2000-04-11

PRESS RELEASE
April 11, 2000

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Berkeley Courthouse Civil and Criminal Jury Trials
Moved to the René C. Davidson and the Wiley W. Manuel Courthouse in Oakland

Effective May 3, 2000, all civil and criminal jury trials formerly scheduled at the Berkeley Courthouse will be set for hearing at either the René C. Davidson or the Wiley W. Manuel Courthouse in Oakland. Criminal jury trials will be conducted at the Wiley W. Manuel Courthouse and Civil Jury Trials will be assigned from Department One, in the René C. Davidson Courthouse. This action was taken to realign workload, in view of the recent retirement of Superior Court Judge Ron Greenberg.

The transfer of Berkeley jury trials to Oakland necessitates merging Berkeley's limited jurisdiction jury pool with that of Oakland's. To accomplish this, the Local Court Rules of the Superior Court of California, County of Alameda, have been amended to add jurors from the cities of Berkeley and Albany to the Oakland jury pool, which formerly consisted of jurors from Oakland, Piedmont and Emeryville. Summons for jurors in these five cities have been revised to reflect this change.

The contact for this information release is Barbara J. Fox, Chief Assistant Executive Officer, Superior Court of California, County of Alameda, at (510) 272-6504.