Judicial Beaut y Beauty

New County Courthouse Gets Winning Verdict

as Brutalist for a reason. The tomb-like structure can get so overcrowded that it’s unsafe and inefficient. Judges refer to the courthouse, one of the busiest in the state, as a logistical nightmare that should have been replaced years ago.

For a long time, that was the plan. In 2008, the Judicial Council of California listed it as in “immediate and critical need” of an upgrade. Retired Judge Lloyd Connelly, known for his sound judgment and integrity, spent years calling out the building’s many shortcomings.

“We don’t have fire sprinklers above the first floor,” he said more than a decade ago. “It’s at the highest earthquake risk level that there is. It violates all the (Americans with Disabilities Act) standards. We don’t have secure hallways, so we’re escorting (defendants) down the hallways, frequently in belly chains, where jurors, witnesses, other people can see them.

Our holding cells are so far below the code that we have prisoners frequently forced to stand up. They cannot sit down during the time that they have to wait there.”

It is not just defendants who have no place to sit. When there are multiple trials in the building’s 44 courtrooms (I witnessed several as a reporter), jurors would sometimes sit in the stairwells during breaks. There was no place else to accommodate them. Jurors, the public and everyone who works in the building deserve better.

For more than a decade, it seemed every time the state was ready to fund a new Sacramento courthouse, some other California city got the green light first. Our new courthouse was stalled by more than one state funding crunch. Construction on a 2.4-acre site in the Downtown railyards between H and G streets didn’t begin until late 2020.

Now the $514 million courthouse adjacent to the Robert T. Matsui U.S. Courthouse and Federal Building on I Street is shaping up nicely. It will be 18 stories, have more than 538,000 square feet and 53 appropriately sized courtrooms, with enhanced security and circulation systems.

Scheduled to open in May 2024, it will include the court’s civil and criminal operations, a large jury assembly room, food services and a civil settlement counter. The new building allows for consolidation of court operations at five nearby satellite locations.

ACROSS

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