Judges to end nomadic existence

Judges in Placer County have had a helter-skelter existence for as long as they can remember.

One day, a judge might be at the Historic Courthouse on Maple Street in Auburn and the next day at the court buildings across town at the old DeWitt Center.

And there's always a chance that a judge will be assigned to the old Roseville Court on Taylor Street or to the cramped quarters of makeshift courtrooms in Colfax or Lincoln.

Those days are nearly over.

Beginning July 15, nine courtrooms will open at the newly constructed Bill Santucci Justice Center on Industrial Avenue in Roseville.

On a recent tour of the new courthouse, a Placer Superior Court judge noticed the facility will have a 100-seat jury check-in room. Courthouses in Auburn have no jury rooms.

"Our current check-in area is the hallway, or the parking lot," Judge Frances Kearney said.

The new $54 million, state-of-the-art structure eventually will result in the phasing out of the courts at the DeWitt Center, the Roseville Court and the small courtrooms in Colfax and Lincoln.

Courtrooms at the DeWitt Center will remain in use temporarily while the Historic Courthouse gets refurbished. But once the rehab work is finished, courtrooms at DeWitt are expected to close.

The courtroom at the Placer County jail in Auburn will remain open, as will the county's Lake Tahoe court building.

Judges who have been assigned to the two-story Santucci Justice Center can't wait to get started.

The building and its courtrooms offer numerous improvements – both in additional space and use of technology – that could only have been imagined a decade ago at the old courthouses.

The center will provide self-help centers in the lobby, flat-screen monitors to guide visitors and jurors, audio systems, interview rooms for lawyers and clients, witness rooms, accommodations for news media, holding cells for inmates and a 100-seat jury check-in room.

Kearney will be one of two judges who will inherit 118-seat courtrooms at the new center. She now conducts judicial business in one of DeWitt's busiest courtrooms, and it seats only about 50.

Most of the other courtrooms at the new center will seat about 50 people. However, those courtrooms are not expected to bring high-volume traffic.

Another modern aspect of the center will be its "business center" for attorneys, a room equipped for Internet access and providing telephones, copy machines, fax machines and access to public files.

The room will allow attorneys to send or obtain needed information during breaks in court proceedings, rather than having to drive back to their offices to handle such communications.

The basement of the new court building will accommodate holding cells for the approximately 55 inmates who have court business on any given day.

The inmates will be transported to Roseville from the Placer County jail in Auburn for their hearings.

The justice center in Roseville had been in the works for seven years.

The goal in building the new justice center was to make it easier for residents of Roseville, Rocklin, Lincoln, Loomis and other communities in western Placer County to take care of judicial matters.

Residents from these areas have long been forced to drive to Auburn, causing losses of time.

The Bill Santucci Justice Center, named after the late Placer County supervisor and former Roseville mayor, was dedicated at a ceremony June 25 before about 300 guests.

Santucci died of a heart attack May 7 at age 79.

Speakers paid tribute to Santucci during the ceremony.

Jim Holmes, chairman of the county Board of Supervisors, called the building "a fitting tribute to an outstanding public servant."

The completion of the court building is the first phase of the project.

A separate building to house the District Attorney's Office, the Probation Department, revenue services and the county assessor is scheduled to open in about six months.

Future projects on the 44-acre site include a sheriff's substation and a jail facility.

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