Aaron Glantz/The Bay Citizen

California Supreme Court Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye hears testimony about the impact of drastic cuts planned for California's judicial branch.

California's Judicial Council rejected calls to make deeper cuts to its own bureaucracy and instead passed the bulk of $350 million in state budget cuts onto local courts.

Across the state, the cuts will cause delays in cases ranging from child custody battles to wrongful death suits.

"Every choice is a bad one," said State Sen. Noreen Evans (D-Napa) at a hearing Friday.  Evans, as Chair of the state Senate Judiciary Committee, has a seat on the Council, which oversees the state's court system. 

"We need to somehow preserve access to justice, and in the coming years that may look different than in the past," Evans said urging members of the legal community to look at the cuts "as an opportunity to do things in a new, creative and innovative way."

The Judicial Council's action came four days after Katherine Feinstein, the presiding judge of San Francisco Superior Court, announced that San Francisco would be forced to "dismantle" its court system. Twenty-five of its 63 courtrooms are slated to be shuttered, all in the civil division.

While individuals will still be able to file lawsuits, it will take five years before most cases get to a judge. It will take 18 months to obtain a divorce, Feinstein warned.

At the Judicial Council meeting on Friday, Feinstein attacked the Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC) -- the bureaucratic arm of the courts -- for allowing its staff to balloon from 298 in 1998 to more than 1,000 in 2011.

"While we, and other trial courts, are firing, your staff is hiring," she said.

Feinstein also slammed the Council for wasting more than $400 million on a "still dysfunctional" computerized case management system, and asked that the system be scrapped. 

Feinstein wasn't the only judge asking the courts' bureaucracy to take a bigger hit. Sacramento County Superior Court Assistant Presiding Judge Laurie M. Earl said her court was planning to close courtrooms and looking to reduce hours of operation. 

"Why can't the AOC take deeper cuts?" she asked, accusing the state's expensive and still inoperable computer system of "crippling our budget."

The Judicial Council decided to suspend funding for the computer system for a year, but indicated it may restore funding for it in the future. Members of the Council include California Supreme Court Chief Justice Tani Gorre Cantil-Sakauye, state appellate and superior court judges, and lawyers appointed by the State Bar.

This week, the 400-member Alliance of California Judges also asked the Council to trim the AOC's budget by half.

Instead, the Judicial Council assigned just $13 million of the cuts to its $116 million bureaucracy, a reduction of about 12 percent.

Court officials defended their administration.

"I have never been associated with a more hardworking, dedicated group of professionals than here at the AOC," Ronald Overholt, the Chief Deputy Director of the Administrative Office of the Courts, said during the discussion. 

"We are shrinking, and we are not replacing folks," he said. "We are looking at reorganizing . . . We're looking at any way that we can be more efficient."