Haines District Court continues to feel the squeeze of state budget cuts.
Superior Court Judge Philip Pallenberg held a meeting Monday to hear from the Haines community about local court services. Representatives from the state public defender’s and district attorney’s offices in Juneau, and Haines court, police department and borough officials spoke on several issues such as technology limitations, court system consolidation and a lack of community education on what the court offers.
Pallenberg, who has handled Haines felony cases from Juneau, will also now cover misdemeanors since District Court Judge Tom Nave of Juneau retired last month.
“I have made it a point to try cases in Haines as much as I can,” Pallenberg said. “I really feel pretty strongly that the court should bring justice to the people as much as possible and do as many trials as I can in Haines.”
Pallenberg said he’ll try to come to Haines about once a month and will often make decisions on a case-by-case basis on whether to travel to Haines, have the defendant travel to Juneau, or preside via video conference.
“It’s a balancing act as a judge making that decision,” Pallenberg said. “That involves decisions about allocating state resources. Can I justify a (plane) ticket for a particular hearing?”
Pallenberg said by the end of the year, there should be three superior court judges and one district court judge based in Juneau, and a magistrate judge in Haines to better spread the caseload. The court system plans to hire a magistrate judge to take over for retired judge Linn Asper in the next several years to serve three or more Southeast communities.
As is, civil cases such as divorces, Pallenberg said, are often postponed for more time-sensitive criminal cases. Although Pallenberg thinks more superior court judges will help, assistant district attorney Amy Paige, based in Juneau, said judges’ overlapping schedules could hurt rural courts.
“I take every case that comes from the Haines Borough Police Department seriously,” Paige said. “I prosecute as many as I can. Not because I want to send people to jail, but because it increases the quality of life and it can really help people if they can get into rehabilitation services.”
Clayton Jones, rural court administrator who provides administrative support for the First Judicial District in Southeast, said new video equipment was installed in Haines and is available. But bandwidth is often a problem, especially on cruise ship days when internet and phone services run slower because of the heavier demand on available bandwidth.
Police chief Heath Scott said he doesn’t think justice is served adequately by phone, but video could be a “happy medium.”
“I’m a big proponent of behavior change,” Scott said. He wants defendants to feel the frustration of the structure of court and being in front of a judge. “I just want them to understand the magnitude of circumstances, so they don’t want to do it again.”
Mayor Jan Hill said she doesn’t think the community understands how the court system works, and in turn, people don’t understand how state budget cuts are affecting court services.
Borough manager Debra Schnabel said cutbacks to the court system have been “alarming and tragic.” Schnabel said the borough needs to advocate for the justice system and do more outreach to include court officials in the “governmental family.”