Action Plan for New York Justice Courts

This year we have witnessed a major State Justice Court initiative that will affect your local court. This initiative described in detail below is meant to "insure high quality justice throughout New York State" by providing enhanced support and assistance of the state judiciary to town and village courts.

New York State Chief Judge Judith S. Kaye and Chief Administrative Judge Jonathan Lippman today announced an Action Plan for the justice courts, a comprehensive program to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of the nearly 1300 justice courts located in most of New York's towns and villages.

"Of the six million new cases filed annually in New York's courts, two million alone are initiated or adjudicated in the justice courts," said Chief Judge Kaye. "New Yorkers rely heavily on our local courts to resolve hundreds of thousands of civil and criminal cases a year".

Chief Administrative Judge Lippman stated, "Our present day town and village courts trace back to New York's first tribunals and have been an integral part of New York's justice system for nearly three centuries. This Action Plan, based on a thorough review of the justice court system and developed with the assistance of an advisory group, that includes sitting town and village justices, strikes the proper balance between providing the support needed to achieve effective and efficient delivery of court services and respecting the unique structure of these local tribunals as established by the State Constitution. This new initiative marks the beginning of a historic modern day partnership between the local justice courts and the State Judiciary."

The Action Plan for the justice courts focuses primarily on ways to improve the effectiveness of justice courts within their existing legal framework, although some reform will require legislation. The state judiciary will include $10 million in its 2007-08 budget request to support the initiatives in the areas of court operations, auditing and financial control, court security, and education and training.

Town and village justice courts are part of the unified court system, but are funded and administered by the localities rather than the state. Therefore they operate without oversight of the New York State judiciary and office of Court administration which supervises the operation and administration of all State paid trial courts. The justice courts are quite diverse ranging from courts that hear cases every day to those that convene one to two times a month. Additionally, the State Constitution does not require local town and village court justices to be lawyers; of the nearly 2000 justices sitting presently, 72 percent are not members of the bar. State and local budgets rely heavily on the justice courts. During the last fiscal year alone, the justice courts collected over $210 million in fines, fees, and surcharges.


Bristol Town Court - Case summary

During the first 8 months of 2007, the Bristol Court has adjudicated a total of 306 cases summarized as follows:

Penal Law, 10; Vehicle and Traffic Law, 280; Civil Law, 6; Town Ordinance, 3; Agriculture and Markets, 4; and Parks and Recreation Law, 3.