Report details court's problems

BOSTON - A confidential report reveals widespread mismanagement is still plaguing Roxbury District Court, and FOX Undercover has uncovered evidence that a man was wrongfully held for three days because of a clerk in the busy court failed to clear his warrant.

The report, which top judges refused to release but which was obtained by FOX Undercover, shows the office of Clerk Magistrate Michael Neighbors is so disorganized that restraining orders are not being served, phones not working or turned off and the number of backlogged cases has been misreported.

“You don’t keep this stuff hidden. You make stuff like this public, because the public does have a right to know,” said Robert Barton, a retired Superior Court Judge who reviewed the report. “They, the public, owns the courthouses, not the judges.”

Barton, who reviewed the report for FOX Undercover, said it was time to clean up the troubled courthouse, which has been beset by a series of management problems.

“Someone has obviously missed the boat here, because it shouldn't drag on this long,” Barton said. “It should have been straightened out long ago.”

The Roxbury court was most recently in the public eye following a FOX Undercover report last November that showed the Neighbors was a no-show employee, collecting his $110,220 salary without showing up for work.

FOX Undercover also reported on complaints that some of court’s operations were in disarray, a charge denied by Boston Municipal Court Chief Justice Charles Johnson, who oversees district courts in Boston, denied. He said at the time that the Roxbury court was “operating at a reasonable level of performance."

But at the same time as that statement, another judge was making her own evaluation. Judge Kathleen Coffey, normally presiding in West Roxbury, sat in Roxbury District Court to help out, and wrote about what she saw. 

We asked for a copy of her report, Chief Justice Johnson refused. His office called it "internal correspondence" that was "not appropriate or available for public dissemination."

So what kinds of things are not appropriate for public dissemination?

Judge Coffey called for "needed reforms" and a "fundamental change" in the Roxbury court. She cited several examples, including restraining orders not being served, phones either not working or turned off, and the clerk's office being so disorganized they lost track of the number of backlogged cases.

Judge Coffey also called for an audit of the entire court, citing the "absence of the clerk magistrate for the past 18 months".

“They should get the clerk out of there. They should get the presiding judge out of there. Put in new people until they're in perfect shape,” said Barton. “There's an old Marine Corps expression. ‘Shape up or ship out.’”

As first reported by FOX Undercover last November, Neighbors stopped showing up for work after an earlier management overhaul of his office in February 2007. It was time off for a job poorly done. When we reported those findings, a trial court spokeswoman said Neighbors has been “in and out of the office". But the confidential report confirms our earlier investigation, that Neighbors was a no-show.

Neighbors may be back to work, but there is still incompetence at the court. Robert Wade, who lists his address as homeless in Roxbury, recently spent a three-day holiday weekend in custody because of a clerk's error.

A default warrant for Wade was supposed to have been cleared on March 16, court records show. But he was arrested by Boston police on that same warrant a month later, on April 17, and held over the long holiday weekend. Wade returned to court after it opened for business the Tuesday after Patriot’s Day, and his docket entry for that day, April 21, notes, his warrant “should have been recalled on 3-16-09."

Chief Justice Johnson said in a statement that recalling warrants in all of the Boston Municipal courts is a priority, but in busy Roxbury, the occasional oversight “regrettably” occurs. ( Read the full statement )

Johnson added in a statement, “It is my current opinion based on months of hard work and dedication of judges and others, that Roxbury has made commendable progress in its business practices and operational development."

But Barton said mismanagement in Roxbury District Court was affecting real people.

“Because default warrants are not being removed from the computer, and people are being held overnight or for a couple of days, that's no laughing matter,” he said. “And nobody, and that includes you and me and the people who watch this show, ever want to be put in that position. There's no excuse for that.”