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Beyond the bench: Justices of the Peace harmonize a better court | Montana News

The to-do list on a dry-erase board hanging on the office wall in Missoula County Justice of the Peace Alex Beal's chambers serves as a tangible reminder of the progress made to the court system in 12 months. But not all the items have been crossed off quite yet.

Missoula County Justices of the Peace Beal and Landee Holloway, the senior of the two lower court judges, sat down with the Missoulian recently to talk about changes in the court structure over the past year. Some of those shifts are small, while others seismic in the two justices' push for a more efficient and self-described progressive court system for small civil and low-violence criminal cases.

Holloway and Beal have harmonized their efforts to revamp procedures such as filing documents and creating more uniform sentencing guidelines. Holloway, appointed to the bench in 2016 and voted in officially later that year, has long been an advocate for restorative justice, a term for focusing criminal justice resources toward rehabilitation.

Beal's 2018 bid for Justice of the Peace shared that same enthusiasm, and the two got to work making changes beyond the bench when he took the office at the dawn of 2019.

"The collaboration is really beneficial to getting the work of the court done," said Holloway.

Structurally, the court has seen a number of changes made with an eye toward efficiency. While Departments 1 and 2 once had separate clerk staffs, meaning two sets of criminal clerk staffs and two sets of civil clerks, the two departments have become one. Cross-training staff has meant cases can process more quickly, Holloway said. A new Justice Court administrator oversees the unified court, and allows the justices more time to focus on the bench.

Creating one court is the foundation of creating a more uniform criminal justice system, Beal said. The changes also include setting similar sentencing guidelines between the two Justices of the Peace, and working to round Missoula Municipal Court into that equation as well.

"It's important to us that there's consistency in terms of justice," Beal said. "We've made some attempts, many successful, to work with Municipal Court so that the three of us do things identically, so it doesn't matter if you get stopped by a city cop or Highway Patrol, you ought to be looking at similar outcomes."

Like Municipal Court, the Justice Court also became a court of record last year by approval of the Board of County Commissioners , meaning hearings will be recorded in a manner that would require duplication of proceedings if the case is appealed or moved to a higher jurisdiction.

Other efforts focus more on the restorative justice aspect of criminal justice. Diversion programs such as Holloway's DUI court have yet to see a dropout, and plans are in motion to expand the program with new federal grant money.

Justice Court is also building on a law passed by the state Legislature last year that barred judges from suspending driver's licenses as a punishment for certain crimes. A new arrangement with the Missoula County Attorney's Office allows Justice Court the opportunity to simply dismiss the charge if the defendant is able to get the hold on their license lifted.

"The goal is restorative justice; it's to incentivize them to get their license back," Holloway said. "It's trying to make use of taxpayer dollars as well. I would honestly guess 40% of our docket is driving-while-suspended" charges.

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It's perhaps a better tool in deciding bail for a defendant than gut instinct, Beal said. But the program, which got started in Missoula County in 2018, does require some discretion on the judge's part and is still considered a work in progress.

"We're not going to be here forever," Beal concedes. "And we want to create a process and a system that will keep going and be functional regardless of who's here in the future."

Both justices say their good working relationship has fueled the changes. Some alterations have been hard on the clerk staff, and others have needed a second look. Some have broken down inefficiencies, but changing systems can be hard for attorneys, they said. The changes that remain on Beal's dry-erase board are more akin to finish work than overhauls, he said. But neither he nor Holloway seems to have rolled their sleeves back down yet.

"We've worked hard for a year, and we aren't finished," Holloway said. "We still have work to do."

This article originally ran on missoulian.com .