Okay.

All right, let's get started with our work session, and we're starting with an update on our municipal court from Judge Rocco.

So I just wanted to do a quick introduction.

This is Judge Angela Rocco.

She's coming up on her one year with the city.

So as part of that kind of annual process, wanted to give her the opportunity to come and speak with you all, give her give you an update on some of the accomplishments the court has made and some of the new programs that she's implemented that I think you're going to be really excited about.

So with that, I'm going to turn it over to Judge Rocco.

Good afternoon, everyone.

Thank you very much for having me today.

What I'm going to be doing as we talked about is go through who we are as a court and how we have been evolving over the last year.

So thank you very much for taking the opportunity to hear me out today.

So again, who we are, what is it that we actually do at the municipal court, and how is our court evolving.

So I'm Angela Rocco.

I'm the presiding judge.

In case I'm at conferences or if there is ever a time where I'm out of the courtroom, and his name is Judge Ronald Rome, and he's actually in the courtroom today.

So happy that he was able to make it today.

As well as the two judges, I also have a staff of four.

There's a court supervisor as well as three on-site court clerks.

And this is just a picture of the actual courtroom.

I believe most of you have visited the courtroom with other city programs, but this gives you a sense of what it looks like when it's actually in session with the seating, as well as those are two trial tables right up in the front.

And then I have a bailiff as well from the police department.

So what do we actually do at Bend's municipal court?

So each week we work with hundreds of defendants, and this is in person and it's also through paper, through emails, through calls.

And so that's what we do on Thursday mornings.

I have anywhere from a hundred to a hundred and fifty defendants coming in to speak to in the mornings, and then in the afternoons on Thursdays is when we conduct trials.

Most of the time we conduct anywhere from one to five trials, and that really depends on the complexity of the trial.

Also, what we do is anywhere between 20 to 60 defendants at any period of time are writing in to me.

There are a lot of folks that live outside of the community or other folks that are unable to get in.

So there are many matters that are being resolved by me that are actually not within the court.

It's actually something that I do in my chambers.

So at the courthouse, we're open Monday through Friday from 9 to 4.

Something that we have really taken to heart is the advisement of defendants when they come in.

Let's be all very clear that most people don't want to go to court, so it's not their favorite thing to do on a Thursday morning.

And not only is it there not their favorite thing to do, most folks are anxious.

So what I do is I advise of rights.

So advising of their rights and letting them know the consequences has really helped to I think get a better access to justice for folks.

As far as my jurisprudence, um it has been educating and rehabilitating the public.

That's my primary goal.

I want to have a safe community, I want safe streets, I want people to trust the court, believe in the court.

So much of what I do is re-educating folks by talking to them as well as sending them to traffic safety school, which has been very, very successful, and I'll talk about that shortly.

Statistics.

So since I came on board, we have actually increased our monthly average.

We're right about 426 cases a month.

That's a 100 case increase since uh last uh fiscal term.

So overall, we're seeing over a thousand more cases since I've taken on tenure.

Um, and because of some of the programs that I've created, the traffic safety school attendance is way up, which is excellent for the community.

So, how is our court evolving?

So, as a court, when I came in, um I assessed the programs that were currently being adjudicated, and I saw a very large need for non-English speakers to be heard in a different capacity.

So, very quickly, let me tell you what was going on prior.

So, if someone has a 9 a.m.

arraignment, they get there at 9 a.m.

and then I do my spiel, and then what was happening was that speakers of non-English speakers would actually be served last.

So if you can imagine there are a hundred people there, and you're waiting until the entire courtroom clears out and thinking, my goodness, I can't speak English, I don't know what's happening, but I'm still here, and now I'm the only one in the courtroom.

So we realized that that was not the best service to these folks that speak other languages because that's daunting.

You just don't know what's going to be happening, and that was one of the absolute reasons to make sure that we developed a new docket, and we have a language docket specifically for those that are non-English speakers.

And we had to do it that way before because we have translators and they oftentimes take up uh more lengthy proceedings.

So we're trying to get through a hundred people, so it wasn't anything that was bad intentions, it was just the nature of we've got to get through all of these people.

Nonetheless, that was not again an access to justice piece that was very efficient.

So we have created the language docket.

So in fact, we have a language docket tomorrow afternoon, so we'll see any number of defendants that come in many times with multiple violations.