."Current Chief Justice Tani Catil-Sakauye was nominated to the high court by Schwarzenegger on July 22, 2010. Assembly Bill 590 was part of a still expanding, nationwide movement known as "Civil Gideon." In the landmark 1963 United States Supreme Court case of Gideon v. Wainwright, the Supreme Court decided that indigent defendants have a constitutional right to be represented by an attorney, at no charge, in state criminal cases.
The term "Civil Gideon" refers to a growing national movement to provide legal counsel, as a matter of right and at public expense, to low-income persons in civil legal proceedings where basic human needs are at stake, such as those involving housing, and specific family court issues, such as child custody. Civil Gideon advocates cite startling statistics showing that people without lawyers who face off against attorneys in court often lose cases or rulings they should have won.
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