Municipal courts: Local lawmakers who profit from them could derail reform

Kala Kachmar , Susanne Cervenka | Asbury Park Press

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Key lawmakers with the power to enact or derail critical municipal court reforms made more than $780,000 last year from their work within the local courts — a system even the state judiciary said has been broken for 50 years.

Two of the lawmakers with incomes from the local courts chair the committees that would have to approve any reform bills, an Asbury Park Press and USA TODAY NETWORK New Jersey investigation found.

EDITORIAL: Act now on municipal court reform

Several state legislators who work for the municipal courts as prosecutors or public defenders told the Network that they don't see anything wrong with the current local court system, which hears motor vehicle and petty offense cases.

Yet a scathing report issued by a special state Supreme Court committee last month stated that politics has seeped into the local courts, hurting residents with limited income to pay high fines. Some were even jailed for not having funds with them.

MORE: Municipal courts need reform to stop 'never-ending' fines, report says

The court committee members stated that they had "significant concerns" about the independence of judicial decision-making and the use of local courts to generate hundreds of millions of dollars for towns.

“The system has worked reasonably well for quite a while,” said state Sen. Nicholas Scutari, D-Union, chairman of the Judiciary Committee and the municipal prosecutor in Linden — a city of about 42,000 people — since 2003. His salary from the city was $84,660 in 2017. He is paid $49,000 as a lawmaker.

National court reform advocates disagree.

"It’s hard sometimes to step outside of the system and look at it from a disinterested dispassionate perspective, but we have to do that because the systems are failing us," said Lisa Foster, a retired California judge who co-founded the Fines & Fees Justice Center, a national nonprofit organization whose goal is to reform excessive fines and eliminate fees used to fund courts and other government functions.

“Anyone who doesn’t believe that there is a problem hasn’t read the committee report carefully, hasn’t read your reporting carefully and hasn’t spent time in municipal courts talking to people who are defendants in municipal courts and aren’t thinking seriously about the system," Foster said. "There is a problem in New Jersey.”

The state's 524 municipal courts take in about $400 million annually, with the municipalities keeping slightly more than half of the revenue and the balance split with the county and state. Although towns do fund their own courts, the Supreme Court report found that municipal leaders are increasingly relying on court fines and fees as a significant source of revenue — calling into question the overall fairness of local courts.

MORE: Municipal courts: Is it justice or a shakedown?

A judge is appointed every three years by the town's governing body. Oftentimes, the local judges are under political pressure by officials to raise money or by police officers seeking convictions, according to a similar report issued by the State Bar Association. Some local judges have cobbled together multiple part-time judgeships allowing them to make more than $200,000 a year. The state's chief justice is paid $192,000.

Towns have tremendous tools to raise revenue through the courts, a Network investigation found. A municipality can create ordinances with new offenses or higher fines, send the police to enforce the new laws and then bring the violators into court before a judge who was appointed by the governing body.

“Obviously you can always make improvements, but if you take appointing power of prosecutors or judges away (from localities), I think you’re going to get a lot of pushback," Scutari said.

But one minority-party lawmaker, Sen. Declan O'Scanlon, R-Monmouth, said he plans to introduce a package of municipal court reform legislation in response to the judiciary's report.

The Network, which has been investigating the state's municipal courts since 2016 and had its work cited in the Supreme Court report, found that at least nine lawmakers work in the municipal court system either as prosecutors or public defenders. Many more work as defense attorneys.

The New Jersey State Bar Association also conducted a series of public hearings and released a 30-plus page report in 2017 about the need for judicial independence and reform in the municipal courts.

Richard B. Thompson, a now-former Monmouth County municipal court judge, was convicted of falsifying records in February 2018 and admitted to converting motor vehicle fines to contempt of court fines in the nine towns he served to bolster income for the towns. He said in court the scheme was meant to curry favor with the officials responsible for reappointing him.

Eatontown government email records uncovered by the Network showed town profits spiked by 32 percent in Thompson's first year. The emails showed that the need to increase revenue from the local court was the main reason the Borough Council replaced the municipal judge with Thompson in 2013.

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Former municipal Judge Thompson accepted into PTI Former Monmouth County municipal Judge Richard B. Thompson is accepted into the pretrial intervention program. He had pled guilty to charges that he falsified records as part of a five-year ticket-fixing scheme.

“You do want an independent judiciary and I don’t disagree with that,” Scutari said.

"Judges need to make informed and independent decisions at every level. Sometimes there is a hesitance to act as independently as they think, possible for fear of removal, but I haven’t seen that,” Scutari said. “I have always gone under the premise that we do good, we do justice and that’s the way it works.”

A 1971 report on municipal courts identified many of the same problems being discussed today, including the political appointment process threatening the integrity of the courts. But reform efforts — which included merging the municipal courts into the state court system and employing full-time judges — were minimal and fell to the wayside among policymakers.

Legislative and judicial overlap

State Sen. James Holzapfel, R-Ocean, a former municipal prosecutor whose law firm provided prosecutors for 18 Monmouth and Ocean County towns in 2017, said he doesn’t believe towns use their courts to make money and doesn’t think the independence of judges is threatened by the appointment process.

“Sure, these recommendations are going to make it better and fairer in terms of people’s ability to pay and the consequences,” Holzapfel said. “But at the end of the day, it comes down to somebody having to make the decision and it’s going to be the judge. We rely on the system because most (judges) will do the right thing.”

Holzapfel said if there was any undue pressure on a judge, it’s up to the individual to not let it impact the job.

“If you get fired, you get fired,” he said.

In 2016 and 2017, Holzapfel's firm, Citta, Holzapfel and Zabarsky, made $938,712 from contracts with municipalities for prosecutorial work, according to information collected by the Network through the Open Public Records Act.

Four members of the Legislature, including two chairs, who work in the municipal courts are also on the Senate and Assembly judiciary committees, which any court reform bills would have to pass through first.

Lawmakers who make money from contracts for municipal court work:

State Sen. Nicholas Scutari, D-Union, chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, made $84,660 working as the municipal prosecutor in Linwood in 2017.

Assemblywoman Annette Quijano, D-Union, chair of the Assembly Judiciary Committee, made $48,842 as an assistant municipal prosecutor in Elizabeth in 2017.

Assemblyman Erik Peterson, R-Hunterdon, a member of the Assembly Judiciary Committee, made up to $10,000 in each of his jobs as the prosecutor in Alexandria and Frenchtown.

Sen. Bob Smith, D-Middlesex, is a municipal prosecutor in South Brunswick and a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. He made $ 92,532 in 2016 and 2017.

Sen. Christopher “Kip” Bateman, R-Somerset, made more than $57,000 in 2016 and 2017 as the municipal prosecutor in Branchburg. He’s also the prosecutor in Bridgewater.

Assemblyman Sean Kean, R-Monmouth, made $53,340 as a municipal prosecutor in Eatontown and Bradley Beach in 2017. He made the same amount in 2016.

In 2017, state Sen. Christopher Connors, R-Ocean, was a public defender in Harvey Cedars and Upper Freehold Township, as well as a conflict public defender for Lacey. He’s part of the firm Dasti, Murphy, McGuckin, Ulaky, Koutsouris and Connors.

State Sen. Gregory P. McGuckin, R-Ocean, also of the firm Connors is part of, made $39,400 in 2017 and $34,000 in 2016 as the municipal prosecutor in Manchester.

Assemblyman Brian Rumpf was the public defender in Surf City, Beachwood, Island Heights, South Toms River, Stafford Township, Eagleswood, Lacey and Bass River until he got a county job in 2018. However, his wife took over most of those court positions.

Whether the court incomes pose an ethical issue isn't clear. Politically, it could boil down to how the public views it, ethics experts say.

Lawmakers who are educators vote on education reform, while those who are union workers vote on pension reform, said Ben Dworkin, director of Rowan Institute for Public Policy & Citizenship.

"Ethical issues are determined based on whether people think it's an issue. The standard is not always delineated. It's based in practice and what the general public finds acceptable and not acceptable," he said.

New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir S. Grewal did not have any comment about potential conflicts for lawmakers who are also municipal prosecutors as the state legislature considers possible municipal court reforms.

A working group Grewal set up last month to look at prosecutorial discretion related in marijuana-related cases was also tasked with looking at issues related to municipal courts and municipal prosecutors, including the state Supreme Court's recommendations.

47 years ago, a report ignored

The 1971 report commissioned by the Administrative Office of Courts recommended merging the state's 523 municipal courts into 66 court districts, and hiring 108 full-time judges appointed by the governor and confirmed by the state Senate instead of using part-time magistrates, who didn't have be an attorney.

Parking offenses would have been handled by municipalities with only delinquent offenders going to court.

A 1971 Asbury Park Press editorial said the proposal "deserves full consideration" because it would improve the administration of justice, a step "required to keep pace with a rising crime rate and to remove the disparities that exist in penalties imposed for offenses."

"Local governing bodies now appoint local magistrates, a tradition that will be defended but which also imposes the risk of local political interference," the editorial said.

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'The courts are a system of a shakedown' John Alexander was repeatedly arrested and jailed for violations that were vacated by appeal years before.

That is still a problem today with municipal courts nationally, said Foster, the national court reform advocate.

"When you have a municipality that is trying to raise revenues through its courts and that same municipality is responsible for hiring and firing the judge, hiring and firing the police officers, hiring and firing the prosecutor, there is an inherent incentive to arrest, charge and convict," she said.

Foster said courts should be treated the same as fire departments, roads and schools — as an essential government service paid for out of general revenue streams because everyone needs them.

"Cities and towns in New Jersey rely far too heavily on fines and fees to fund not just the courts but the government at large," she said.

Today, many New Jersey lawmakers interviewed said municipal judicial appointments local should remain local.

"It's not something that Trenton is going to do better than what is being done by the locals," Holzapfel said.

A panel of Monmouth County's judges convened over dinner in June 1971, just a few months after the report was released, to discuss merging the municipal courts, according to an archived Press news story.

The project manager from the company that did the study, Synectics, said at the dinner that the purpose was not to "point a finger at the present court system," but to evaluate the demands on part-time judges and "provide a better framework within which the judicial system can work."

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One Monmouth County judge said the report had merit, but many things in it were "impractical and shocking," according to the story. The judges discussed the proposal, but didn't reach any kind of agreement, according to the story.

Merging the courts didn't get much traction until 1973, when Edward B. McConnell, the outgoing administrative director of the state court system, encouraged the merge.

"To improve the courts, McConnell also urged elimination of political considerations in appointing new judges," a May 31, 1973, Press news story said.

He recommended a panel of experts submit a list of qualified applicants for the governor to select from. "Such sweeping proposals will surely generate controversy, but prompt acceptance is not likely," the story said.

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In October 1973, the new chief justice at the time also called for the overhaul of the municipal courts and the establishment of a new criminal district to assume some of the courts' burdens.

The justice, however, died two days after his speech about municipal court reform.

Edwin H. Stier, who from 1969 to 1982 worked for the New Jersey judiciary in various capacities, including the director of criminal justice, said he doesn't particularly remember the call for municipal court reform, but they were focused on "a lot of different reforms" during that period.

"It usually takes a real crisis that gets the media excited and the media gets the public excited and that in turn generates the political pressure necessary to undertake basic reforms," said Stier, who is still involved in New Jersey government. "Take the pressure off and the reform goes away."

Upcoming legislation

Not all lawmakers are opposed to municipal court reform.

Assemblyman Erik Peterson, R-Hunterdon, is a municipal prosecutor in Frenchtown and Alexandria, and said he believes the courts need reform. The biggest issue, from his constituents' perspective, is the cost of operating the courts.

"We have a lot of small courts and it's just a negative on the balance sheet for the town," he said. "It's financially draining."

Peterson introduced a bill that would allow counties, under the direction of the freeholders, to establish county-municipal courts to cover the municipalities that agreed. Judges would have five-year appointments instead of the three.

O'Scanlon's legislation package is expected to be posted by the end of August. But the chance of passage may be slim. Both houses of the Legislature are controlled by Democrats. O'Scanlon is a Republican, who had one bill signed into law in the last session.

“Removing the politics, removing the profit and increasing the public’s confidence that justice and safety is the focus" of the bills, said O'Scanlon, who isn't an attorney but has a finance background. “It shouldn’t be about profit. Look at the damage to the image of police and the courts that’s happened because of this (focus) on revenue."

MORE: Have an old traffic ticket? It might be tossed, judiciary says

States both large and small, ranging from California and Florida to Alaska and Hawaii, either eliminated municipal courts or never had them to start with.

About 30 states use municipal courts like New Jersey, Foster said.

Assemblyman Michael Patrick Carroll, R-Morris, said municipal courts should be absorbed into the state court system to eliminate the political and financial motivation. He said traffic violations should be removed from the local courts entirely and be handled by the state's motor vehicle commission.

"Imposing big fines on people and using them to balance municipal budgets is not what courts should be about," said Carroll, an attorney who does not work in the municipal court system.

Morristown, which is in his legislative district, is aggressive about writing property maintenance tickets for violations such as uncut grass, overgrown weeds and dead tree limbs, Carroll said. There are days when people are lined up in court all day to dispute these tickets in the presence of town property maintenance staff, he said.

Any violation of the property maintenance code carries a $500 to $1,000 fine.

"It's a revenue-raising scheme," he said.

Assemblywoman Annette Quijano, D-Union, chairwoman of the Assembly Judiciary Committee, did not return multiple calls from the Network. Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin, D-Middlesex, a municipal judge in several towns until he joined the Legislature in 2010, could not be reached for comment.

APP.com and the USA Today Network New Jersey is your source for municipal court reform coverage.

Kala Kachmar: @NewsQuip; kkachmar@gannettnj.com; 732-643-4061

The 1971 and 2018 reports on municipal courts.