November 2005 “Tips from the Bench”

By Judge John Wittmayer, Multnomah County Circuit Court.

Welcome to our new judges

Governor Kulongoski has appointed two new judges to replace two judges who have left our Court. Jerry B. Hodson, of the Miller Nash firm, was appointed to replace Judge Kimberly Frankel, who retired after 27 years of service as a judge. Eric J. Bergstrom, of the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office, was appointed to fill the vacancy resulting from the appointment of Judge Ellen Rosenblum to the Oregon Court of Appeals. Judge Rosenblum served 16 years as a trial judge.

While both Judges Frankel and Rosenblum will be missed, please join the judges of this court in welcoming new Judges Hodson and Bergstrom. Judge Hodson brings to the court 18 years of experience in civil litigation. Judge Bergstrom brings to the court 15 years experience as a criminal prosecutor.

There are 38 circuit court judge positions in Multnomah County. For the past 40 years or so, we have averaged two new judges a year. That trend is expected to continue into the future.

No jury trials on Fridays

Since the spring of 2003, in Multnomah County, we have not generally tried jury trials on Fridays. We do not set jury trials to begin on Fridays and we do not have groups of jurors available on Fridays. The judges try as much as possible to use Fridays to set for hearing those short matters that would otherwise interfere with jury trials Monday through Thursday.

Our policy leaves to the individual trial judge the discretion to continue a jury trial on a Friday. However, lawyers should understand that the “default position” is that your multi-day trial will not be in session on Fridays. The question is not “does Judge “X” try jury trials on Fridays?” The question is “can I convince Judge “X” to make an exception to the general rule in this case?”

You are free to ask your trial judge to be in session on a Friday if you have a special reason to do so, but your trial judge may have already filled the Friday with short matters that cannot easily be moved.

Case assignment in Multnomah County

Do you sometimes wonder why the presiding judge cannot assign very many cases out for trial each morning at daily call? There are 38 judges in Multnomah County, and it seems that more than a few should be available, right?

Here is the reality of what the presiding judge has to deal with in terms of judge availability: We average two judge vacancies a year in this county, and it takes about 180 days for the Governor to fill a vacancy by appointment. We are down one judge most of the time due to vacancies. Allowing for vacations, conferences, and CLEs only, on an annual basis we are down about six additional judges, on average. Three judges have full-time assignments that keep them from trial work: the presiding judge, the chief criminal judge and the settlement judge. Six judges handle misdemeanors and drug/property felonies full-time and eight judges are assigned to family court. Frequently, at least one judge is sitting in the Justice Center doing arraignments, etc. This leaves 13 judges. But they are not all available each day to start a new trial assigned from daily call, because they are continuing multi-day trials previously assigned, or have other matters set on their dockets. Criminal cases have constitutional and statutory priority, so even fewer judges are available each day to start civil cases.