Roxann Pais was appointed to be Dallas’s chief community prosecutor in 2001. In September 2005, Carolyn Turgeon from the Center for Court Innovation talked with Pais about the city’s first community court, which opened in October of 2004.
This study focuses on the views of justice and treatment system stakeholders (prosecutors, defense attorneys, probation, treatment professionals, and representatives of statewide organizations) of whether problem-solving should be expanded beyond specialized courts; what concerns might they have about such an expansion; and, if problem-solving were to be expanded, what practical steps and operational changes would need to be implemented in and outside of the courthouse.
California has more problem-solving courts than any state in the country. This report discusses how those courts developed and the state judiciary's current efforts to inculcate problem-solving principles throughout the court system.
Dan Weitz oversees dispute resolution programs for the New York court system. Weitz spoke with the Center for Court Innovation’s Carolyn Turgeon about mediation.
Bonnie Dumanis was sworn in as the district attorney for San Diego County in January 2003—and is the first woman to serve in this role. Prior to serving as San Diego's top prosecutor, she served as a judge. In this capacity, she was a driving force behind the creation of local drug and domestic violence courts. Dumanis sat down with Carolyn Turgeon of the Center for Court Innovation to talk about her experiences.
Walter Dickey has been a member of the faculty of the University of Wisconsin Law School for almost 30 years. He has written extensively about community justice issues, and how police and prosecutors work can together with community members effectively for public safety. In early 2005, he spoke with the Center for Court Innovation’s Carolyn Turgeon about his views on community prosecution.
Currently serving his second term, Paul L. Howard, Jr. assumed the Office of Fulton County District Attorney in January 1997—becoming the first African-American to be elected district attorney in the history of the State of Georgia. He spoke to the Center for Court Innovation’s Carolyn Turgeon about community prosecution.
Judge Eileen Koretz presided over the Midtown Community Court from 1997 until 2006. Before being appointed to the Criminal Court of the City of New York by Mayor Rudolph Giuliani in 1995, she was an assistant district attorney in Bronx County for nearly two decades. She sat down to talk about the Midtown Community Court's award-winning computer technology.
Portland's first community court opened in March 1998 in the North/Northeast section of the city. It was followed, two years later, in February 2000, by the opening of the Southeast Community Court. With the opening of the Westside Community Court in April 2001, all of Portland's half million citizens had access to a community court. That same year Sarah Archer-Beck of the Community Justice Exchange talked with Robyn Gregory, the Portland Community Court project coordinator, about the city's Community Court program.
