Litigation

Facing Budget Cuts, State Courts Struggle

By Peter Hardin

Shrinking court budgets are creating a severe backlog in states around the nation, and they’re impairing or threatening the delivery of impartial justice, leading jurists and lawyers told an ABA task force in Atlanta this week.

In Georgia, the eroding judicial budget and rising caseloads have led to a “tremendous backlog of cases that are not being addressed,” Georgia Chief Justice Carol Hunstein told the American Bar Association’s Task Force on Preservation of the Justice System, according to an Atlanta Journal-Constitution article. Justice Hunstein added:

“Without the court system, you jeopardize public safety. … This includes the backlog of civil cases. People need to have the opportunity to have their disputes resolved in a peaceful fashion, rather than taking their disputes to the streets.”

Civil trials were suspended in one Georgia judicial circuit. The courthouse doors are closed one day a month, due to furloughs, in some Georgia locations, the task force was told.

Other leaders who addressed the panel offered these warnings:

• ?Our courts today represent a dying tree,? said Oregon Supreme Court Chief Justice Paul De Muniz, according to an article from ABANow.org, a Web site of the ABA.
• State judiciaries are “at a crisis point,” cautioned Ted Olson, former solicitor general under President George W. Bush, and a co-chair of the task force.
• ?The courts are in a footrace to remain relevant in public life, and they are losing the race in New Hampshire,? said New Hampshire Supreme Court Chief Justice John Broderick Jr. He halted  civil jury trials in his state to save money.

The ABANow.org article provided this summary on the vast dimensions of the challenges facing state courts, given shrinking budgets:

“Courts across the country face serious cutbacks as 46 states deal with budget shortfalls, according to the National Center for State Courts.  While states are struggling to reduce their outlays, courts are struggling to fulfill their constitutional responsibilities despite years of diminishing resources.”

Chief Justice Hunstein of Georgia described as “miniscule” her court’s budget, which represents nine-tenths of one percent of the whole state budget. And David Boies, a co-chair of the task force, discussed the impact on people getting access to justice. He remarked that ?people who used to have access to the justice system? simply can?t afford the system right now.?

The National Center for State Courts and the American Bar Association are partners of Justice at Stake. The NCSC?s online ?Budget Resource Center,? which includes a series of national maps depicting which states have taken which cost-saving actions, is available by clicking here.

Full post as published by The Gavel on February 10, 2011 (boomark / email).