San Bernardino Superior Court is better equipped than it has been in decades, the court’s annual report says.
The court is now 95% funded with $144 million annually, up from 48% funded in 2013, with an additional $7 million needed to bridge that gap, according to the report released March 18.
The court also has 102 judicial officers now, after last year’s additions of 14 appointed judges and four nominated commissioners. The court still needs 28 more judges to be considered fully equipped to handle the cases filed by county residents.
Those 2.18 million San Bernardino County residents filed 259,784 cases in 2023. That’s a 6% increase in case filings from the previous year, which comes out to roughly 14,700 more cases.
The majority of that increase came from an increase in misdemeanor filings. Nine thousand, three-hundred more misdemeanors were filed last year compared to the previous year. Evictions came in second, with 4,300 additional cases filed. Juvenile dependency, probate and family law cases slightly decreased.
Expanding services
The court restored four courtrooms in 2023: a civil courtroom and a probate courtroom in Victorville, a family law courtroom in Barstow and a civil courtroom in Rancho Cucamonga.
The court also appointed full-time court commissioner Kristine Eisler to the Needles courthouse, providing the courthouse with a bench officer, which had not been seen since the 2008 recession.
The court also lauded its new e-filing program, which allows litigants to file documents remotely and outside of regular business hours. The program processed 38,839 filings between May and December. Litigants e-filed 18,413 civil documents between October, when it was launched, to the end of the year. The program handled 5,007 probate documents, 6,724 child support documents, 6,919 eviction documents and 1,830 small claims documents. The court predicts e-filing for family law to be available in spring 2024.
Fifty-three thousand proceedings were held remotely last year, an average of 203 a workday.
The court also eliminated name search fees for its online case access portal, which it added to self-service kiosks in courtrooms.
Judges have new tools
In terms of interpreters, the court provided interpreters 28,000 times, 33 of which were through video remote interpreting services. 47 employees work on the interpreting team, and an additional 70 contractors are available for hearings.
The court summoned 912,408 potential jurors, resulting in 1,513 jury panels and 357 sworn juries.
Strategic plan
The court released the report at the same time as its five-year strategic plan. The plan is a page of bullet-point priorities, among them workforce support data analysis, community outreach, state advocacy and infrastructure enhancements.
“Engaged employees are at the core of how we provide public service with competence and care at all levels,” the plan says.
The court’s last strategic plan, made in 2018, set many goals that have been achieved, among them the creation of a judicial training program, advocacy to equalize funding, video hearings in Needles, a legislator-outreach day, and electronic case filings.
