2007 State of the Judiciary

The Honorable Ruth V. McGregor
Chief Justice, Arizona Supreme Court

Delivered January 18, 2007 to a joint session of the
First Regular Session of the 48th Legislature

State of the Judiciary Address
The Honorable Ruth V. McGregor
Chief Justice, Arizona Supreme Court
President Bee, Speaker Weiers, members of the Arizona Senate and House of Representatives,
judges, honored guests and fellow Arizonans. Good afternoon.
On behalf of the Arizona judicial branch, I thank you for this opportunity to appear before you in
joint session to report about the progress the judicial system has made in its efforts to be
responsive to public needs and administratively accountable as a branch of government.
I count myself fortunate to serve on the Arizona Supreme Court with four colleagues who bring
ability, commitment to the rule of law, and great energy to their positions: Vice Chief Justice
Rebecca Berch, Justice Michael Ryan, Justice Andy Hurwitz and Justice Scott Bales.
Our court, of course, is only a small part of the judicial branch. The branch and the public also
benefit from the services of hundreds of fine judicial officers in our justice, municipal, superior,
and appellate courts, our clerks of court and their staff, and the court administrative and
probation staffs in our fifteen counties statewide. I thank all of them for the outstanding job they
do each day.
By working together with the other branches of government, Arizona has developed a court
system of which we can all be very proud. By almost any measure, Arizona’s courts bring honor
to our state.
National organizations and our colleagues across the country recognize our court system for its
integrity, administrative accountability, and commitment to innovation and public service. In
fact, the U.S. Chamber Institute for Legal Reform, an affiliate of the U.S. Chamber of
Commerce, ranks the Arizona judicial system as one of the “best” state court systems.
To find ways to continue our success, we use various performance measures to determine how
well our courts are doing in meeting the public’s needs. A number of Arizona courts have been
using objective performance measures known as “CourTools” to measure customer satisfaction,
and the results are very encouraging. In the Maricopa County Superior Court:
ƒ

94% of court users said that they were treated with courtesy and respect by court
personnel.

ƒ

92% of court users said that they understood what happened in court and what they
needed to do next, if anything.

January 18, 2007
Page 1 of 6

We also measure judges’ performance. As you may know, the Judicial Performance Review
Commission surveys all court users to evaluate the performance of merit selection and retention
judges. Last year, the Commission found that:
ƒ

97% of those who use our courts rated judges “satisfactory” or higher.

ƒ

87% of those who use our courts rated judges “very good” or “superior.”

We could not operate our judicial system, which impacts every community in Arizona, without
the support of the Legislative branch. We thank you for your support of court initiatives that
affect real people, your constituents, every day, and we look forward to working with you to
improve what is already a very good court system.
We understand, however, that the public demands more than competence from its courts: the
judicial branch must also be administratively accountable.
The primary tool used by the judicial branch to improve and hold itself accountable is its
Strategic Agenda, which defines a set of goals that the system works to achieve. The theme of
our current Agenda, “Good to Great,” reflects our commitment to making Arizona’s justice
system the best system possible, a goal that we recognize we can achieve only through leadership
on every level and participation from communities and citizens throughout Arizona.
The Good to Great Agenda includes five major goals; I will briefly discuss three of them today.
Our first goal reflects the primary goal of every court system, which is to provide access to swift,
fair justice. To help define initiatives under this goal, we asked the public what they thought our
administrative priorities should be in our limited jurisdiction courts, where 95 percent of case
activity occurs. The public response was very clear: do a better job of processing DUI cases.
While all branches of government play an essential role in addressing this critical public safety
issue, let me tell you what the Judicial Branch has done.
Because we cannot fix a problem until it is adequately defined, our first step was to create an
expert task force to review current processes and problems. After holding hearings and
consulting those involved in the system, the task force recommended a number of steps we can
take to increase the speed of DUI case processing, which benefits both defendants and victims.
We established a pilot project in ten justice and municipal courts across the state, which will
report the results of our changes next summer. Preliminary reports show that the changes in
process are effective.
In DUI sentencing, as well as in all areas of criminal sentencing, the judicial system increasingly
uses research that helps us identify those offenders who are most likely to re-offend and, within
the sentencing options permitted by the legislature, how to provide appropriate supervision and
treatment that will reduce recidivism rates. By doing so, we make Arizona safer.

January 18, 2007
Page 2 of 6

Providing access to swift, fair justice requires that we constantly look for new ways to surmount
obstacles to reaching that goal, and Arizona’s courts have often been in the forefront of doing so.
One continuing challenge results from the fact that many people with legal issues cannot afford
to hire attorneys and must represent themselves. When trying to access justice, the litigant
without a lawyer is often uncertain about how to move through the court system. Recognizing
this need in the 1990s, Arizona established the first “Self Service Center” in the nation to provide
information to these self-represented litigants. We now are working to provide more of these
services through the internet, so that litigants do not have to travel to one of our courts to obtain
the forms they need.
But litigants without lawyers often need more than forms, and they ask court staff for guidance.
Ethically, court staff may not give legal advice, but they may provide procedural information.
Because the line between advice and information is not always clear, frequently both the
customer and the court employee have been frustrated.
To help alleviate this problem, I created the Legal Advice-Legal Information Guidelines Task
Force in May 2006 to develop standards and guidance for our court staff so that they can
recognize when and how they can properly help the public. We expect to implement these new
procedures in our courts over the coming year.
The second goal of the Good to Great Strategic Agenda involves protecting children, families,
and communities.
One of the ways the court protects the community is by better addressing the needs and rights of
crime victims, while maintaining court neutrality and also assuring the rights of defendants. Last
year, I created the Court’s Commission on Victims in the Courts, to help us do just this.
One of the first accomplishments of the Commission was to oversee the development of an
electronic notification system that allows crime victims to register to receive e-mail notification
of court orders in their own cases. To date, nearly 3,000 people have signed up to receive up-todate case information. This procedure keeps crime victims better informed about the status of
their cases and reduces the frustration that results from delay in notification.
Another way the judicial branch provides accurate legal information to the public is by creating
useful websites. Some years ago, we created the Lawforkids.org website. This nationally
recognized website, which receives an average of over 2.5 million hits per month, gives the
public, both adults and juveniles, critical legal information about juvenile rights and
responsibilities under the law.
Building on this success, last November we introduced a “LawforSeniors.org” website and a
“Law for Seniors” brochure. These components help seniors and their families protect and
prepare themselves legally, physically, and financially for challenges posed by aging.

January 18, 2007
Page 3 of 6

As part of meeting the needs of the public, the Court also must fulfill its role in holding offenders
accountable. Many of you are familiar with our “Fees/Fines and Restitution Enhancement”
program, commonly called FARE. To date, the FARE program has collected over $56 million
overdue dollars - revenue that is distributed to city and state government and crime victims,
according to your directions.
The third goal of the Strategic Agenda calls for courts to be accountable, in recognition of the
fact that the public expects accountability for government operations and administration. Our
Strategic Agenda calls for every court in Arizona to adopt objective performance measures. In
addition, I am happy to report today that the judicial branch has found many new ways of
making our operations more transparent.
We have taken advantage of the advances offered by the internet to distribute information about
court proceedings and decisions by posting court agendas, rulings, and administrative decisions.
To provide information about the qualifications of those who apply for judicial merit selection
openings, we post each person’s application. To encourage greater public involvement in the
court’s rule-making process, we provide web access to permit those interested to comment upon
pending rule change petitions. We also have taken a cue from the Legislature and now broadcast
Supreme Court oral arguments live on the web.
To allow the public to obtain full information about the performance of merit selection judges
standing for retention, we are hosting a new, user-friendly website that permits the public to
obtain detailed information about judicial performance as compiled by the Judicial Performance
Review Commission.
This Commission, and others like it, demonstrates one of the ways the public holds the judicial
branch accountable. One of the greatest assets of the Commission is that most of the 30
Commission members are not attorneys or judges – they are from the public. The public
members of the Commission come from varied backgrounds, including active or retired
educators, psychologists, accountants, business executives, consultants and community
volunteers. In fact, we so value the public perspective that we have public volunteers on every
one of our court committees and commissions, well as on our Foster Care Review Boards and
CASA programs. That translates to almost 2,000 citizen volunteers involved on a regular basis
with the Arizona court system.
Our Strategic Agenda includes two other goals. You can read about the progress we have made
on these goals, as well as more about the goals I have discussed, by viewing the annual report
that is on our website.
All government agencies feel the strain of Arizona’s skyrocketing growth rate, and the courts are
no exception. Many of the growing number of court cases involve the business community, and
we are aware of the need to process those cases promptly. The United States Chamber of
Commerce has stated that when businesses are deciding where to locate, one of the fundamental
variables they consider is the stability and efficiency of their court systems. One of the ways the
Arizona courts have responded to the needs of business is by creating a “Complex Litigation
Court” in Maricopa County.
January 18, 2007
Page 4 of 6

The goal of the Complex Litigation Court is to provide continuous judicial management to avoid
placing unnecessary burdens on the court or the litigants and to expedite these difficult cases,
keep costs reasonable, and promote an effective decision making process by the court, the
parties, and counsel. I am pleased to report that the Complex Litigation Court is working well,
with 80% of its users expressing satisfaction with this specialized process as compared with
traditional case processing.
The Complex Litigation Court requires the use of technology and e-filing of all case documents.
But our use of technology is not limited to this Court. At many points within the court system,
we use technology to accomplish tasks as inexpensively as possible, while maintaining quality.
Using technology appropriately, we can increase access to justice, reduce cost, and improve
customer service. Our advances in technology have been made possible, to a great extent, by the
dedicated funding sources you provided us fifteen years ago, for which we thank you. We have
made every effort to use those resources wisely, and we have succeeded in doing so.
Last year the Legislature directed the Auditor General to review the Court’s technology
operations. I am pleased to report that the Auditor found that the Court is making excellent use of
its resources and that the Court has a “sound project management process.”
Although the judicial system is working well, we constantly look for areas that need attention.
One of those areas involves the significant backlog of capital cases in Maricopa County. To give
you an idea of the scope of the problem, while there are four capital cases pending in Pima
County Superior Court, there are nearly 140 capital cases pending in Maricopa County. We must
address this backlog, and doing so will require ongoing commitment and effort.
The Legislature took one step last session to help. Through legislation sponsored by Sen. John
Huppenthal, you established an office that helps handle death penalty cases. However, our work
is far from done.
We must develop a comprehensive plan to address death penalty cases so that cases are not
overturned on appeal because of incorrect handling. If cases are overturned, they will be relitigated, and the defendants will face additional delay, while the victims will be re-victimized.
By doing the job right in the first place, we avoid delay and also avoid wasting precious taxpayer
resources. We also must prepare to handle the increased number of appeals that will result once
the backlog starts moving through the mandatory appeals process. Because of the unique and
exacting standards required by appellate review, the Supreme Court is not currently equipped to
handle a large number of additional death penalty appeals.
So, today I am announcing the creation of a task force to make recommendations about the steps
needed to improve our handling of death penalty cases. Arizona Supreme Court Justice Michael
Ryan will chair the task force, which will include representatives of all the stakeholders in the
system. We must find a way to resolve this problem. And by working together, I am confident
that we can find solutions.

January 18, 2007
Page 5 of 6

Another system that needs revision in Arizona is our jury system. Arizona has been a pioneer in
adopting modern jury rules that make jury service more convenient and that enable jurors to
generally be more effective. In addition, you passed, and we implemented, the lengthy jury trial
fund to help fairly compensate those who serve on lengthy trials.
But there is more to do. The current jury service statutes are antiquated and no longer work. We
are asking the legislature to update the jury statutes this session. We have proposed legislation
would allow counties with multiple court locations to develop jury assignment plans that would
to minimize the amount of traveling a juror needs to do. While we cannot eliminate all travel,
with your assistance, we can create a system that is both more convenient and constitutionally
compliant.
All three branches have their role to play in our system of government. Most often, we agree
about how to improve the administration of justice. Occasionally, we will disagree about
administrative issues or case decisions. But cooperation and collaboration between our branches
is critical if we are to reach our mutual goal of making Arizona the best that it can be. I look
forward to exploring some of the ideas presented here today with you. Together, we can move
Arizona’s courts from very Good to truly Great.
Thank you.

January 18, 2007
Page 6 of 6