Ep. 26 Public Trust and Confidence in the Courts

Public trust and confidence in the courts is becoming a major concern in the media and among the public, as surveys conducted by the National Center for State Courts have shown declines in public trust over the last decade. Here to discuss this issue--and what can be done about it--are your host, Judge Neal McBrayer of the Tennessee Court of Appeals, and special guests Chief Justice Elizabeth Walker of West Virginia, Chief Judge Anna Blackburne-Rigsby of the District of Columbia Courts, and Chief Justice Loretta Rush of Indiana. This episode was recorded at the Conference of Chief Justices in Nashville, TN and podcast is intended for all audiences.

Produced by Nick Morgan, Tennessee Administrative Office of the Courts 

Transcript

00;00;02;16 - 00;00;35;11
Judge McBrayer
Alright. So welcome to a Tennessee Court Talk podcast on public confidence and trust in the courts. And I'm very excited to be doing this in conjunction with the Conference of Chief Justices here in Nashville, the mid-year meeting. And I have got three terrific guests to talk about this topic. We're welcoming. Chief justice will read a rush from Indiana Chief Judge and, Blackburn Rigsby from the District of Columbia and Chief Justice Beth Walker from West Virginia. Welcome, ladies. Welcome.

00;00;35;11 - 00;00;37;25
Justice Walker
Thank you. Thanks for having us. It's great to be here.

00;00;37;26 - 00;01;12;06
Judge McBrayer
So public confidence and trust, the National Center for State Courts does a survey of public trust and confidence. And frankly, over the last ten years or so, the news has not been good for the courts. The public trust and confidence numbers have been declining. But most recently this year, we did not have a decline. It held steady. Justice Walker, I know that you have just been in a podcast called Lady Justice with, two other justices of state Supreme Court, and you looked at the numbers last year.

00;01;12;06 - 00;01;19;13
Judge McBrayer
Have you had a chance to look at the most current report from the National Center for State Courts to see how those compare?

00;01;19;13 - 00;01;40;06
Justice Walker
Absolutely. And it's so great that you were talking about this topic. As Chief Justice Rush said, you know, this is the foundation on which we build the judiciary and all of the states. And when you know, what we learned in West Virginia a few years ago is that when you lose that public trust and competence, it takes serious work to get it back.

00;01;40;06 - 00;02;13;20
Justice Walker
And it really is a crisis, which is one of the reasons I'm so passionate about it. One of the reasons I'm involved in these conversations and following closely the work of the National Center as they monitor and have for a decade or so, the sort of public score for the state courts. And as you mentioned, state courts had been overall had been receiving more favorable marks, so to speak, in polls that the National Center has done consistently for about a decade, until very recently, they that this year.

00;02;13;20 - 00;02;36;16
Justice Walker
But the year before and it slipped a little and it slipped and I'm just start talking about it more urgently and trying to figure out exactly what is it an overall lack of satisfaction with the courts? Is it the courts themselves, or is it government altogether? Is it our divisive conversations on social media and in the news, and exactly what is at the heart of it?

00;02;36;23 - 00;02;59;11
Justice Walker
So I'm really have appreciated watching what the National Center does and watching now things starting to shift just a little bit away from the negative direction, I guess I think the fair. And I'll let Chief Judge Blackburn Rigsby talk more about it, because she hosted a webinar on this topic last week, but at least it's not going in a negative direction anymore.

00;02;59;17 - 00;03;18;19
Judge McBrayer
And Judge Blackburn, Rigby, you're you're not only the current president of the Conference of Chief Judges, but you also chaired a committee on public engagement, trust and confidence. Can you tell me a little bit about what the impetus was that? Was that because of declining poll numbers, that that committee was formed?

00;03;18;21 - 00;03;55;28
Judge Rigsby
Yes, in large part. And this is an issue and as you heard from my colleagues, Chief Justice Rush and Chief Justice Walker is very near and dear to my heart. And it's something we care deeply about. The Public Trust and Confidence Committee, and it's called the Community Engagement, Public Trust and Confidence Committee for the Conference of Chief Justices and Court Administrators was founded a few years ago because we were seeing a decline in public trust, and there were lots of things happening, a resurgence of some racial unrest in our communities in the aftermath of the tragic death of George Floyd.

00;03;55;29 - 00;04;24;01
Judge Rigsby
As chief Justice, Walker said, the general dissatisfaction with government overall. But we were proud that people generally viewed the courts more favorably than other branches of government. And what we realized, though, is we had to really work harder. It wasn't enough to sit back and occasionally do some outreach and say, to know us is to love us. What we had to do is really figure out ways for authentic and ongoing engagement with the communities that we serve.

00;04;24;01 - 00;04;48;09
Judge Rigsby
And the difference between engagement is it's a two way conversation. It means we have to listen to what the people that we serve need from our courts, and then we have to do something about it. When we when we get their thoughts and their ideas to show that we respect them, we're listening. And look, we've tried to implement some of the ideas that you suggested to make our courts work better and fairer.

00;04;48;09 - 00;05;06;13
Judge Rigsby
And I have to tell you, sometimes it's hard to listen. We don't always like what we hear. You know, I think if you talk to any of our colleagues, we really try to do right and we try to be fair and impartial and welcoming to all, but we fall short sometimes. And sometimes what we think will work from the inside.

00;05;06;13 - 00;05;31;29
Judge Rigsby
Looking out is not what actually works for the people on the outside looking in. And we we have to humble ourselves to be able to hear what the people need from their judicial branch and from the courts. And, you know, most people who ever go into any court, go into their local state courts in their neighborhoods, and, and we forget that sometimes, when we're talking about this on a larger scale.

00;05;31;29 - 00;06;00;13
Judge Rigsby
So as president of the Conference of Chief Justice this year, this is a topic I've chosen to focus on. And there's so much work that we're doing in our courts. And when we share information and hear from people, any issue that they're facing, substance abuse, mental health, behavioral health, crime in their neighborhood, eviction and housing issues, all of those issues are in our courts, and we are looking for ways to help be a part of the solution.

00;06;00;13 - 00;06;03;03
Judge Rigsby
When we are administering justice in our courts.

00;06;03;03 - 00;06;33;17
Judge McBrayer
Yeah. Chief Justice Black Me mentioned how state courts are really where most people interact with the court system. And I'm wondering about how the news and the media treatment of, say, the United States Supreme Court and the press that they get might influence our numbers. Justice rush, any thoughts about do you feel like that there is some carryover on the way the public thinks about the federal system and state courts, and we sometimes get lumped in together with them?

00;06;33;17 - 00;06;37;18
Judge McBrayer
Do you think the average person really distinguishes between the two court systems.

00;06;37;20 - 00;07;06;01
Justice Rush
That are against you guys? So I think what 90% of the cases endure in the state courts is judge and bridge. We're saying we're sort of the government emergency rooms. We have the issues that are probably closest to the people. When you look at like housings and guardianships and copyright epidemic. So we have to earn that trust. So when you look at the number of cases we have and the people that come before us, you've got to treat them fairly.

00;07;06;01 - 00;07;21;27
Justice Rush
So part of public trust and confidence, we've got to earn with how we treat the litigants and that we've got to learn what's working, what's not working. The idea of us sitting up on a bench and dispensing justice all day isn't just going to get it done. You've got to get out in your communities. You've got to convene different endeavors.

00;07;22;04 - 00;07;43;24
Justice Rush
Here's an example of something we did coming out of Covid. What should be the role of remote court? Did people feel like they were getting justice, having their remote court so we worked with Indiana University private researchers, and we have them do an extensive study and the same kind of study, and the National Center does. And looking at public trust and I went in there thinking, people want to come to court.

00;07;43;25 - 00;08;04;03
Justice Rush
They know they didn't. It was like loudly and resounding. It was a pretty wide study. They didn't want to get childcare, get transportation. Miss work. So we've got to lean into other things and we've got to look and pull some data on what's working for them. You think about walking in a courthouse, you know, how do you navigate that?

00;08;04;05 - 00;08;23;06
Justice Rush
So I think working with the different just I call them justice partners on what's working. You're talking to your public partners, talking to prosecutors, talking to your civil legal aid, and changing and morphing the court system to make it. I say more customer friendly. Their customers. So you got to treat you like that when they come in.

00;08;23;06 - 00;08;42;02
Justice Rush
How do you make it more accessible? How do you have an online portal that people can answer? We've got kiosks that are in libraries and we're putting them in things like Dollar General's and rural communities. So you can have simple answers and going through because these need to come before us. That's their biggest thing. The hold up to them.

00;08;42;07 - 00;09;06;25
Justice Rush
Maybe having a quality of life is dependent on how they can access. And when you look at the number of people living in poverty that an unmet civil legal aid needs, we can't just sit back and say, hey, come find us. We've got to really out, you know, make sure that we're morphing and changing and evolving. And the changes we've had in the judiciary in the last four years have been more than I've seen in the last 40, that I've been a lawyer and a judge.

00;09;06;25 - 00;09;26;16
Justice Rush
So it's it's an exciting time, you know, listening to the different groups, people that feel like there's a two tiered system of justice. Why? Okay. That's not okay, that you think justice is for this group. Then you've got to start doing the real work to say, why is it and what needs to be changed? And it's those listening tours.

00;09;26;19 - 00;09;36;21
Justice Rush
It's our judges getting out in the communities and really finding out what is the best way to dispense, justice, because it's that's a big word.

00;09;36;24 - 00;10;00;03
Judge McBrayer
Justice chief Justice Chief Justice Rush's comment reminded me of something you said that West Virginia was trying out with their new intermediate Court of Appeals, where they were having remote proceedings for parties to participate to get past the issues about loft connectivity and that sort of thing. Could you talk a little bit about what you're doing in West Virginia?

00;10;00;05 - 00;10;20;24
Justice Walker
Sure. That's great. So until just last year, West Virginia's court system was just two levels trial. And then the Supreme Court and our legislature created an enemy court for the first time. So that is something new. We were one of only about 10 or 11 states that didn't have an intermediate court. And this was being created in the midst of the pandemic.

00;10;20;24 - 00;10;45;12
Justice Walker
And people were starting to think differently. And so we had already experimented so much with remote proceedings. We thought, well, like many rural states, we have a lot of counties where there's no internet. And as you say, or very little internet or very poor internet. And we learned, even as we had remote proceedings, that some lawyers could not get to or even lawyers could not get to a place where there was stable enough internet to do an oral argument.

00;10;45;14 - 00;11;13;06
Justice Walker
So we thought when we were creating the intermediate court, we would set up remote locations that were wired, you know, locations didn't have to rely on zoom. That zoom is great, but that we're actually wired in and we picked them in five different locations around the state. So no litigant would have to travel more than an hour and a half or so in order to appear before the Intermediate Court of Appeals and their, committed rooms in courthouses around our state.

00;11;13;06 - 00;11;42;17
Justice Walker
They aren't like a conference room that is is used for someone's birthday party sometimes, or sometimes for the intermediate court. It's always the really a court of appeals. And we have been thrilled with the reception. And one of the when the intermediate court was created, one of its jurisdictional areas is domestic cases. And we know that many domestic litigants are self represented and wouldn't have to necessarily travel to Charleston, West Virginia, from five hours away in order to argue their case.

00;11;42;17 - 00;11;57;00
Justice Walker
So that that really led to us being creative. It was one of the silver linings of the pandemic that we, we probably would never thought of doing that had it not been for the remote proceedings that we'd already done. And it's been very well received.

00;11;57;03 - 00;12;10;01
Judge McBrayer
And it sounds like an accent. Tennessee is a skinny state, but it's a long state. And so it's a long way from Bristol or Johnson City to Memphis. That sounds like a brilliant way of approaching that. Can I oh, yeah.

00;12;10;01 - 00;12;32;01
Judge Rigsby
Things that my my dear colleagues and friends. That's a one of the great things of organizations like our conference is you get to meet your colleagues who do the same thing you do in different states and different parts of the country. You know, the District of Columbia is a very small geographic area, and it's an all urban jurisdiction.

00;12;32;04 - 00;12;54;26
Judge Rigsby
And despite, you know, it being less than, 11, 12 miles from one end of the District of Columbia to the other, it's like crossing a divide. In terms of poverty levels. We have, on the one hand, the third largest bar in the country, meaning the third largest number of attorneys licensed to practice in the District of Columbia.

00;12;54;29 - 00;13;16;28
Judge Rigsby
Yet we have, one of the highest rates of poverty in certain parts of the District of Columbia. So you would think, oh, what is it to get from, you know, 11 miles away if you're talking about a state like Tennessee, but it takes sometimes several busses, metro transportation, plus childcare, plus parking, plus time away from your job.

00;13;17;00 - 00;13;46;25
Judge Rigsby
And one of the things that we've done is created pop up courtrooms in different parts of the district and all of the quadrants of the city in public buildings. And this is really important for reliable Wi-Fi. And again, we're talking about an urban jurisdiction that you think has all of these amenities. And it doesn't for everyone, but it also provides a safe location if you're a victim of domestic violence, even if you have Wi-Fi in your home, you can't have that hearing there.

00;13;46;27 - 00;14;11;28
Judge Rigsby
But if you go to one of these locations, it's safe. There's security, there's reliable Wi-Fi. So, you know, we've done we did an eviction diversion task force and program during Covid. Many people were at risk of being evicted with nowhere to go at the worst part of the Covid pandemic. And so, like many places, we put a halt temporarily on evictions.

00;14;11;28 - 00;14;35;01
Judge Rigsby
Now we're looking at creative ways to work out some payment plans where the landlords can get something. The tenants can keep their home because it's not like they lose this home and they just move another to another home in the District of Columbia. For those living in poverty, it's about 25% of the population. It's really shocking to some people, if you lose your home, this apartment, then you're homeless.

00;14;35;09 - 00;15;03;05
Judge Rigsby
And we also have an unfortunately high rate of homelessness in the District of Columbia. So when something doesn't happen in your case and justice is not accessible to you and you're on the margins, living on the margins either because of the language problems, unemployment, lack of housing, poverty. And in one of the cases that we see can set your life in a spiral and we can no longer afford as judges and courts to have this siloed mentality.

00;15;03;05 - 00;15;24;14
Judge Rigsby
I have this one case. I'm just going to sit back like a referee, and we have to see the take a more holistic approach while still following the law and the facts, but with a better understanding of who are the people and the businesses and the parties that come before us. And that's been a sea change, especially as Chief Justice Rush said in the last four years.

00;15;24;14 - 00;15;45;20
Judge Rigsby
And Chief Justice Walker said this is a time of exciting innovation because, let's face it, I think the courts have not always been known to be change agents in society. In fact, you know, we are guided by precedent, what already happened. So we've realized that we've got to roll up our sleeves and work to earn the trust of the people that we serve.

00;15;45;23 - 00;16;10;18
Judge McBrayer
That brings me to my next question. Then you each are leaders of your judiciary and your respective jurisdictions. And, you talked about innovation and change, a lot of it wrought by the pandemic. But the judiciary is slow to change. Also, some of that is good. I mean, some of that, it keeps us from moving off precipitously into some direction where we shouldn't be moving off into.

00;16;10;20 - 00;16;25;27
Judge McBrayer
But I know even during the pandemic, as we were going to virtual proceedings, that there were resistance. You know, we can't do it this way. How do you address the resistance that comes from this sort of change? I mean, how do you tackle that?

00;16;25;29 - 00;16;46;02
Justice Rush
Well, it's always there. I mean, it's when you look at, you know, we're now paperless in Indiana. We have 83 million page views. You can go on 24 two. Our courts are open 24 hours a day, seven days a week on that. People say, I need my paper. I can't possibly read. I remember a former chief justice tonight, so we've gone paperless as a court.

00;16;46;04 - 00;17;07;09
Justice Rush
It was just mountains of paper. And he goes, I can't possibly do it now. He loves it. I said, so you're exhibit A, but I think how you do change is you bring a lot of people and instead of the courts just sending edicts on high, you talk to legal service providers, you talk to people like medical legal partnerships, where we are embedding lawyers in medical facilities.

00;17;07;09 - 00;17;31;00
Justice Rush
And it kind of goes back to public trust and confidence, because these are the type of innovations that cause us to better deliver the services to the people that need them. In court, we send millions of text message reminders. Our default rates are way down. Now. If you get defaulted, you go to jail. So the changes in getting our judges to change to, well, I don't really want to get involved in these messy substance use disorder mental health.

00;17;31;00 - 00;17;54;19
Justice Rush
Well, the primary referral source other than self to get people to treatment right now. Do you know what it is as courts? It's the criminal justice system. So we need to understand what is effective evidence based substance use disorder treatment. How do you treat a mother while she's trying to go through treatment can keep her child and the child welfare cases with the opioid epidemic guardianships with that have exploded.

00;17;54;19 - 00;18;20;14
Justice Rush
How do you do with our aging populations? We're seeing more and more elder abuse coming to our courts. So, you know, what do you do? I have cases or court appointed special advocates for children. I have visas, which are court appointed special advocates for endangered adults. So you sort of look at the trends and you see when they're coming in, 70% of people in our jails right now have a mental health substance abuse occurring disorder, or they become the de facto mental health treatment.

00;18;20;14 - 00;18;38;01
Justice Rush
So as judges, we say we have a couple of superpowers and one is convening. And when you call people a meeting, they tend to show up. So what do we deal with? The mental health, you know, how do you work with your sheriffs that are dealing with some severe or serious in. And a lot of people are just sitting in jails, are waiting for maybe a competency evaluation.

00;18;38;04 - 00;18;58;23
Justice Rush
And those are the keys are the touch on the people. So if we look at how we treat people and so many millions of people come into court a year in the state courts, how important that procedural fairness is, have that interpreter there even signing how you go into a courthouse. You've been in courthouses, right? Even as attorney, going in the courthouse and even know where to go.

00;18;58;23 - 00;19;21;27
Justice Rush
But can you imagine somebody with a court case? So I think change is hard. But we have like my whole judiciary has changed over, I don't know, House in Tennessee, probably a third of my judges have been judges less than 3 or 4 years. So I feel like we have this new blood of people that want to have problem solving courts, people that say, I just can't see on a day and see the carnage that comes before me without saying, what can I do to be part of the solution?

00;19;21;27 - 00;19;30;09
Justice Rush
How can you reach back up to something called a sequential intercept model? Where do these problems hit in your community, and what levers can we as judges pull to make it better?

00;19;30;10 - 00;19;37;04
Judge McBrayer
It's amazing how young judges have seemed to become lately. They seem to get younger and younger every year, and it.

00;19;37;04 - 00;19;38;21
Judge Rigsby
Doesn't have anything to do with us.

00;19;38;24 - 00;19;45;03
Judge McBrayer
No, no. Strangely, Justice Walker, how do you overcome resistance to change?

00;19;45;03 - 00;20;06;29
Justice Walker
Well, I think playing off of justice Rush is really good at explaining how state courts, how our trial courts in West Virginia and probably every state and the district are really the emergency rooms of society. You know, we spend, for example, in West Virginia, our Supreme Court, you know, the highest court in the land, 40% of our caseload is child and abuse and neglect cases.

00;20;06;29 - 00;20;27;06
Justice Walker
We have a huge crisis. Still coming out, the opioid epidemic. Right. And so in coming back around your question, our judges are facing terrible domestic situations day in, day out. They come across as child abuse, neglect cases, criminal cases, all of it. And they want they want to help the folks that come before them. They want to treat them fairly and impartially.

00;20;27;06 - 00;20;58;09
Justice Walker
According to the rule of law, of course. But, you know, day in, day out, they see this just human misery sometimes. And I have found that when they see it as an opportunity to be problem solvers, as Loretta was saying, you know, I'm coming up with solutions, maybe helping as opposed to just adjudicating of course, adjudicating is always the primary job, but if you can cast things as an opportunity or a way to make life better for everyone in their community, I find all judges want that result.

00;20;58;10 - 00;21;14;19
Justice Walker
All judges want the public to have confidence in what they're doing, and for them to be able to go home at the end of the day as a judge and be content that they've done something to help their local, the folks in their community in the way that public servants are. I mean, that's why, you know, you and others.

00;21;14;22 - 00;21;39;22
Justice Walker
That's why we're judges, because we're elected to serve the public. You know, we we heard about the Tennessee Justice Bus this morning. In another conversation, we're again innovating. But, you know, you were taking remote assistance for folks who need legal assistance all across your long, thin state of Tennessee, all three grand divisions. And that's, I'm sure, maybe people wondered, but now everyone probably think wants to say that it was their idea to do as.

00;21;39;26 - 00;21;56;11
Justice Rush
Our Constitution has a clause in. It says justice should be based on principles of reformation and not vindication and being vindictive. So it mean part of order. We order services all the time, right? So part of this helping people as part of our constitutional responsibility reformative justice.

00;21;56;11 - 00;22;05;03
Judge Rigsby
And one of the things I think we're we're learning many of these innovations we've talked about and thought about, and we've done a. Lot.

00;22;05;05 - 00;22;28;08
Judge Rigsby
Even prior to the pandemic. The pandemic was it was sort of a crisis that served as an accelerant to many things. I remember talking about remote hearings before the pandemic and thinking to myself, how could you do a remote hearing that's not in court? And now it's a part of who we are. We live stream our core of appeals, arguments and people's appeals, and we're streamed on YouTube.

00;22;28;08 - 00;22;51;12
Judge Rigsby
And if you'd ever told me I'd be a YouTube phenomenon, my son thinks that's hilarious. But people actually watch and they can see. And we're we're actually reaching more people and making our process and our courts open and more transparent. And I think one of the things we struggle with, with the innovations and I think you touched on it, we don't want to be the court that shifts with the sand and with the storm.

00;22;51;12 - 00;23;30;10
Judge Rigsby
Any new gimmick where we're going to try. And so people are uncertain, but we need to balance the stability of the law and the constancy of the law and the notion that the law is fair to all. Just like the words above, the United States Supreme Court, equal justice for all our courts motto is open to all, justice for all, and fairness for all, and we have to balance the stability and constancy of the law with the ability to be innovative and to adapt to serve the needs of the community to other examples of innovations that we never thought we'd be doing is we have ads on our metro busses about the eviction diversion court,

00;23;30;10 - 00;23;40;11
Judge Rigsby
where if you're a landlord or you're a tenant and you need help and you know, we have a lot of metro busses, we're in urban area. We never thought the courts would be on the side of a bus with with the positive message. Anyway, is.

00;23;40;11 - 00;23;42;28
Justice Walker
There a picture of you? I know.

00;23;43;00 - 00;24;06;05
Judge Rigsby
That one. I don't think it's coming any time. We also have a child care center in the courthouse for, witnesses in cases, jurors who have jury duty parties, who lawyers who had an emergency proceeding and couldn't make arrangement services like that, I think connect with people in a way that shows we're listening. Because one of the big issues was, how do you expect me know what I'm going to do for my kids?

00;24;06;05 - 00;24;24;24
Judge Rigsby
And, you know, let me take off work and find childcare. That's an economic burden on me. So we are trying to make sure that we provide that steady force of the law is equal to all. It is fair, and there's not two tiers of law. And we did our survey on the state of the state courts. We did a follow up this year.

00;24;24;24 - 00;24;32;07
Judge Rigsby
That was a new twist in the survey is data with a professional polling company with great accuracy. We want to hear more.

00;24;32;07 - 00;24;51;19
Judge Rigsby
So we did focus groups. And now you talk about an eye opening experience because I know I had the opportunity to sit behind the table to a glass, to watch a conversation of ordinary citizens from different backgrounds, talk about the courts and, you know, made me feel like we have a lot of work to do to engage with the community.

00;24;51;19 - 00;25;01;28
Judge Rigsby
And so that we're at that table talking to them, and they are talking directly to us about what they need to help them understand and to get the services that they need from the courts.

00;25;02;04 - 00;25;25;08
Judge McBrayer
We, started the discussion talking about the National Center for State Courts, state of the state poll. And let's get back to that a little bit. It wasn't all good news. There was a 2 to 1 finding that people find the courts politicized and the number was pushed. It seems a lot by young people and females. So what do we do about that?

00;25;25;16 - 00;25;46;24
Judge Rigsby
People feel felt like if you were rich and had a lawyer that you got better justice. And then, there was also a racial component. African-Americans, people of color, felt that if you were a person of color, that you didn't get the same justice. So there were those two themes that were cross-cutting. And it was very concerning because we we want to make sure that everybody feels they get the same justice.

00;25;47;01 - 00;26;07;10
Justice Walker
And I think, you know, one of the important things is starting out is to listen to that information. I mean, you know, it's easy, as we all know, sometimes just to be the judge and sit back and not be engaged in the community. Not well, I don't want to. And it's all well-intended because as judges, we want to shield ourselves from something that might create bias in our minds in a case.

00;26;07;10 - 00;26;35;00
Justice Walker
So we don't we're not sometimes out in the community or in or around our states, but I think we've learned that we have to be, because I think we need to be talking more about what we do in the courts and how we can help folks who need help with the courts, whether it's the kind of eviction programs or whether it's the kiosks at Dollar General, which is amazing work in Indiana and all kinds of other really interesting innovations, we can't just sit in our chambers anymore and let folks have a perception of what we're doing.

00;26;35;00 - 00;26;52;21
Justice Walker
We need to. I think my view only one of five is you learn on an appellate court, you know, in your opinion is just one and one vote. We need to be out there creating more information about what we're doing, not just civics education. Civics education is vitally important from folks need to understand where we learn in these focus groups.

00;26;52;21 - 00;27;13;15
Justice Walker
It is humbling when folks really don't know the difference between state and federal courts. They don't distinguish between what the three of us do in our state's highest courts with the work of this Supreme Court of the United States. So we're just we we have to build on that service education by letting folks know what we are doing and how we're doing it and how we can help them.

00;27;13;17 - 00;27;39;03
Judge McBrayer
And it's and it sounds like we need to go beyond sort of the traditional avenues of communicating, because people are not getting their news the same way that they always did. There is definitely a and the polling shows that the older you are, the more likely you are. You watch the traditional sources that I think of as local news or newspaper, but if you're younger, it may all be online.

00;27;39;03 - 00;27;59;04
Judge McBrayer
Right? And so we need to be looking at other methods of communication. But also I hear you've all mentioned the word community. We need to be reaching out to different communities right, than what we currently do. It's not just a trip to the rotary anymore or the Elks Lodge. It needs to be other groups as well.

00;27;59;08 - 00;28;32;25
Judge Rigsby
One positive that we heard consistently was jury service. People who served on a jury actually had more favorable comments based on the focus groups, and they were surprised to learn how things worked in the actual courtroom. And if you think about the number of people that we call for jury service every day in criminal and other civil and family cases, there's an opportunity there while they are at the court waiting for their trial or waiting for their case to be called to engage with the jurors.

00;28;32;25 - 00;29;04;22
Judge Rigsby
And maybe we could do more there. But Twitter, our court, has a Twitter feed. I don't know exactly how to use it because we have Facebook and we have, intranet and an internet. So we're trying different things, but we've got to get creative. I have, Instagram. I only have one follower. That's my son. So I don't know that my Instagram account would influence anything, but we do have community leaders that have a lot of followers, and if we can tap those resources, that would be a great way to expand how we communicate.

00;29;04;24 - 00;29;11;24
Judge McBrayer
What communities would you say are most underserved in terms of getting the word out there? Civics education. Now, currently.

00;29;12;01 - 00;29;37;22
Justice Walker
I mean, I think it's driven largely just by low education levels and folks who naturally don't learn as much about what's going on in in the state of West Virginia, for example, the rural counties, the, you know, impoverished counties, folks whose biggest problem, frankly, is waking up and figuring out where they're going to find their drugs, or there's there, you know, I mean, they're just not thinking similarly to those of us who are sitting on benches in robes.

00;29;37;22 - 00;30;00;15
Justice Walker
And so we have to go, I think, as chief Justice Russell was saying, we have to learn to communicate in those different communities and at those different levels, meeting them where they are, not where we think they ought to be. Again, civics education vitally important. Students should understand how all three branches of government operate. But there's got to be more customer service orientation.

00;30;00;15 - 00;30;18;17
Justice Walker
And that's not a phrase we use in the courts very much, you know, and it makes folks nervous that, well, we're not they're not our customers. They're the litigants, but we are serving them and we're charged by our constitutions to serve them. And so we need to figure it out. I know, Loretta, you want to expand on that because you're really engaged on this topic.

00;30;18;19 - 00;30;38;19
Justice Rush
Well, I think that a lot of the people that use the court have a better understanding the courts. And that's actually the survey show that the the people didn't use it for a lot of people that weren't there frequent. So it might be people that find themselves in court have a better understanding. But I think that when you look at all the millions of people in everybody's state that go into the court system, you start there.

00;30;38;19 - 00;31;01;06
Justice Rush
That's 101, how you treat them. When somebody speaks a different language, you have an interpreter for them. You make the courthouses user friendly. If you can have some type of kiosk or informational information when you walk in the door, and then the procedural fairness of that comes from the hearing. Because one of the things that we found out, people care as much about how they're treated, then how their end result is going to be.

00;31;01;08 - 00;31;25;11
Justice Rush
And you can break down a lot of barriers by treating people fairly. So everybody knows somebody that's gone to court. Right. So people have distrust in the court system. Heard so-and-so got screwed over by that. The justice who the judge knew for that. But you know, one person out of the millions, I mean, we have 30,000 trial court judges in the United States, and each of them and their staff are that front.

00;31;25;12 - 00;31;44;12
Justice Rush
They're the front lines with regard to people you're going to trust, you're going to walk in your room thinking it's all stacked against me. So I think we start there with our judges and then with their treatment and and making sure everybody gets heard before they leave that door. And then you start working within your greater community. You've got to go know your kind of council and commission members, right.

00;31;44;14 - 00;32;02;00
Justice Rush
You ought to know who your local leaders are. You got to work with your legislative branch because a lot of these changes have to come about legislatively. So how do you start building those relationships to go from there? We're all seeking pockets of money right now to pay for things like family recovery courts. So you've got to you've got to be able to get out.

00;32;02;00 - 00;32;25;15
Justice Rush
And I always tell my judges, you got to get out from behind your bench and have your, you know, are you involved with food pantries? Are you you know, you're homeless. Homeless shelters are if you're going to be ordering services for underserved and vulnerable populations, you've got to know what's out there in your community. So I think the trust comes I think the best way we can do it is one case, one person before us at a time.

00;32;25;18 - 00;32;42;19
Justice Rush
And to meet better, meet their needs is then they're going to tell three other people. I had an unbelievable experience, but we're always going to people aren't going to like courts because half of everybody we just saw, we saw disputes and half the people were going out the door are not going to be happy. Just treat them well. Was treated well one year in there.

00;32;42;21 - 00;33;10;09
Judge McBrayer
I was recently at recovery court luncheon fundraiser and I found myself during the course, thinking I wish more people could come to their knees. I mean, I know it was a fundraiser because they're always looking for funds to run the recovery court, but people needed to know. I felt like it wasn't just about dispensing justice, it was getting people to services and the good work that those Problem-Solving courts were doing in Tennessee.

00;33;10;09 - 00;33;27;26
Judge McBrayer
And it's like, man, this is really flying under the radar. The participants in the recovery courts were standing up and talking about their experience, and what they were doing now. And I'm thinking, wow, that message really does not fly very far beyond this hotel ballroom.

00;33;28;00 - 00;33;46;19
Justice Rush
I think the judges like we have a lot. We have 151 problem solving courts in Indiana, and they're growing fast. Big, big push on veterans courts as well. So we encourage our judges to invite their community members, bring them into the court. And it's been a very powerful way. Things like adoption day, we like cameras in the courtroom come in and take pictures of that.

00;33;46;21 - 00;34;06;19
Justice Rush
We were just talking to the Michigan chief justice, and she was talking about today, Reunification Day, really to open up the courts. And they actually open up the Michigan Supreme Court room to these days where 100 people per family would come in for they finally met that met the finish line, and they were able to get their child safely reunited with them.

00;34;06;22 - 00;34;20;27
Justice Rush
When I changed the rule that cameras could come in the court and people are like, no, it's like, yes, you know, because I think that's one way of doing it now. I think the press doesn't always they get a little bored because it's some of it's like paint drying. And not every case is just a big old bang up case.

00;34;20;27 - 00;34;36;02
Justice Rush
But I think the more transparent we are and the more we invite people to see like this baby courts in Tennessee, they've got a fantastic program in that that they see just the humanity they come before and the services. And I think that will help increase trust.

00;34;36;08 - 00;35;03;29
Judge Rigsby
Even on the criminal side. We've talked a lot about the really important problem solving courts, but on the criminal side, where you're dealing with violent crimes and you're trying a case and you have communities that aren't drug dealers, violent criminal offenders to be off the streets out of their neighborhood. And you also have victims of the crime. So how do you portray the thoughts and the considerations that go into the minds of the judge in sentencing?

00;35;04;01 - 00;35;22;27
Judge Rigsby
How do you communicate out that these are the things that I took into account when I sentenced this person, so that the public sees and this goes to the chief justice, Russia's transparency part, that everybody's not always going to be happy with, you know, sometimes they think the judge was too lenient. Sometimes they think the judge was too strict.

00;35;22;27 - 00;35;51;18
Judge Rigsby
But if you explain these are the things I had to consider. This is why I made that decision. Even on the criminal justice side, where it's hard to to have the sort of warm, fuzzy feeling all the time because often it's been a violent offense and a violent offender. We still have to treat that criminal defendant, their family, and especially the victim of the crimes family with dignity and respect and show that we were thoughtful.

00;35;51;18 - 00;35;55;29
Judge Rigsby
We're human and we care about what happens. In this instance.

00;35;56;02 - 00;36;11;15
Judge McBrayer
I was always struck by the fact that there's a duty of candor for attorneys and the professional conduct. There's no duty of candor in the judicial conduct. But really, there is if you want to get respect for your decision maker, you got to show your work right.

00;36;11;19 - 00;37;04;09
Justice Walker
And, you know, to your point about your great experience at the luncheon and hearing the stories of folks, you know, we're judges again, sort of a default setting. We're very respectful of the confidentiality of the folks who come before us. And, you know, that's one of the things we need to guard. But what we have found in taking stories of our treatment courts and telling those stories in snippets on our our courts, Instagram and Facebook, those are the most popular posts we make folks want to hear hopeful stories, ways that that, you know, a lot of what we do is hard, but we do have these occasional bright moments, whether they be adoptions or reunifications or folks coming out of an into recovery and into employment and, you know, changing their lives, have great stories to tell and we need to tell them when we can.

00;37;04;13 - 00;37;25;12
Judge McBrayer
I wanted to spend a little more time going back to the survey again, and one of the topics that also was of interest to me was about access to justice and the concern about whether or not it's an equal justice. And Chief Judge Blackburn Rigsby, you talked about a little bit about that and about there being a gap there.

00;37;25;15 - 00;37;30;16
Judge McBrayer
How do we begin to start addressing that perception from the public?

00;37;30;16 - 00;37;52;25
Judge Rigsby
Well, a couple of things. There is when we talk about this justice gap, a lot of times we're talking about the civil side where, you know, in a criminal side, if you need an attorney, one will be appointed for you in a criminal case on the civil side, where you might be facing loss of your home, losing custody of your children, so many people need legal assistance and can't afford it.

00;37;52;29 - 00;38;11;26
Judge Rigsby
And so we're doing lots of different things in DC where the private bar does a lot of pro-bono or legal work that they don't charge for. To help, we have kiosks like Chief Justice, where I mentioned, we have the proximity of pop up courtrooms and places people can go for hearings where they don't have to travel so far.

00;38;12;03 - 00;38;31;21
Judge Rigsby
So we're doing a lot in that realm. On the part about the fairness and this tiered system of justice. That's where we've got to do more work, because first of all, it's hard for judges to hear the people that come before them don't think they're being fair, because that's what we're supposed to be, after all, fair and impartial.

00;38;31;23 - 00;38;56;29
Judge Rigsby
And we've done some work through the National Center for State Courts recently of examining our courts practices. Lots of state courts did this, most notably in the aftermath of the death of George Floyd, where Conference of Chief Justices unanimously. That means all 50 states, District of Columbia. The chiefs passed a resolution around more efforts to ensure racial fairness in our court proceedings.

00;38;57;03 - 00;39;19;28
Judge Rigsby
Now, does that mean that the proceedings weren't there intentionally? Of course not. But some things that we thought were well intentioned ended up having the opposite impact. And when you stop and you look. Now, wait a minute. We're setting all, family custody cases at 9 a.m. and mom's low income working parents, often people of color in the District of Columbia, it's a hardship for them to come.

00;39;19;29 - 00;39;45;07
Judge Rigsby
Same with landlord tenant court. Are they perceiving that it's unfair because of race or ethnicity language access? You know, if you don't understand what's being said and we have sign language interpreters and a more and more different language interpreters to make it process fair. So first it was acknowledging and then many of our judges have done what we used to call implicit bias training, that we all have some personal biases.

00;39;45;07 - 00;40;12;22
Judge Rigsby
Sometimes we're not even aware of them. And it's not necessarily because of race or income. It's just and it is, as my grandma used to say. But if we we train ourselves to be aware that we don't want to act on those instant gut react, we want to think about what the facts are. Are we being fair? Are we relying on an ill informed perception, that kind of training of judges, looking at the court practices and talking to the bar?

00;40;12;24 - 00;40;26;21
Judge Rigsby
As Chief Justice Rush said, convening public defenders and the legal aid lawyers, they want their clients to get better service, and so they want to work with the courts. So those are some examples of things. But there's more work to be done in that area.

00;40;26;23 - 00;40;51;01
Justice Walker
I think your point about calling on the bar for assistance is a really great one. We haven't talked about it. You mentioned, of course, the rules of professional conduct that apply to lawyers, but a lot of the perceptions about our court system are formed by the lawyers who are telling their clients what's going on, and we need them as partners of course, their primary responsibilities to their clients and to be zealous advocates.

00;40;51;03 - 00;41;15;24
Justice Walker
But what we learned, we said, down in West Virginia and did a survey of our lawyers and also our court staff this past year and putting together a strategic plan. And then we held focus groups with some of those legal lawyer advocate groups to learn a little bit more about how they perceive our court system. And we learned that our lawyers felt like some of the trial courts were much more political than we would have liked to hear them say.

00;41;15;26 - 00;41;28;03
Justice Walker
And so, you know, we need to work with the lawyers and figure out, appropriately observing all of the correct protocols and how we can work together to help improve public perception.

00;41;28;06 - 00;41;41;27
Judge McBrayer
Feedback needs to be a two way street. If we invite comments, you've got to respond and make some changes or say why changes are possible. That's that's for sure. And we're not going to get any more feedback if we don't do that. What about in Indiana? Access to justice?

00;41;41;28 - 00;41;58;02
Justice Rush
Yeah, that's it's never been worse. I mean, it's not like it's never been worse everywhere. So the middle class is not able to afford lawyers for a lot of their actions. So we have to seek, as chief justice part of our role. I, you know, I went every year to the legislature and ask for more money for civil legal aid.

00;41;58;02 - 00;42;21;10
Justice Rush
I finally was able to double the budget. I have advocated for legal services in federal money, but there's never enough. Like we have mandatory pro bono reporting. You don't have to do it, but I can least get a picture of how many hours. There's not enough hours to go through. So I think one of the things we've started a new committee, Committee on legal Education and Mission reform, do we licensed paralegals so they're able to help?

00;42;21;10 - 00;42;40;14
Justice Rush
Do we look at limited licenses? We've got to learn a different way to deliver legal help that may be not always tied to a JD to help this access. Can somebody be a paralegal and help you with child support and somebody help you with your housing needs? So we're not doing well. I mean, we have more and more unrepresented litigants coming to court.

00;42;40;14 - 00;43;02;04
Justice Rush
And it's really it's hard on the judges, too, when you've got both sides unrepresented. And are you really bringing all the issues through to get the best result that you're able to? So as a profession, I think we're doing it at the conference, chief justices were also doing in Indiana. We have our own parallel group looking at this, breaking down some of the barriers to getting people to represent.

00;43;02;04 - 00;43;16;23
Justice Rush
So I think you're going to see a lot of things in the next 5 to 10 years that would not be done. Delivery of legal services that were not how they were traditionally delivered. So we can accommodate a wider range of people with unmet civil legal aid.

00;43;16;23 - 00;43;42;21
Judge McBrayer
To just sort of tie that back into our topic. The concern, obviously, is, is that if people feel like there is a justice system for people that are going for lawyers and you need certain results, and one that doesn't function quite as well for those that can't afford lawyers, you're not going to have trust and confidence in that system. And it sounds like that is sort of a universal issue in all your courts.

00;43;42;26 - 00;43;55;06
Justice Rush
I mean, look at the default rate so you don't go to court, you don't trust a court, you get the summons in the mail. I went and sat and took my whole court on a day to go pick a day. Just show up. And the eviction court showed up. Innovation court 250 cases set that.

00;43;55;06 - 00;43;56;07
Judge McBrayer
Our Supreme Court.

00;43;56;08 - 00;44;18;26
Justice Rush
Judge well, I invited my invite. Whoever I had, I got the ones that wanted to come from. Okay. And so I had a group. I know not everybody likes to have field trips as much as I do, so we had a group and I sat through an eviction day, came on, announce 250 cases. Not one of those people had an attorney representing them and then a large percentage were just defaulted.

00;44;18;26 - 00;44;36;00
Justice Rush
They didn't show. So what do we need? Well, one we need we need mediators. We need to have people there. We also need navigators, people that can help, people that are going to be homeless. There's no trauma. It's harder on some family that's often on the streets with nowhere to go where. How do you link them to social services?

00;44;36;00 - 00;44;58;05
Justice Rush
So we've sort of work and we've gotten some grants, from the National Center with regard to having navigators be in that, because I was appalled that day. But I think is leadership within the judiciary. You got to get out. You got to go sit in those courtrooms and see. I was like that. I kept I wanted to say, weren't you have an ability you shouldn't have to pay, you know, remember all my law school landlord tenant stuff?

00;44;58;07 - 00;45;16;10
Justice Rush
Give me the case. And so anyway, it's it really was very informative for me with regard to putting my budget together by. And I pop in like when I travel the state I pop in. And judges sometimes do like it because they think I'm done or checking out of. I'm just watching, trying to not get so far removed from what the needs are.

00;45;16;10 - 00;45;28;09
Justice Rush
But it never would have dawned on me the 250 evictions in one morning, and not one of them represented by an attorney. It was appalling that that that this is the system that I'm responsible for as chief justice.

00;45;28;15 - 00;45;51;22
Judge Rigsby
We had a similar and like that in the District of Columbia. And when you add to that, like I said, we have the third largest number of attorneys of any state in the country in the District of Columbia, but we would have 95% of tenants in landlord tenant court facing eviction hearing without counsel. And so now we have we looked at ways to segment the case.

00;45;51;27 - 00;46;18;26
Judge Rigsby
So usually an attorney takes on the representation of a client. They represent that client for all of their landlord tenant case. We made it so you could have an attorney with a critical parts of the preceding the day you're in court and supposed to assert a defense. You talked to a lawyer who's there on the premises who could help you articulate it, and that lawyer they serve for that moment, and then they can move out of the case if they can't take on the whole representation.

00;46;18;28 - 00;46;39;00
Judge Rigsby
But it's better than having so many people show up who may have valid defenses and not be able to assert them. So the kiosks we have, we have just started a task force in the District of Columbia looking at alternatives. Can you have other types of professionals take pieces of different cases, probate, where you typically have lots of documents.

00;46;39;00 - 00;46;55;01
Judge Rigsby
People come in with grandma's will and all these old papers, and if they just had a talented paralegal or a trained professional who could help them organize their papers and understand what they mean, that would be a tremendous help. Right now, you can't do that, really, unless you have a legal license.

00;46;55;01 - 00;47;02;26
Judge McBrayer
Well, you know, you've got to have bar associations on board with this because they they go out to see the chiefs here.

00;47;02;28 - 00;47;18;27
Justice Walker
No I would say our bar association. And the District of Columbia is very supportive of this, which is surprising. And they they really partnered with the court and wanted to push us to do this kind of task force to look at some changes we can make. So we're we're excited. We'll see what happens.

00;47;18;29 - 00;47;36;11
Justice Walker
The one thing that occurred to me, and I was jealous there for a minute, Anna, because you were talking about all these lawyers in the district. And one issue that we've been talking about, it's at the conference of Chief justices. And a lot of states are those of us again, rural counties, places in states where, you know, in West Virginia.

00;47;36;11 - 00;48;02;09
Justice Walker
And there's there's a few counties where there are four lawyers. One is the judge and one is the prosecutor. And, you know, you have the other two to do the rest of the work. So we take pride in our ability to regulate the practice of law and make sure that the lawyers who are representing people are doing it ethically and appropriately and competently, but there's got to be something else, because we just can't serve everybody.

00;48;02;11 - 00;48;16;16
Justice Walker
If we're going to continue to have counties in some states where there are no laws at all. And how do those people, how can you provide services to those people or get those people access to justice to come back around your question, when there's no no one to advise them?

00;48;16;23 - 00;48;35;14
Judge Rigsby
Yeah. Our challenge was trying to get the bar because we have a lot of the lawyers have a national practice or international practice trying to show them that right in their own local courts. There's such a huge need. And we've had, there's a strong pro bono culture and desire for lawyers to do pro bono hours, but sometimes even that it's not enough.

00;48;35;20 - 00;49;01;26
Judge McBrayer
So our time is is is running out here. But before I let you go is very you don't get an intermediate appellate judge that has like chiefs right in front of him here. So let me ask you this question. If we gathered again a year from now and we're looking at this National Center for Sates Court survey, which your prediction are we going to see an upward trend in public trust and confidence in the courts.

00;49;01;26 - 00;49;06;04
Judge McBrayer
Is it going to be the same or is it going to have a decline?

00;49;06;07 - 00;49;13;12
Justice Rush
This is an interesting year for anyone that works in government. I'd be happy to hold it. Hold steady this next year.

00;49;13;14 - 00;49;34;26
Judge Rigsby
I think it's going to be slow, incremental climb because as as you've heard us all say that there's still the work to be done on the ground. It didn't plummet overnight, although we did see dips in the last few years, so it's going to take some work to get it back to where we'd like to see it. But I think all the things you've heard us talk about are certainly helping.

00;49;34;28 - 00;49;56;25
Judge Rigsby
I think they're helping and we just got to continue. Can't give up because, you know, justice, I think, is the cornerstone of our democracy. And people feeling that they are listened to and heard is what makes our courts a place where you can peacefully resolve disputes and at court system. You know, we've seen different courts around the world.

00;49;56;28 - 00;50;07;21
Judge Rigsby
Our court systems are not perfect, but they're the best that I've seen and we just have to keep working hard to keep them where they need to be, to do the best work to serve the communities.

00;50;07;21 - 00;50;32;20
Justice Walker
And, going back to your comment about being slow to change in the judiciary, I don't think this is something we can change quickly. So I'm with Loretta that I'd be happy with stability. But if you asked me in five years, where will that survey be? I'm really optimistic, in part because of the amazing leadership of Chief Judge Blackburn Rigsby of Chief Justice, rush and others in the Conference of Chief Justices.

00;50;32;25 - 00;50;58;06
Justice Walker
And they've made it their mission to really try to figure this out. And you've heard it in their answers today. They're passionate. They care. They're not the only ones. These are just three states and the, you know, of all who are here and talking in sessions during breaks on how to solve this problem. So five years from now, I'm going to, I'm going to say things are going to look much better.

00;50;58;08 - 00;51;14;05
Judge McBrayer
Well, Chief Justice Rush, Chief Justice Walker, Chief Judge Blackburn-Rigsby, thank you so much for your time. You know, I know you're all very busy and lots of things going on at the conference here in Nashville. And it's been a pleasure.

00;51;14;08 - 00;51;14;28
Justice Rush
Thank you, thank you.

00;51;14;28 - 00;51;16;14
Justice Walker
Thank you so much. Great job.