PROBATIONER LITERACY AND OUTREACH.

• Author: Nicholson, George

1. PROBATIONER LITERACY AND OUTREACH

   Jerry Chong, a prominent Sacramento criminal defense lawyer when I sat as trial judge, came before me in 1987 with an client who was then in custody on felony charges. Chong was concerned his client was illiterate and suggested his case required further investigation before any attempt to dispose of it could reasonably occur. I ordered a rare, pre-plea probation report and a mental health study prepared. Weeks later, as a direct result of what we learned in those reports, we disposed of the case, with the prosecutor's concurrence, far more favorably to the defendant than we would have otherwise.

   Chong says he remembers the case well as one of those where he felt he

   really made a major difference in someone's life without the help of the client. [My client] wanted to be normal like everyone else, so he hid the fact from everyone that he really did not understand the proceedings and was illiterate. I remember the psychological report described his IQ as being in the 60 to 70 range. And what tipped me off was the gut feeling that something was wrong and just not right. For a recidivist just out from prison he was too cooperative, too eager to please and when questioned could not tell me the address and phone number of his mother. He kept referring me to the police report for answers to my questions. Thank God, we had you as the trial judge who suggested the pre-plea report and 1368 referral for psychological examination. A lesser minded judge would have easily blown me off and ignored my concerns. I just knew something was wrong, but I could not put my finger on it. You provided the vehicle[] to learn what was wrong with this defendant and [you did] not ignore[] his disability like other judges and lawyers before us. He served ten years in state prison on other charges before he appeared before you on his new case, a 211 [robbery] and being prosecuted as a career criminal. As a direct result of what I personally learned from that case and with Chong's encouragement, I drafted the text of what became Assembly Bill 1870 and helped obtain legislative and gubernatorial approval of that bill, which included state funding over a three-year period. The new law provided for a judicial pilot project, Juris-LIT, to be operated by the Sacramento County probation department. The project would offer remedial literacy programs for criminal probationers, ages eighteen to twenty-five. (1)

   I wrote several novel requirements into the law: (1) no recidivism, that is, no new crimes while in program; (2) measured and sustained probationer success on a learning ladder to remain in the program; (3) a university evaluation and reporting mechanism; and (4) a legislative sunset. Unlike too many, "remedial," criminal "rehabilitation" programs, my intent was to build an experimental program with (a) measurable, enforced standards; (b) validated, objective assessment; and (c) a specific end point to require legislative and gubernatorial reassessment and possible renewal.

   AB 1870 required bipartisan support, so I mustered several legislators of both parties to co-author the bill, most notably, Senator John Doolittle and Assemblyman John Vasconcellos, both friends of mine and, at the time, our state's most conservative and most liberal legislators.

   The bill required significant institutional support. As a result, I recruited support from the California Judicial Council, the Sacramento County Bar Association, the Sacramento County Indigent Criminal Defense Panel, the Capitol City Trial Lawyers' Association, the Sacramento Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce, the Los Rios Community College District, and other important legal and non-legal community groups.

   I also sought and received support from the local sheriff; district attorney; chief probation officer; superintendent of schools; President Donald Gerth, California State University, Sacramento; and California State Librarian Gary Strong, who presided over a variety of statewide literacy initiatives. (2)

   The implementation of JurisLIT was facilitated by the efforts of Bill Honig, California's State Superintendent of Public Instruction.

   Months later, the presiding judge of our court asked me to meet with the director of the Elk Grove Unified School District, Adult Education Division, and to attempt to create a non-statutory literacy project for inmates of the Sacramento County jail, which was located in that school district. After several planning sessions and meetings, discussions with the sheriff, who managed the county jail, the district attorney, the chief probation officer, and our court's presiding judge, everyone came together with the Elk Gove Unified School District, Adult Division leadership, and signed a memorandum of understanding and implemented a spin-off literacy project for county jail inmates. (3)

2. SELECTION OF WOMEN AND MINORITY JUDGES

   Also, in 1987, Jerry Chong and two of his colleagues, Luis Cespedes and Renard Shepard, were presidents of their respective bar associations, the Asian Bar of Sacramento, the La Raza Lawyers, now the Cruz Reynoso Bar Association, and the Wiley Manuel Bar Association.

   When they took their respective offices, their three bar associations were engaged in fierce competition for what they perceived to be too few judicial appointments for distinguished ethnic attorneys.

   The three men decided to set a different path, a dual path of working together for the benefit of all bar associations and for ensuring sustained professional progress for ethnic bar associations and their members.

   In particular, they intended to, and did, end ethnic bar competition for judicial appointments by the governor. Their impact on bench inclusivity has proven substantial and enduring, all the way to the state's highest court, where Tani Cantil-Sakauye, a former trial judge and appellate justice in Sacramento, now serves as chief justice of the California Supreme Court. She is "the first Asian-Filipina American and the second woman to serve as the state's chief justice." (4) Russell Hom and Richard Sueyoshi are presiding judge and supervising civil judge of the Superior Court, Sacramento County, respectively. In March 2021, Judge Hom was selected Judge of the Year by the Sacramento County Bar Association. (5) That same month, "[Rob] Bonta will become the first Filipino American to serve as California Attorney General," if confirmed by the State Assembly and Senate within ninety days. (6) He was soon confirmed.

3. UNITY BAR DINNERS

   Working with several other lawyers and judges, including several of us who would soon become members of the Court of Appeal, Third Appellate District, Chong, Cespedes, and Shepard conceived and organized the state capitol's first Unity Bar Dinner in 1987, an event that has continued annually for more than thirty years.

   Their efforts, which initially involved their three bar associations, have facilitated collaboration with and between other bar associations and their members. Now several of those bar associations have joined the original three in sponsoring Unity Bar Dinners, including the Leonard Friedman Bar Association, South Asian Bar Association, Sacramento Lawyers for the Equality of Gays and Lesbians, and Women Lawyers of Sacramento. other bar associations, including faith-based bar associations, are seeking to join.

   Their success has inspired generations of Sacramento judges and lawyers to become actively involved in community outreach, promoting unity on many fronts, while fostering leadership and ingenuity as a team effort. During that time, clergy of many faiths, military, law enforcement, and civilian chaplains, peace officers, prosecutors, and defense attorneys, civic and educational leaders, and politicians of both parties, have joined their quest for unity. (7)

   A decade after that first Unity Bar Dinner in 1987, Chong, Cespedes, and Shepard were reunited and honored as Unity Bar Founders at the Sacramento County Bar Association's annual Law Day Dinner and on the cover of the June 1997 issue of The Docket, the bar association's monthly magazine at the time. Jerry Chong was recognized as the bar association's 1997 Humanitarian of the Year. (8)

   "All we wanted to do was to forge an alliance between the three bar associations to work together, support each other, and not believe it was every bar association for itself and the hell with everyone else," Chong said at the twenty-fifth annual Unity Bar Dinner in 2012. (9)

   And, surely, no one would have, or could have, imagined in 1987 that one of these three community...