Long-term plan set out for courts

Chief Justice Kemp unveils strategy

Fulfilling a promise he made shortly after taking over the state’s highest court in 2017, Chief Justice Dan Kemp last week unveiled a yearslong plan for the judiciary that places an emphasis on online access, courtroom security and judicial independence from other branches of government.

The strategic plan, titled “Delivering Justice: A Vision for 2025,” is the first longterm strategy for the state’s courts, Kemp said. All but 11 states have adopted strategic plans, he added.

The seven justices of the Arkansas Supreme Court formally approved the plan last week, after being provided with a draft developed by a 24-member planning committee of judges, court staff members and attorneys who had worked on the proposal over the past year, the Administrative Office of the Courts said in a news release.

Among its provisions, the report released by the committee calls for:

■ More resources to provide attorneys for indigent clients. ■ A statewide network of libraries and public computer

terminals offering legal resources.

■ Better ethics training.

■ A reduced reliance on court fees and costs to meet budgets.

A 2015 report by the U.S. Department of Justice into civil unrest in Ferguson, Mo., after the shooting death of Michael Brown, a black man, by a white police officer found that the city’s focus on police and court revenue “exacerbate existing racial bias” and had harmed the community.

Kemp said the Arkansas Supreme Court does not have specific standards for how lower courts should structure their use of fines and fees. He called the Justice Department’s findings “a kind of philosophical request.”

Addressing the courts’ use of technology and the Internet, the report calls on every county to adopt its own plans incorporating “minimum technology standards” with regard to hardware, software and Internet capacity.

The strategic plan falls

short, however, of requiring every county to adopt electronic filing and use of the judiciary’s Web portal, CourtConnect. Many of the state’s 75 counties participate in the system in some way. Anyone with access to a computer can use the portal to look up court cases, both criminal and civil.

Kemp has pursued an expansion of the judiciary’s electronic filing system into a statewide service for the past two years. As a candidate in 2016, he told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette “that’s the goal.” Last week, he said that was still the case.

“The goal is to have e-filing across the state by 2025,” Kemp said. “We’re not to the point where the [Administrative Office of Courts] can handle this” using its current software, ACS Contexte Case Management System.

Kemp said no cost had been attributed to technology updates or any portion of the strategic plan.

Kemp also declined to comment on the prospect of Issue 1 affecting the strategic plan’s stated goal of keeping the judiciary free from “improper influence from other branches of government.”

Issue 1 is a proposed constitutional amendment that would, among other things, give the Legislature control over court rules.

At a meeting of the Arkansas Bar Association earlier this year, Kemp stated his opposition to the proposal, which was placed on the Nov. 6 ballot by the Legislature.

A lawsuit pending before the Supreme Court threatens to stop a public vote from being held on Issue 1. Though he has recused from the case, Kemp cited that as his reason not to comment on the matter.

However, former Arkansas Bar Association President Tony Hilliard, a member of the planning committee, said passage of Issue 1 would disrupt the rollout of the judiciary’s strategic plan.

“It makes it very important then that we strive to make the Legislature understand the importance of an independent judiciary,” Hilliard said.

Implementing other aspects of the plan — including adopting national standards for courtroom security — also may require more funding from the Legislature, Kemp said. His hope, he said, was that the plan would serve as a reference point when advocating for more resources and policy initiatives.

“Hopefully it gives us some direction on how to get there. Hopefully it doesn’t sit on the shelf and draw dust,” Kemp said. “There’s lots of things we need to work on.”