Standing Committee on Fairness and Access to the D.C.
Courts
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Precursors to the Standing Committee -- the 1990
Task Forces on Gender Bias and Racial & Ethnic Bias
In June 1988, the Courts and the Bar, at the 13th Annual Judicial
Conference of the District of Columbia, set the wheels in motion
to enhance racial and gender fairness in the District of Columbia
Courts. After the judicial conference, the Bar conducted a study
that found that racial, ethnic, and gender bias were perceived
to exist in the District of Columbia legal and justice communities.
In June 1990, the Joint Committee established the Task Force
on Gender Bias and the Task Force on Racial and Ethnic Bias
in the Courts. The Joint Committee charged the two task forces
with formulating for its consideration recommendations to
address any finding of bias. The work of the task forces places
the D.C. Courts among those court systems that have conducted
empirical research on gender, race, and ethnic bias. The issues
that the task forces studied and addressed with their recommendations
include substantive law issues, the treatment of participants
in litigation, attorney disciplinary proceedings, court appointments
in criminal cases, the demographic composition of court appointed
committees, and the courts' employment practices.
Implementation of the Recommendations of the 1990
Task Forces
The task forces' Final Report was
presented to the Joint Committee and formally presented at
the 17th Annual Judicial Conference in June 1992. Following
the judicial conference, the Joint Committee initiated a review
process for the report recommendations. Internal court working
groups were established to review the recommendations and
to develop implementation plans.
In addition to the implementation plans from the internal
working groups, the Joint Committee solicited responses to
the recommendations from the Mayor, the Council of the District
of Columbia, the United States Attorney's Office, the District
of Columbia Bar, the Board of Professional Responsibility,
and the Office of Bar Counsel.
The Joint Committee also appointed an Advisory Committee
in 1992 to address five specific areas discussed in the Final
Report of the task forces: personnel, procurement, treatment
of participants in the Courts, Family Division proceedings,
and the attorney disciplinary system.
The Courts prepared two reports on the status of the Courts'
implementation efforts. The first report was issued at the
18th Annual Judicial Conference in 1993 and the second in
June 1994.
Establishment of the Standing Committee on Fairness
and Access
The D.C. Court of Appeals and the Superior Court rely on a number of committees
to oversee specific issues, review and update court rules, establish
programs and practices, and undertake other substantive matters.
Notwithstanding the D.C. Courts' governing and policy-making
Joint Committee on Judicial Administration in the District of
Columbia (Joint Committee), there are two committees that serve
both courts: the Advisory Committee on Judicial Conduct and
the Standing Committee on Fairness and Access to the D.C. Courts
(Standing Committee).
The Joint Committee created the Standing Committee
in September 1996 to enhance equal justice for all individuals
in the D.C. Courts by ensuring that they are free of bias.
Standing Committee objectives are to improve access
to the D.C. Courts, enhance fairness in the D.C. Courts'
hiring and promotion processes, improve the treatment of court
users, and inform the community of the progress made in enhancing
fairness. The Standing Committee also continues,
on a permanent basis, the work of two ad hoc committees
that were established in 1990 to identify bias and to develop
strategies to eliminate it -- the Task Force on Racial &
Ethnic Bias and the Task Force on Gender Bias.
Members of the Standing Committee
Judges of both the D.C. Court of Appeals and the Superior Court
are members of the Standing Committee.
Chief Judge Eric T. Washington, D.C. Court of Appeals
Judge Inez Smith Reid, D.C. Court of Appeals, Chair
Judge Anna Blackburne-Rigsby
Judge Patricia A. Broderick, Superior Court
Judge Kaye K. Christian, Superior Court
Judge Stephanie Duncan-Peters, Superior Court,
Hiring and Promotions Subcommittee Chair
Judge Neal E. Kravitz, Superior Court
Judge Hiram Puig-Lugo, Superior Court,
Improving Court Access Subcommittee Chair
Magistrate Judge Aida Melendez, Superior Court,
Improving Treatment Subcommittee Chair
Magistrate Judge Diane M. Brenneman, Superior Court
Anne B. Wicks, Executive Officer
Cheryl R. Bailey, Deputy Executive Officer
H. Clifton Grandy, Esq., Senior Court Manager, Staff
The former members of the Standing Committee are:
Judge Geoffrey M. Alprin, Superior Court
Judge Rafael Diaz, Superior Court
Generally, the Standing Committee works through subcommittees which address different issues. Judge Stephanie Duncan-Peters chairs the Hiring and Promotions Subcommittee, Judge Hiram Puig-Lugo chairs the Improving Court Access Subcommittee, and Magistrate Judge Aida Melendez chairs the Improving the Treatment of Participants Subcommittee. Each subcommittee has one or more advisory committees. Advisory committees are comprised of members from the D.C. Bar and the public, as well as judges and senior court managers.
Standing Committee Accomplishments
The Subcommittee on Improving the Treatment of Participants developed the Outreach Initiative Forums to involve judges in the community for the purpose of gathering information from the court-user community to improve the administration of justice. Approximately 20 Outreach Initiative forums have been conducted with court-users, including the Office of the Public Defender, the appointed counsel bar of the Family Division, the Office of the Attorney General for D.C., the D.C. Office on Aging, and the voluntary bar associations.
The Improving Court Access Subcommittee convened an advisory committee composed of persons with expertise or experience disability access issues. The advisory committee assisted the Courts in assessing access to facilities and the judicial process by persons with disabilities. This information was incorporated in the Courts' self-assessment that was prepared in accordance with the Americans with Disabilities Act.
The Subcommittee on Hiring and Promotions
served as the advisory committee for the Employee Mediation
Pilot, which was partially funded by the State Justice
Institute. This project has been incorporated into the court
structure as a permanent program. Employee Mediation provides
a process for resolving interpersonal conflicts, grievances,
and other complaints of court employees.
The Standing Committee also monitored implementation
of a set of recommendations to the court system that it developed
in 1997. These recommendations pertained to reasonable accommodations
for disabled court users, general court administration, training,
jury service, access issues in the construction and renovation
of court facilities, and a wide range of human resource management
issues such as, technology, access to court services, data
collection and analysis, and affirmative action planning.
The Ten Year Retrospective/Prospective on Fairness and Access
In October 2002, to recognize that a decade had passed since
the Task Force on Racial and Ethnic Bias in the Courts and the
Task Force on Gender Bias in the Courts issued their final reports,
the Standing Committee convened a one-day conference.
The purpose of the conference was to reflect on accomplishments
in the last ten years in the area of fairness and access and
to envision the future for the courts and the Standing Committee.
The conference had two plenary panels, a keynote speaker, and
an awards program.
One panel, Progress in the Last Decade, highlighted
accomplishments and issues of the Standing Committee
in several areas, including: the treatment of court participants;
national origin, race, and language access; disability access,
and diversity of the judiciary and of the court workforce.
During the second panel, Our Vision of a Fair and Accessible
Future: A Town Hall Conversation, the panelists recommended
that the Courts: increase representation of bilinguals throughout
the Courts; improve language access; enhance community outreach;
establish a community liaison with the Latino community; and
enhance access to legal representation.
Following the Conference, which highlighted the need for
access reforms in the Landlord Tenant Branch, Judge Stephanie
Duncan-Peters, Chair of the Hiring and Promotions Subcommittee,
working with the judicial and administrative leadership of
the Civil Division and the Multi-Door Dispute Resolution Division,
spearheaded a pilot mediation project for landlord and tenant
matters. The project quickly proved to be a success and has
been integrated into the everyday operations of the branch.
A National Dialogue on Racial and Ethnic Fairness
in the CourtsChief Judge Wagner and members of the Standing
Committee, with the able assistance of H. Clifton Grandy,
planned and hosted the 16th annual meeting of the National
Consortium on Racial and Ethnic Fairness in the Courts (National
Consortium), April 14 - 17, 2004. The conference theme
was 50 Years After Brown: A National Dialogue on Racial
& Ethnic Fairness in the Courts. The groundbreaking
Supreme Court case, Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka,
as well as the D.C. companion case, Bolling vs. Sharpe,
were used to inspire the conference participants to continue
the challenging task of identifying and eliminating unfairness
and systemic and blatant biases in the administration of justice.
Development of the Internet and the Web Accessible Kiosks
Since the Standing Committee has called for the improved fairness and access through the use of the Internet and other technologies, Executive Officer Anne B. Wicks, designated H. Clifton Grandy, the Project director of the Web/Kiosk Team. The Web/Kiosk Team coordinated the development and implementation of the Court's kiosks and new internet website.
The Kiosk/Web Team held a series of focus groups with both internal and external users to determine requirements for the project. The external focus group participants included representatives such as: legal service providers for the indigent, law school clinical program directors, the mandatory and voluntary bar associations, and language minority communities. Several high quality kiosks were obtained through an agreement with the D.C. Government. The team worked with the senior court managers to develop updated content for the website and kiosks. The website and kiosks are interactive enabling users to conduct court business, such as completing the Juror Questionnaire or requesting a postponement of a jury service date, without traveling to the courthouse or using the mail. The kiosks and the new website share the same content. The D.C. Courts' efforts to design and build an accessible and useful website were recognized by Justice Served, an organization that promotes the best practices of court management, by awarding the Courts its prestigious "Top 10 Award" in 2006.
Links
 The First Annual Report - Standing Committee on Fairness and Access to the District of Columbia Courts [122k]
Fairness and Access to the Courts in a Changing World: A Ten
Year Retrospective and Prospective Examination [401k]
National
Consortium on Racial and Ethnic Fairness in the Courts
D.C. Courts' ADA Self Evaluation 1997 [498k]
Status Report on Implementation - Spring 2006 [221k]
Status Report: Improving Court Access Recommendations (1997) of the Standing Committee on Fairness and Access - Spring 2006 (MP3 audio file) [64MB]
Outreach Initiative Forums Report 1997 - 2001 [193k]
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