SAN FRANCISCO (CN) - Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye strongly defended the Administrative Office of the Courts this week in the wake of a blistering report that criticized the agency as bloated, overpaid and inefficient.
"Telling me something is wrong, doesn't necessarily mean it's wrong," she said. "As chief, everyone tells me everything. I have heard that AOC employees have complained that some of the descriptions of what they do are not completely accurate. Do you mean they don't have a right to voice their opinion?"
A number of trial judges, who has been cutting in their criticism of the administrative office, said the chief justice would naturally be inclined to support her staff in the face of a withering barrage of criticism.
"I want to give the chief some space on this one," said Judge Andrew Banks in Orange County. "I want to give the chief some room and assume what she was trying to do was speak to the AOC employees who were not part of the problem and give them some recognition."
In a similar vein, Judge Stephen Czuleger of Los Angeles Superior Court said, "It's important to note that the chief should be congratulated for taking the initial step in requesting this report. I can understand why she would want to buck up the AOC employees."
In the report released last Friday, a committee of judges appointed by the chief justice last year delivered a series of body blows to the administrative office, finding that the agency is too big, spends too much money and exercises unchecked power over the state's trial courts.
Earlier this week, Cantil-Sakauye sent a video message to the staff of the administrative office in which she appeared to criticize the accuracy of the report. "Despite the care taken by the committee, there is a good chance you will find erroneous information or misconceptions in the report," said Cantil-Sakauye in the video.
That statement in turn prompted criticism from trial judges who saw it as attack on a messenger delivering tough but long-overdue criticism of the agency.
But Cantil-Sakauye said the employees felt demoralized by the report. She said she thought it was important to boost the staff's morale.
"I sent the video out because I was concerned about the morale of the AOC employees that I know to be very hard working, dedicated public servants," she said in an interview. "If I were an employee, I would feel demoralized. I work next door to those folks, so I of course did the video to explain to them that not all is lost in the world and let's proceed."
The voluminous report, compiled by an 11-member committee appointed by the chief, recommends sweeping change to the AOC. Its findings substantiated what many trial judges had been claiming for years, that the AOC had grown too powerful, made poor decisions, such as its embarking on a costly IT project that wasted a half-billion dollars, and consistently hid its budget, making it nearly impossible for judges, lawmakers and the public to figure out how it is funded or how it spends money.
The committee members spent a year conducting interviews and surveying hundreds of judges, justices, court officials and even AOC workers themselves.