Courthouse to Put In Fingerprint System : Security: The high-tech setup around the judges’ chambers is called ‘cutting edge.’ But the county’s district attorney and public defender will be denied access.

The Ventura County Hall of Justice will soon become the first courthouse in the United States to use a fingerprint security system for employees, officials said last week.

“To our knowledge, no other court system has this,” said Sheriff’s Lt. Haskell Chandler, who is helping to set up the new system around judges’ chambers and other court offices. “I guess we’re on the cutting edge of technology for the courts here.”

But Dist. Atty. Michael D. Bradbury and Public Defender Kenneth I. Clayman question the $89,000 cost of the new system at a time when the county is cutting payroll and programs to balance its budget.

The Sheriff’s Department recommended the new system as a way to improve security and maintain privacy for judges and other court personnel, Chandler said.

And it is intended to keep out not just crazed intruders, but also some pushy attorneys who have been using the rear corridors as a convenient way to get to court or to buttonhole judges.

“It’s attorneys, yeah,” said Superior Court Judge Melinda A. Johnson, in explaining the need for the system. “It’s very seldom you see weird-looking people. It’s mostly people who cut through for convenience’ sake but really shouldn’t be back there.”

Johnson, the Superior Court’s assistant presiding judge, said it is not uncommon for attorneys to pop into a judge’s office unannounced.

“I don’t think they’re trying to subvert anything, but there’s a certain element of privacy we should have there,” she said. “If I wanted to talk to some attorney, I would go through his receptionist, not just walk into his office.”

John R. Smiley, assistant presiding judge in the Municipal Court, agreed that “a constant flow of people have access through a variety of means into my office.” For him, it is not a major concern, Smiley said.

“But different judges feel differently about that kind of exposure.”

When the fingerprint system begins operating in a few weeks, the old metal keys to the courts’ inner sanctum will become useless. So will the push-button code system that some workers use. All authorized court employees, from judges to janitors, will get in by placing a finger on an electronic device at one of 14 access points.

Each employee will also enter a four-digit number that will tell the computer which fingerprint to check in its files. If the employee’s print matches the file print, the door will unlock in a few seconds.

The Sheriff’s Department recommended the change after a security study found that an unknown number of keys had disappeared over the years, Chandler said.

“Every time you lose a key, the security system is compromised,” he said. “Over a long period, those keys get to be very expensive.”

And the push-button code system was compromised whenever someone gave away the code or allowed an unauthorized person to see it being entered, Chandler said. Changing the code periodically didn’t help.

“Word of mouth travels incredibly fast in this place,” Johnson said. “People knew the new code within six hours.”

About 500 employees will be enrolled in the system, Chandler said, including more than 30 permanent and visiting judges; 92 deputies assigned to courthouse security; more than 200 clerks and other office workers, and courthouse maintenance and custodial workers.

But the judges have denied access to two longtime courthouse employees: Dist. Atty. Bradbury and Public Defender Clayman.

“It’s their judicial pettiness showing through,” Bradbury said. “What else could it be?”

The district attorney and public defender park in the Hall of Justice’s secure underground garage and have long used the judges’ elevators to get to their offices. Under the new system, they will have to use a more distant elevator.

“You’d think the judges owned the courthouse,” Bradbury said. “Of course, they act like it most of the time. If they want to act childish, I guess I’ll just get more exercise.”

Bradbury blamed a small minority of the judges for denying him and Clayman access to the system.

“I think the majority of judges, in fairness to them, would not mind if we were in the system.”

Bradbury also questioned spending $89,000 on securing the judges’ offices instead of their courtrooms.

“This still leaves the courtrooms vulnerable to attack,” he said. “I would rather see that money being spent on securing the courtrooms and areas the public does have access to, instead of an area that is already pretty well protected.”

Clayman said he was not upset about being excluded from the new system, but called the expense “a colossal waste of money.”

“It’s hard to understand where we find $89,000 to spend on this when the county is in such dire straits,” he said. “Where do they get off?

“If the judges don’t want somebody back there, they should just post a note saying: ‘Don’t cut through.’ ”

But Clayman said many attorneys need access to the judges to get their work done.

“It seems to me that the greater evil is shutting out all these people who are the bread-and-butter of the system and need to be back there,” Clayman said. All the judges need to do is set some ground rules, he said.

Johnson said attorneys who need to see judges can go through their clerks and bailiffs, just as people who want to see Clayman and Bradbury have to go through their receptionists.

“Would they let judges freely roam around their offices?” she asked. “No government agency is run like that. I can’t imagine why judges should be different.”

She said the judges were divided on whether to give Bradbury and Clayman access to the system, and in the absence of a consensus the two were excluded.

“There was no intent to offend,” she said, adding that many others were also denied access.

As for spending $89,000 on the new system, Johnson said: “I think we blanched at the cost at first. It seems like a lot in this age when everyone is scrambling.”

She said the judges agreed, however, that in the long run, the new system would be cheaper than continually replacing keys and making other stopgap improvements.

Johnson said the judges are examining ways to make the courtrooms more secure. Part of the problem in bolstering security, she and others said, is the design of the Hall of Justice, which has several ground-floor entrances and connections to an adjacent building on the second and third floors.

As a result, there is no one funnel point where metal detectors could be set up, Chandler said.

Chandler said several uniformed deputies are assigned to each courtroom to provide security, and they use metal detectors randomly and when a particular case is considered likely to attract troublemakers.