The concept of having a superior court of general jurisdiction in each of California's counties dates back to the ratification of the second
California Constitution in 1879. Previously, the original California Constitution of 1849 and the California Judiciary Act of 1851 had created multi-county district courts of general jurisdiction which supervised county courts and
justice of the peace courts of limited jurisdiction. Notably, the superior courts did not always enjoy the unified jurisdiction that they possess now. The 1879 state constitution authorized the state legislature to establish inferior courts at its discretion in any city, town, or city and county, with powers, duties, and terms to be fixed by statute. By the mid-20th century, California had as many as six, seven, or eight types of inferior courts of limited jurisdiction under the superior courts, depending upon how they were counted. There were two types of municipal courts (one of which was called "police court"), two types of police courts (not to be confused with the "police court" which was a kind of municipal court), city justices' courts, city courts, and Class A and Class B judicial township justices' courts. The council's 1948 study found: "There are six separate and distinct types of inferior courts, totaling 767 in number, created and governed under varied constitutional, statutory, and charter provisions." To fix this colossal mess, the judicial council proposed and the legislature enacted the Court Act of 1949 to reduce the number of types of inferior courts to two: municipal courts and justice of the peace courts, which were renamed "justice courts". Starting in the 1970s, California began to slowly phase out the use of justice courts (in which non-lawyers were authorized by statute to preside as judges) after a landmark 1974 decision in which the
Supreme Court of California unanimously held that it was a violation of
due process to allow a non-lawyer to preside over a criminal trial which could result in incarceration of the defendant. This was a "bombshell" decision which created "a true crisis in judicial administration" because at the time, non-lawyer judges were presiding over 127 justice courts. In response, the Judicial Council of California arranged for the immediate enactment of legislation to upgrade 22 attorneys already sitting as justice court judges from part-time to full-time service and allow them to "
ride circuit" and hear such trials in any justice court then presided over by a non-lawyer judge. Another change was that all new justice court judges after that point in time had to be attorneys. In response, the
California Law Revision Commission published a comprehensive study in January 1994 which carefully evaluated options for the proposed court's name such as "district", "superior", "county", "trial", "unified", and "circuit", and concluded that the preferable name was "superior court". The Commission acknowledged the name could be confusing due to the absence of any inferior courts after unification, but contended this was outweighed by the benefits of continuing to use a familiar name, not having to spend money on changing existing superior court signs and letterhead, and not having to amend over 3,000 references to the superior court in 1,600 statutes. SCA 3 passed the state senate but failed to pass the state assembly; it remains historically important, however, because it laid the groundwork and created political momentum towards the more gradual reform process which ultimately prevailed. In 1994, the state electorate approved Proposition 191, which amended the state constitution to eliminate the remaining justice courts and force them to consolidate with the municipal courts. In 1998, the electorate approved Proposition 220, which amended the state constitution to authorize trial court judges in each county to decide whether or not to retain municipal courts. The last county to achieve trial court unification was
Kings County Superior Court, where the state's last four municipal court judges were sworn in by Chief Justice
Ronald M. George as superior court judges on February 8, 2001. Therefore, at present, the superior courts are actually not "superior" to any inferior courts within the judicial branch. They
are still superior to certain types of administrative hearings within the executive branch; dissatisfied litigants can appeal to superior courts through administrative mandamus. Many of California's larger superior courts have specialized divisions for different types of cases like criminal, civil, traffic, small claims, probate, family, juvenile, and complex litigation, but these divisions are simply administrative assignments that can be rearranged at the discretion of each superior court's presiding judge in response to changing caseloads (that is, regardless of whether the division is colloquially called "traffic court" or "family court", all orders are issued by judges of the superior court). In contrast, inferior courts were creatures of statute and thus were more difficult to rearrange. Judges stationed at rural superior courts too small to set up specialized divisions must be generalists who can handle everything; the state judicial education center provides a special training program for "Cow County Judges". Another peculiarity of California law is that traditionally, the superior courts did not own their own buildings or employ their own staff, and the state government was not required to provide them with such things. Even though the superior courts were clearly part of the judicial branch of the
state government, they were actually operated by
county governments who were expected to provide buildings, security, and staff for the superior courts out of their own local budgets. At the same time, courthouse construction and maintenance were often overlooked among the numerous mandatory responsibilities placed upon counties by California law. Even worse, because so many of the responsibilities delegated to county governments were of a nature which people were likely to sue over, this arrangement put superior court judges in the awkward position of frequently ruling on lawsuits involving the very county governments responsible for maintaining their courthouses and providing their staff. Counties were allowed to collect trial court fees, fines, and forfeitures to help fund trial court operations, but those sources of funds were not sufficient. The enacting of
Proposition 13 by the state electorate in 1978 became a catalyst for reform of trial court funding because it placed California counties into such severe financial distress that they could no longer bear the burden of such a
partially-funded mandate. The paradox of state judicial officers working in county-operated organizations culminated in a 1996 case in which the Supreme Court of California upheld the constitutionality of a statute under which the superior court of
Mendocino County was bound by the county board of supervisors' designation of unpaid
furlough days for all county employees, including those who worked for the superior court. The
California State Legislature attempted to fix these issues by first enacting the Lockyer-Isenberg Trial Court Funding Act of 1997 to begin the process of transitioning the superior courts from county budgets to the state budget. Next came the Trial Court Employment Protection and Governance Act of 2000 to separate trial court employees from county governments, followed by the Trial Court Facilities Act of 2002 to transfer courthouses from the county governments to the state government. ==List==