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# Local judge facing heavier workloads
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/local-judge-facing-heavier-workloads/
- Published: 2004-04-23T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T04:14:33.000Z
- Author: John Wood
- Tags: Crime, Malibu, #archive-import

*Santa Monica will take on caseload from Culver City Courthouse*

SM COURTHOUSE — The Santa Monica Courthouse is taking the brunt of more county-wide budget cuts.

Officials on Thursday announced they will close three county courthouses and as a result, the Santa Monica Courthouse will pick up the entire caseload from Culver City.

In addition to shutting down the courthouses in Culver City, Monrovia and South Gate, officials announced plans to close lock-up facilities at the Malibu and Huntington Park courthouses.

Combined with plans to move criminal cases out of Santa Monica this June, the closures are expected to net about $3 million in security savings. Another $1.1 million will be cut from the budget for perimeter security, which means longer waits getting in and out of some courthouses, officials said.

Santa Monica Superior Court Judge Linda Lefkowitz, the supervising judge who oversees six courthouses on the westside, said the Culver City Courthouse will stay open until the $4.5 million renovation to the Santa Monica Courthouse is complete, which is expected at the end of the year. All three courtrooms in Culver City then will be moved to Santa Monica, she said.

Included is a traffic court and two limited jurisdiction courtrooms for civil cases under $25,000\. One of those is run by a Santa Monica judge who was displaced by the construction at the local courthouse. The move is expected to save the county $477,000 annually in security expenses.

At least for now, officials said no layoffs are planned anywhere in the Los Angeles County court system, the largest in the nation with 583 courtrooms in 57 courthouses and more than 5,200 staffers. But more cuts are expected to be handed down from officials in Sacramento soon, officials said.

“We’re going to be real crowded here,” Lefkowitz said. “How the further budget cuts are going to impact the courts, and maybe impact civil trials, I couldn’t tell you. We don’t know what the budget is ultimately going to be... So we’re really up in the air as to what’s going to happen.”

> “We’re going to be real crowded here... So we’re really up in the air as to what’s going to happen.” — — JUDGE LINDA LEFKOWITZ Santa Monica Superior Court

Through a lot of hard work and coop-eration from lawyers, judges in the Santa Monica Courthouse recently whittled down their average caseload from about 500 to between 350 and 400, Lefkowitz said. It takes about one year to get a civil case to trial in Santa Monica — two years if it’s complicated.

Lefkowitz said she had met this week with city councilmembers and police from Culver City.

“I think they see this as a difficult thing as a community to see their courthouse leave,” Lefkowitz said. “And that sort of tangible thing is hard to watch, frankly.”

That sentiment was shared by workers in the Santa Monica Courthouse earlier this year when it was decided that all criminal cases would be moved to the Airport Courthouse to save the county an estimated $769,000 annually. The cost and inconvenience to Santa Monica police, residents and court officials is still unknown.

Under the plan announced Thursday, cases from the South Gate Courthouse, which operates two courtrooms, will be transferred to the Huntington Park Courthouse in June at a projected savings of $622,000 a year. Cases from the Monrovia Courthouse, which operates one courtroom, will be transferred in June to the Alhambra Courthouse at a projected savings of $299,000 a year. Two other courtrooms at Monrovia were shut down in 2002.

Custody cases from the Malibu Courthouse will be divided in June between the Airport Courthouse and the Van Nuys Courthouse at a projected annual savings of $194,000\. Criminal cases involving arrests made north of Mulholland Drive will be transferred to Van Nuys, while those south of Mulholland Drive will go to the Airport Courthouse. Malibu handles an average of six in-custody criminal cases each day, officials said.

Another $534,000 will be saved annually by closing the lock-up facilities in the Huntington Park Courthouse. Misdemeanors will go to the East Los Angeles Courthouse and felonies will go to the Metropolitan Courthouse, which will free up space for the incoming South Gate civil caseload.

County officials also announced that the court system’s perimeter security budget will be cut by $1.1 million. That budget covers weapons screening and other security activities throughout the county’s courthouses. In total, projected annual security cost savings will amount to slightly more than $4 million a year. Another $283,000 will be saved in expenses for services and supplies at the soon-to-be closed facilities.

County officials said the courts next will post notices and solicit public comment on the closures. An executive committee will consider those comments and make a formal decision on May 19.

“It is most unfortunate that the results of the steady erosion in financial resources available to the judicial branch statewide, and the Los Angeles Superior Court in particular, made it necessary to shut down three facilities,” said Los Angeles County Superior Court Presiding Judge Robert A. Dukes. “We had to make some very hard, and exceptionally difficult, decisions. At the same time, the actions we are taking today will ensure that our remaining courthouses are utilized as fully as possible.”

Dukes noted that the Superior Court’s 2002 budget reduction plan — 29 courtrooms were shut down — had held out the hope that courthouses wouldn’t close. But reductions and threatened cuts in the 2004-2005 fiscal year state budget necessitated more decisive action now, Dukes added.

“Just as we did in 2002, we are trying to anticipate the long-term effect of current and projected budget reductions,” Dukes said. “As then, it is our view that streamlining our operation in a well-planned manner now will help us avoid larger, wholesale courthouse closures over at least the next 12 to 15 months.”

If any courthouses do fall, it’s unlikely Santa Monica will be among them.

“This is a large courthouse,” Lefkowitz said. “I don’t, frankly, anticipate this courthouse will close. The question is — depending on the budget — what our staffing ability will be if we compress our calendars.”

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on April 23, 2004.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/042304.pdf?ref=smdp.com)