Working Together: The Relationship between Towns and the Court System
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Talk given by Geof Huth, Chief Records Officer of the NYS Unified Court System, on 20 February 2018, and discussing how the court system works with the towns in the state to ensure the success of the state's town courts
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Working Together: The Relationship between Towns and the Court System
- 1. The Relationship Between Towns and the Court System Geof Huth, Chief Records Officer / Chief Law Librarian New York State Unified Court System Association of Towns, New York, NY 20 February 2018
- 17. Custody Disputes
Editor's Notes
- Throughout this talk, I’ll illustrate my points with early court records I want this to be a discussion, so please interrupt with ideas and stories I’ll talk about town courts But I’ll illustrate the points with records from the Mayor’s Court And other courts operating early on in that municipality Which is as close as I have to photos of early town court records For background, I’ve spent most of my career at the State Archives helping local governments Where towns were a major customer base So I’ve seen this relationship between towns and the court system between town clerks and court clerks and justices Over my entire career but primarily from the POV of the towns But I’ve been working for the Unified Court System for two and a half years So I also see this story now from that point of view This talk is an amalgamation of those viewpoints And a call for all of us (towns, town courts, and UCS) to work together for the benefit of citizens
- [Mayor’s Court Pleading, ca 1681, based on records near it] The first English laws of the province of New York were promulgated in 1665 They were based on laws already in use in other English colonies in British America These laws were called The Duke of York's Laws (or simply the Duke’s Laws) Promulgated by Richard Nicolls, the Governor of the province But agreed to during a meeting in Hempstead to which each town sent delegates These laws were created in the Town of Hempstead, on Long Island And inexact copies were made for the other ridings of the Island in what was then the shire of Yorkshire That original copy, the East Hampton copy, and a third copy in the New York State Library are all that exist Note that these laws were promulgated in towns and towns had their own copies Because towns were the basic unit of government They were where almost all government action occurred Note also that the copies of the laws were not exactly the same Even back then, there were local procedures in each town different from those of others These were only sometimes simply due to mistranscribing
- [Mayor’s Court Declaration in a Civil Case, 1680] The courts created in 1665 were part of the towns The justices were called justices of the peace (We still call them justices) Court clerks recorded the action of courts And town clerks had much the same work they have today They recorded births, marriages, and deaths New plots in the town were recorded with the town clerk And that’s about all there was Justices functioning as courts serving specific towns In effect, at that time, as local government officials But government was slender at that time because there were so few people Yet the courts and the towns still were both one and separate
- [Mayor’s Court Coroner’s Inquest for Murder of a Child] The early courts has a range of work, just as justice courts do today Civil work Criminal work But the responsibilities of lower courts Which continues to this day This document, however, is a coroner’s inquest, something you’ll be unlikely to manage The closest for a town court today Would be a criminal arraignment
- [Mayor's Court Attendance of Constables at Sittings, 1803] In 1665, the population of the colony of New York was only about 10,000 Today, about 19.75M people live in our state In 1665, the towns of New York included the old towns of Long Island Many towns hugging the outline of the Hudson River And not much else When the province was split into counties in 1683 Cornwall County (consisting of part of what is now Maine) And Dukes County (consisting of Martha’s Vineyard, Nantucket, and other nearby islands) Made up part of the colony And Albany County legally extended westward across the entire continent There were at least scores of towns in the colony But nothing like the 932 towns we have today And we have 904 town courts
- [Mayor's Court Precipe, Alexander Hamilton vs Thomas Wykes, ca 1800] The court system has changed radically over the years And sometimes year by year Old courts were abolished New courts created The work of existing courts changed This work has been fairly piecemeal since about the NYS Constitution of 1896 And it’s left us with a fairly complex court system With many types of courts And with many courts The justice courts (town and village courts) equal 1190 courts (78.5% of total) Town courts alone equal 904 courts (60% of total) There are 1515 courts of all types in total 28 towns share another town’s court
- [Mayor’s Court Bail Piece, 1799] For most of the history of New York Almost all courts were local government courts Hence county clerks have been clerks of supreme and county courts since 1847 And town clerks have been legally the final custodian of town courts A number of studies of the courts were carried out over the years Particularly in the 20th century And finally in 1977, the court system was unified Every court across the state became a state, not local entity But this occurred with an interesting twist (And this is where our story really begins) The Office of Court Administration was created to help manage these now unified courts Local governments still retained much responsibility for managing courts All the courts that were once local still had their facilities managed by localities While OCA paid for the operations in these courts from the Supreme Court down However, justice courts were different The towns and villages retained much of the management responsibilities OCA still provided support, but much less financial support To some degree, these courts still function as local courts
- [Receipt for payment of nails, 1749] Legally, every town court is a part of the Unified Court System The third branch of state government And thus a state entity But on the ground each court operates independently Though with assistance from the Office of Court Administration Exactly how this works is the point of our talk today
- [Mayor’s Court Writs of Venire Facias Juratores, 1800s] So what is the relationship between the court system and towns? The towns manage one of the most important courts in the state The only courts most citizens ever visit They handle a huge number of cases and move them through the system Sometimes up to higher courts Town courts handle a wide range of judicial matters Small claims Landlord-tenant and other civil cases Vehicle and traffic cases And they even conduct arraignments in criminal cases
- [Mayor’s Court Papers with Taping, ca early 1700s] Since their inception The courts of New York Colonial and state Lower and superior Have been part of a system Different courts at different levels have their own responsibilities We have division of work Lower courts begin cases that end in upper courts The smallest court in the smallest town Is part of the same system that ends with the Court of Appeals Is part of the same system that can move up to the U.S. Supreme Court
- [Mayor’s Court Minutes Roll, 1784] Much of the relationship between towns and the court system Comes in the form of the Office of Court Administration (OCA) OCA has the responsibility to help all trial courts Every court below the Appellate Division But we still provide some assistance to the highest courts as well Our job is to help courts be as efficient as possible In all sorts of ways So be sure to ask for help from us if you need it
- [Court of Oyer and Terminer Minutes, 1716] The office of OCA you are probably most familiar with is The Office of Justice Court Services Which provides a variety services to courts Training of all kinds Computer equipment Credit card machines Metal detectors They understand justice courts better than any of us There’s also the Justice Court Assistance Program Provides grants to help justice courts
- [Mayor’s Court Minutes, Dockets, and Rules, Showing Extreme Sunstaining, 1820] The Office of Records Management helps courts manage their records Provides advice on managing records Provides training Provides email, telephone, and onsite assistance We have to approve the disposition of all court records Which is interesting with town courts For records still with the courts, the court asks for permission For records held by the town clerk, the clerk does this
- [Mayor’s Court Clerk’s Report, 1798] The Office of Legal Information provides legal information Books of NYS law Access to the New York Law Journal If you are a town justice Our job to provide you with the legal information you need to do your work
- [Unreturnable fragment of a record] What will soon become one of the most important units of OCA For town courts Will be the Division of Technology OCA’s information technology unit This is the case, because OCA has finalized the purchase of SEi’s case management system for town court records
- [Mayor’s Court Pleading mentioning Barbados, undated, likely late 1600s] A sometimes contentious issue between towns and town courts is the custody of records To understand this, we have to return to 1665 Town clerks have always had a responsibility to manage their town’s records This didn’t change with the unification of the courts Instead, town clerks now have official custody of records once a justice departs Uniform Justice Court Act 2019-a The individual courts hold custody beforehand of active and inactive records And open cases remain with the court even after a justice leaves Uniform Justice Court Act 2019 In reality, custody is a concept Custody may be intellectual or physical or both The town clerk retains control for inactive records of former justices But the town clerk will likely need help from court clerks to manage these records
- [Mayor’s Court Pleading, Detail, 3rd Year of the Reign of the Monarch] But this apparently simple system of custody doesn’t always work in practice Sometimes a court clerk doesn’t want to give records to the town clerk Even though the town justice is retired and the cases closed Rather that making this a standoff The parties should determine how to manage custody together By law, these records are the town clerk’s responsibility, And the town clerk should provide access to these to anyone On the other hand, sometimes, the town clerk doesn’t want to give court clerks records they need For instance, to provide someone with a certificate of disposition Showing how a case was disposed of by the court We should remember that records of the town clerk Should legally be managed by the town clerk how she sees fit As long as the town clerk provides the access required by law Providing access to records is one of our central responsibilities as government officials Note that this is never a problem in the rare case where the town clerk is also the court clerk
- [Mayor’s Court Papers, ca. early 1700s] These rules become more complicated in certain situations In the case of a judge presiding in multiple towns Judge must keep separate records for each individual court Uniform Justice Court Act 106-b.7 In the cases of Town court sharing a facility with other town or Town court sharing judge and facility with other own Town courts that have consolidated Each individual court must maintain its own separate records Uniform Justice Court Act 106-b.7 In reality, this merely means you must distinguish one town or court’s records from those of others
- [Mayor’s Court Pleadings, detail, 1674] Even more complicated is what happens in the case of government dissolution, annexation, or abolishment If a village court is abolished Town court finishes open cases State Comptroller Opinion No. 81-202 Inactive records of previous and current justices go to town clerk Uniform Justice Court Act 2019-a In the case of the consolidation of one town into another That Judicial District’s Administrative Judge decides General Municipal Law 765.6
- [Storage of Court Documents in the Basement of the Tweed Building, ca. 1911] In the end, we are in this together We are part of the same organization (When town clerks take over records, they become officers of the court) We have the same ultimate goals But we all come with different points of view Interests, needs, and responsibilities Yet this is how any system works All these disparate pieces doing their own part So that the whole machine can run smoothly