In January, Judge Anne-Christine Massullo began her two-year term as Presiding Judge of the San Francisco Superior Court. San Francisco Attorney Magazine interviewed her in March to learn about her priorities and how she is tackling the court’s challenges as we emerge from the COVID-19 emergency orders. This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and conciseness.
What motivated you to become a judge, and what experiences have prepared you for the position of presiding judge?
Nothing really can prepare you for being a judge. It’s a unique and very different role from an advocate, whether you’re a plaintiff’s attorney, defense attorney, prosecutor, or public defender.
Number one, you’re neutral. Whatever preconceived notions or background you had, you’ve got to check at the door, put it aside, and apply facts to the law. That’s a unique skill set that takes many new judges by surprise. And you have to mind how many cases you have and how much time you devoted to preparing; you have to move that calendar along while allowing everyone to feel as though they’ve been heard.
I spent most of my career at the U.S. Attorney’s Office. I learned the enormous responsibility and damage that can be done if a prosecutor is not mindful of the responsibility to the system of justice and defendants. That responsibility opened a different world for me in terms of my view of the system of justice and balancing that.
My goal is to make every day of my life count and to make a difference. Also, maintaining the integrity of the institution of the third branch of government. Those factors motivated me to get into the field of judging.
What’s your unique philosophy of leadership?
I have a data-driven philosophy. I want to know facts and data, and then I can make a better determination. In your role as a judge, transparency is important, but you need to be neutral. So there’s that balance of asking questions to get the information you need.
As presiding judge, it’s important as the leader of the court to be transparent to my colleagues, court staff, and the community we serve. To the extent that you’re being asked to respond and explain your decision, I want to be able to do that. The way to do that is to do your work on the front end, so you have everything in place to explain why you did what you did.
Anne-Christine Massullo
This pandemic has visited a lot of issues on the courts, but we’re trying to offer settlement conferences when people are ready. We have a judge who’s conducting remote settlement conferences. She’s a retired judge. We are getting through the backlog, and that’s the best we can do.
What are your top priorities for the court?
The top priorities COVID has left us with are not unique to our court. I’m trying to get us back as best we can to a pre-pandemic life at the court. The city was shuttered, all cities, the world was shuttered, within hours. It’s hard to get out of that because our lives changed dramatically; how we managed our businesses and managed the courts changed. And now we’re trying to get back to the way we were pre-pandemic but also come back better. What did we learn? How can we marshal our knowledge from technology, for example, and create more access to justice and fairness? Take all the tools we learned and assimilate those into what we do now. That’s number one.
Number two, I want to begin the process of finally putting into motion a new Hall of Justice. The Judicial Council has its own facilities unit that prioritizes this work. We’re not the only county with courthouse needs. But I want to make sure that we start moving on a plan that makes sense and that we can see a progression to funding to get a new Hall of Justice.
The third priority is working with Judge [Rochelle] East, my APJ [assistant presiding judge], to create a four-year plan. She and I talk every day, and she and I share the same vision for the court.
What are the issues with the current Hall of Justice?
The elevators on a weekly basis don’t work. It’s a four-story building. We have courtrooms that are old. We put technology in, but it’s a 1950s building, and there’s only so much you can do. We are the only tenants in that building. It used to be occupied by a police substation, a snack bar, and the district attorney’s office. I want to say adult probation was there at one point. We need a new courthouse. We’re not the top priority for the Judicial Council, but we need to have a plan so we know we will be moving and have started that process.
Talk about diversity on the Superior Court bench and staff. Why is that important, and is the court achieving its goals in this area?
San Francisco has always been a very diverse bench, which is wonderful and a testament to our community and what our community has wanted for decades. We’ve seen great strides in that area.
[After this interview, the court followed up with statistics. Forty-five percent of the bench is non-white. That includes Asian, African-American, Hispanic, and Indian/Native American. Of the 54 judges, 22 are women.]
In terms of court staff, we have a very diverse staff who have been here for many years. [Statistics were not immediately available.]
Also, due to the pandemic, some people chose to retire. That’s not unique to our bench. Law enforcement has seen a lot of retirements, along with the medical profession. But then it becomes how we actively recruit and fulfill our goals for diversity and inclusion.
We’re somewhat limited because we’re a public entity. As you know, government entities put out announcements, get applications and see who is the best qualified. Another drawback is the pay scale. In San Francisco, with a high cost of living, it’s a well-known fact that positions at the court don’t pay as well as they might in private practice.
It’s significant, and that’s not up to the court. That’s up to Sacramento and the Judicial Council. I don’t know what the funding will look like, but it’s very hard to recruit and retain qualified individuals and make sure we fulfill our commitment to diversity and inclusion. I’m hoping that at some point, the legislature looks at increasing salaries to put us on a better playing field with the private sector.
What other significant challenges does the court face, and how do you plan to address them?
There is still a backlog of criminal cases built up over the pandemic. I’ve opened up more misdemeanor courtrooms here at the Civic Center. I’ve taken two civil judges who are dedicated now to nothing but misdemeanors. And I’ve taken courtrooms at the Hall of Justice dedicated to mental health diversion programs and asked the judges to give me three days of trials for in-custody cases. So I’ve tried to work within the framework we have.
In a criminal trial, the first issue is security. I don’t have control of the sheriff’s department. They have lost people to retirement. They have to recruit and go through training. That doesn’t happen overnight. And if they don’t have enough deputies to ensure the safety of the courtroom, we can’t have a criminal proceeding. Sheriff [Paul] Miyamoto is great. I met with him, and he knows the issues we’re facing.
Then the issue becomes real estate. Our courtrooms are tapped out. We don’t have holding cells at the Civic Center, so courtrooms can’t be used for an in-custody criminal proceeding. And some of the courtrooms in the Civic Center don’t have jury boxes.
But we are moving cases along. We’re trying to call up older cases. We need our justice partners to help identify which cases are ready, and we’ll send them out if we’ve got the courtroom.
This pandemic has visited a lot of issues on the courts, but we’re trying to offer settlement conferences when people are ready. We have a judge who’s conducting remote settlement conferences. She’s a retired judge. We are getting through the backlog, and that’s the best we can do.
What effect has the pandemic had on civil cases?
When Judge [Samuel] Feng was the presiding judge, he was sending the civil cases to a department. They weren’t single-assigned but given a department. We hoped that would work in the pandemic. Sometimes it did, and sometimes it didn’t; because, without a firm trial date, cases aren’t likely to settle.
I met with the civil judges and asked them to send back the cases they had scheduled out past June of 2023. So we got those cases back, and we are now able to get cases out on the civil side. We don’t have as many courtrooms, but the parties know that when they are ready and I have a courtroom, they will go out. If they’re on standby, we get them out within a week to two weeks. So I think that’s good news for the civil bar. The feedback I’ve gotten is they’re pleased to get back to a master calendar.
Let’s talk about technology. How are you incorporating it into the court’s operations and making things more efficient?
We have Zoom capability in all the courtrooms. That was set up during COVID. We still use it. For case management conferences, the time and money it takes to travel for something that may last 15 or 20 minutes doesn’t make much sense.
But what many people are learning is that Zoom has its limitations. People talk over one another, and you have to raise your voice. If it’s a really important argument, come in person if you can.
There’s another technology issue. It's called a hybrid courtroom. A statewide working group will be coming up with recommendations about hybrid proceedings. For months they’ve met with court reporters, clerks, and judges to find out how we can do these hybrid proceedings. Is it feasible? What resources do we need?
One of the limitations comes back to the issue of access to justice. When you have high-end proceedings, the titans of industry fighting one another, it's not an issue to have a hybrid trial, where you have some remote jurors or witnesses. But for someone who can't afford that sort of technology, it deprives them of access to the courtroom. So it's a balance. Hopefully, the community of lawyers will become involved and help us fine-tune those recommendations.
What are some lessons learned from the pandemic?
Like after 9/11, it was this devastating event that brought us together. I wish we could remember those moments and come together still, whether it's justice partners or the bar, and maintain that level of cooperation.
I'm hoping we've learned in the pandemic that people can actually come together with a goal toward addressing our challenges. Even if our real estate is cut in half, we have cases we need to get on. How do we do that? And how do we come together and make sure that we fulfill our obligations in our respective roles but also work together?
I hope to get back to that point where we're forward-thinking. I think about the backlog of cases. You can try and take advantage of the situation. Or you can acknowledge that it won’t get better unless we work together. And we will do everything we can if we have partners willing to come to the table with good ideas. And we'll look at those. And we'll do what we can within our limitations.
It’d be nice to have partners who will work together and come up with a better solution and system. So heaven forbid, if we ever face something like this again, we have a plan.