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Richmond judges prep for changes

All 8 to hear both criminal, civil cases

Richmond Circuit Court was unique in two respects.

It operated out of two courthouses, and seven of the eight judges typically heard only civil or criminal cases.

The first distinction ended last year, when all circuit court operations in the Manchester Courthouse in South Richmond moved to the John Marshall Courts Building at Eighth and Marshall streets.

On July 1, the second distinction will end as well when all judges will hear both civil and criminal cases on a rotating basis.
That is a huge change for some of the judges, such as Judge T.J. Markow, who is within a couple of years of the mandatory retirement age and, until November, had had no experience with criminal law as an attorney or a judge.

In that month, all eight judges began presiding over civil, criminal and traffic appeals from general district court on a rotating basis one day each month.

Those cases are giving judges with little judicial experience in one area of the law a limited exposure to it before the big switch occurs in little more than a month, said Chief Judge Walter W. Stout III.

The Richmond Circuit Court is one of the biggest and busiest in the commonwealth.

Already, about 6,000 cases that had been assigned to three judges have been reassigned to all eight judges. The three civil judges – Markow, Melvin R. Hughes Jr. and Margaret P. Spencer – will continue to hear motions until July 1, but the judge to whom the case is assigned will take on the task after that date.

Henceforth, each judge will get every eighth civil case that is filed.

Civil docket call has been eliminated. The circuit court clerk’s office will assign a trial date when the case is filed.

On the criminal side, there will be separate rotations for categories of cases – capital murder, felonies misdemeanors, habitual offenders, habeas corpus proceedings, and forfeitures and expungements – with each judge getting every eighth case in those categories.

Stout said the judges hope to end criminal docket call, with the attorneys scheduling their cases with the secretary of the judge to whom the case is assigned after indictment.

The judges will split their time roughly equally between civil and criminal cases, with a slight edge to criminal cases because the criminal caseload is somewhat higher. Each judge probably will designate about two days of his civil schedule each month to hear motions, Stout said. Now, each of the three judges who hear civil cases exclusively devotes a week each month to motions.

The switch is complicated to a degree by the design of the John Marshall Courts Building, which reflects the civil-criminal dichotomy that prevailed when it was built. Only five of the eight courtrooms have lockups for criminal defendants. As a result, the judges will be paired, so that they will switch courtrooms depending on whether they are hearing civil or criminal cases.

For example, Hughes will hear criminal cases in the courtroom Bradley B. Cavedo now has and Cavedo will hear civil cases in Hughes’ courtroom. The other partners are Stout and Markow, Beverly W. Snukals and C.N. Jenkins Jr., and Spencer and Richard D. Taylor Jr.

Stout said the judges are aware that the switch will mean major changes for agencies associated with the court and the clerk’s office – the sheriff’s office, the probation and parole office, prosecutors and public defenders. “They’ve been told what we’re trying to do,” he said.

He added that Circuit Court Clerk Bevill M. Dean “has been instrumental in helping with a lot of changes. … He’s done a good job.”
The court has a criminal and civil caseload that is out of all proportion to its population. The city long has been the crime capital of the state, and it is the venue of choice for personal injury attorneys, who believe that city jurors are more sympathetic to plaintiffs than are jurors in surrounding suburban jurisdictions. Civil attorneys on both sides have appreciated the relative efficiency of appearing before judges who hear only civil cases.

For more than a decade, the court operated with three judges in the John Marshall Courts Building and one in the Manchester Courthouse hearing criminal cases, three judges in the John Marshall building hearing civil cases and an eighth judge there who heard both civil and criminal cases.

Historically, a judge elected to the circuit bench took the caseload of the judge he replaced. A judge chosen to fill a criminal seat usually had a criminal law background, while those selected for a civil seat had a civil background.

Recently, though, judges appointed to what had been criminal judgeships have not had a criminal law background. In fact, only Stout and Hughes practiced criminal law before being appointed to the bench.

The death of Judge Randall G. Johnson in September 2006 and the elevation of Jenkins from juvenile and domestic relations district court created the possibility that a judge who had been hearing criminal case would take Johnson’s caseload.

That possibility was complicated further by a disparity in the caseload of the five judges who heard criminal cases. Historically, the judge who sat in South Richmond heard all the criminal cases south of the James River, but he was presiding over about a third of the total caseload when an even split would have had had him hearing 22 percent of criminal cases.

The judges tried to balance the docket in several ways, none of them satisfactory, and Taylor, who had been sitting in Manchester Courthouse, moved to the John Marshall Courts Building and the criminal docket was consolidated last year.
At a meeting shortly after Johnson’s death, the judges agreed to reorganize the caseload, with Hughes and Markow, who had heard nothing but civil cases for more than two decades, continuing to hear civil cases exclusively. Five judges would hear both civil and criminal cases, and one judge would hear only criminal cases.

However, Taylor and Spencer, who came to believe that the system was overly complicated and did not divide the caseload equitably, complained to Chief Justice Leroy Rountree Hassell Sr.

The complaint led to a contentious meeting between Hassell and the circuit judges and their acquiescence in his insistence that all judges hear both civil and criminal cases.

Hassell retained a California consulting firm to assist the judges in that effort. Stout said the consultant’s recommendations largely reflected the system that he had proposed and that the court is implementing.

The tension among judges that existed a year ago has eased somewhat, Stout said, when some judges were not speaking or attending meetings to develop the new system.

“The relationships on the court have improved,” he said. “The meetings are comfortable.”

Taylor, the strongest proponent of a new system, said it addresses his two biggest concerns, equalizing the caseload of judges and allowing all the court’s judges to exercise the full breadth of their jurisdiction.

“Judge Stout and Bevill Dean have done a terrific job,” he said. “They’ve worked very hard and I’m happy with what they’ve done.”
Taylor and Dean said they expect glitches as the system develops, and Taylor said he is sure that there will be criticism when a judge who had a criminal background makes the inevitable error in a civil case, or vice versa.

“But over time, I think it will be terrific,” he said.

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