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In accepting the position as chief judge of Metro Court, Judge Julie Altwies offered a typical gracious comment about the task ahead.
“I am looking forward to the challenges and the hard work it will take to lead this busy court into its next era,” she said in a news release issued Jan. 30 after her fellow judges had picked her to succeed longtime Chief Judge Judith Nakamura, who moves on to a new judicial appointment at state District Court across the street.
The first full week of that “next era” begins today, so let me suggest a challenge Altwies can knock off pretty quickly by dealing with a pet peeve I have groused over for nine years.
When Metro Court moved on Jan. 20, 2004, from its crummy, cramped location on Roma NW to its spacious, shiny, Italian-marbled, $83 million digs at 401 Lomas NW, it also used the occasion to disconnect the thousands of citizens and scofflaws it serves by banning them from bringing in cellphones, pagers, cameras and camera-capable equipment.
Pagers. That’s how old this policy is.
At the time, Nakamura and a 16-member security committee (yes, it apparently took that many) supported the policy by explaining “cellular technology” posed a serious risk to the public because it could allow anybody to take photos of security arrangements within the court and transmit those images to their accomplices outside.
Then-court administrator Marc Saavedra fretted over the possibility that cellphone cameras, even though they weren’t prevalent at the time, could be used to take photos of jurors or judges, which would put their lives in danger.
Er, what?
Saavedra also provided my favorite, albeit bizarre, explanation for the policy: “I know some people don’t like the rules, but we have seen proof that cellular phones can be used as explosive devices.”
He got the first part right, at least.
By Saavedra’s logic, perhaps Metro Court should consider banning shoes.
What I have never understood is why a court that, for the most part, handles traffic citations and misdemeanors would insist it requires even more security than the state District Court across the street, which has no cellphone ban and handles contentious divorces, child custody battles and trials involving murders and other felonious acts.
(And while we’re on the subject, I would argue that Metro Court’s security gantlet is more invasive and intense than those at state District Court, the adjacent federal court and any airport I have traveled through. Seriously, an alligator-infested moat would be easier to traverse than the phalanx of blue-jacketed security folks at Metro Court.)
Most federal courts, including the one across the street from Metro Court, allow cellphones inside but only if they do not have camera capability — which is to say that nearly every cellphone made today is not permitted.
But cellphones are more than cameras. They are our repository for our most important information — our Social Security numbers, phone numbers, passwords, calendars. They are lifelines to our loved ones and all we know.
I’m a mom, and my cellphone connects me to my children and their schools, especially to my diabetic child and his school nurse, who can always reach me via my cellphone should medical crises arise.
A cellphone tethers us to the world outside the Metro Court doors. It’s as integral to many of us as a purse or wallet.
But unless we hold a law degree or wear a law enforcement badge (they are the exception to the ban; reporters and jurors are not), that tether is severed inside Metro Court.
I’ve brought this issue up before and have been placated each time with doomsday scenarios or reminders of the “helpful” alternatives Metro Court provides, such as courtesy phones on every floor or lockers in the lobby to store cellphones.
That might have been sufficient in 2004, but not now.
Sure, ban cellphone use in the courtrooms, if you must. Force everybody to silence his or her phone, if you will. Enact penalties for even appearing to shoot a no-no photo or any photo at all. That would at least give all those security guards something better to do.
But an all-out ban on cellphones? So not “next era.” And so excessive and paranoid.
If there really are dangerous people out there hoping to thwart security by taking photos of sensitive areas of the courthouse or shooting images of judges (as if), may I suggest that they likely have better and sneakier ways to do so than with their iPhone?
So Judge Altwies, congratulations on your appointment. I know you’ll do well. But let’s remember that Metro Court is the people’s court, and people have cellphones. Let them in. At least, let’s talk about it.
UpFront is a daily front-page news and opinion column. Comment directly to Joline at 823-3603, jkrueger@abqjournal.com or follow her on Twitter @jolinegkg. Go to ABQjournal.com/letters/new to submit a letter to the editor.
— This article appeared on page A1 of the Albuquerque Journal
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