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I Street's Upside-Down Courthouse |
| This piece seeks to get you to the right courtroom in the Robert T. Matsui United States Courthouse with a copy of the right Local Rules, a meal in your belly and a cup of coffee to keep you alert. For the merits, you're on your own. The courthouse (featured in this magazine's March 1999 issue) is between Fifth and Sixth, H and I Streets. It contains federal agencies in all three branches, including two courts: the U.S. District Court and the U.S. Bankruptcy Court. "Magistrate's Court" may sound like a separate court but refers to Magistrate Judges within the District Court. Local Rules: On the web, the District Court is at www.caed.uscourts.gov. A navigation bar to your left links you to maps, public transportation information and other services; for a copy of the District Court's local rules click on "Local Rules," then "Download.PDF." The Bankruptcy Court's address is www.caeb.uscourts.gov. Click on "Forms and Publications," then "Local Rules." e-Filing: Both courts maintain their case files electronically. Before you can file papers, you must register. From the District Court's home page, click on CM/ECF ("case management and electronic case filing"); from the Bankruptcy Court's, click on "Electronic Filing Resources." If you don't know what a Pacer account is, you need to find out at http://pacer.psc.uscourts.gov. Parking: Courthouse area parking seems to fill up before you get there, so allow time to search for space. There's Amtrak's Platinum Parking lot across Fifth Street (with an early-bird rate if you arrive before 9:00), another Platinum Parking lot to the north, at Sixth and H, and the Sacramento Commercial Bank parking structure to the south, across I. When not full, they're expensive. Downtown Plaza, with an entrance on J before Sixth, has space, especially after 9:30; its stores validate and include a few inexpensive snackeries. If you can arrive before 7:00 and not leave until after 4:30, the Old Sacramento parking structure, under I5, can accommodate you at a special $4 rate. Coffee and Food: There are options within a block. The courthouse cafeteria is on the second floor; those informally surveyed within my office suggested going there "only in a pinch." Starbucks Coffee is to the west across Fifth in the renovated Railway Express building. In the Chinatown block, kitty-corner to the southwest, are Zokku (Japanese food) in the former Royal Hong King Lum space at 419 J, and Lotus (Thai and Vietnamese) in the block's sunken interior. To the south at 500 I is the Belli Grill. A former grocery-deli to the southeast is vacant; let's see what the future will bring. Libraries: If you have a point of law to research without your laptop, try the Sacramento County Public Law Library whose librarian, Coral Henning, is a regular contributor to this magazine. The library sits across Sixth Street in the renovated Hall of Justice building. In the courthouse itself, on the first floor, is the Sacramento Branch Library of the Ninth Circuit Library System. Both are open to all. Art-in-Architecture program: The elevated plaza and waterfall at Fifth and I contain numerous bronze figurines. Take care not to trip over them. The plaza pavers have law-related sayings like, "I know no method to secure the repeal of bad or obnoxious laws so effective as their stringent execution." If you read them, there's a rule against citing them to the Court. Security: The attractive planters on the building's Fifth Street sidewalk aren't art but security measures, along with the posts and patterned fences surrounding the building. These resulted from the tragedies of Oklahoma City and 9/11. At the entrance, you go through magnetometers. If your hearing is at 8:30 or 9:00, allow extra minutes to get through the line. You must bring picture ID and surrender weapons and cameras, including camera-phones. Artifacts: After the security station, you're in the Rotunda with its oval skylight, outsize overhead justice scales, and stone chairs. (Sitting, while permitted, is uncomfortable.) To your right, as you come from the security station, lies an alcove displaying artifacts of 19th-century Chinese Americans discovered at the site during construction. The Chinese American Council of Sacramento worked with the General Services Administration to set up this informative exhibit. Conference Rooms: Clockwise from the security station, as viewed from the rotunda, there is an ATM and a door leading to a complex of conference rooms available for attorney use. Other witness prep rooms flank the courtrooms. Building Directory: This is north of the rotunda, on the way to the elevators. In the same place stands a kiosk with the day's District Court calendars (if you didn't print one from the court's website). Vertical Disorientation: One day I helped a group who had business in Courtroom 35. They had seen Courtroom 28 on Floor 7 and were, logically enough, on their way up. Don't the Superior Court's department numbers go up as you go up? But the federal courthouse is different. As you go up, the courtroom numbers go down, ending with Courtroom 1 on the top floor. So if the numbers are small, go up, not down. Also, there are two banks of elevators. From the first floor, the nearer bank to the Rotunda goes only to 2 through 7; the farther bank goes only to 8 through 16. More Visuals: Most floors have works of art on the walls south of the elevators. The hallways on courtroom floors have a panoramic south-facing view. Restrooms: On each floor these are just north of the elevators, on your left. Welcome and good luck! March / April 2006 |