Plans for a glass enclosure in Marin County's only juvenile courtroom

Marin court officials announced a plan Monday to permanently close the county’s only juvenile court and begin transporting young suspects from juvenile hall to the main courthouse at the Marin Civic Center.

The move was widely interpreted by local judges and lawyers to mean that court officials were abandoning a controversial plan that would have required juvenile suspects to sit inside a glass enclosure during court proceedings — a measure that has divided the juvenile justice community in Marin since last month.

The Marin County Superior Court made the announcement in a press release, in which officials explained their decision “followed several years of budget cuts and ongoing safety concerns at the facility,” which they said “was not designed with court security as a prime consideration.”

In an unusual move, the court also used the release to criticize Marin defense lawyers, who have called the proposed structure a “glass cage,” and argued it would violate their clients’ civil liberties.

The release said that for years, defense attorneys had been resisting the court’s efforts to improve security without increasing the number of courtroom bailiffs.

“The Court has been unable to reach consensus with the Public Defender’s Office and indigent defense bar, and has received no constructive suggestions from them or any other interested party as to modifications to the courtroom or court proceedings to make the courtroom safe for court users and the public,” officials said.

Defense attorneys said they were not consulted during the initial planning of the glass enclosure project and were not informed about the proposal until June 28, when they received an email from the court's executive officer, Kim Turner, saying that the county would begin building the structure the first week of July.

“When the first memo was put out, we were told to respond in three days,” said James Nielsen, a Marin defense attorney. “We were trying to come to some reasonable resolution, and we were met with obstinacy.”

Turner said in the press release: “We were very disconcerted to see our reasonable efforts to make the courtroom safe for court users and the public characterized in misleading and negative terms.”

Last week, Turner told The Bay Citizen that she, along with judges and other officials, came up with the glass enclosure to address growing security concerns after “several incidents” occurred in the juvenile courtroom during the past 12 months.

None of the incidents resulted in injury, she said.

The proposal — to have minors sit with their lawyers inside a glass box roughly 8 feet tall, and communicate through a sound system — also drew the ire of justice experts around the country, who said such a plan was unprecedented in juvenile courtrooms.

“I don’t know of, nor have I seen or heard of, anything like this anywhere in the United States of America,” said Patricia Puritz, executive director of the National Juvenile Defender Center in Washington, D.C. “What you’re doing is creating an environment that is demeaning and humiliating. I don’t know how you can have meaningful consultation with a judge when you’ve become a spectacle.”

Turner dismissed such criticisms in an interview last week, but did not respond to calls seeking comment Monday.

Turner also said last week that she did now know how much the glass enclosure would cost, but a source familiar with the project said that the materials to build it had already been delivered to the juvenile courthouse. The cost has still not been made public.

The court’s closure is planned for Sept. 19. After that date, juvenile suspects will attend hearings at the Civic Center location, where more screeners and bailiffs are available to provide security, court officials said.