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Sunday, February 22, 2009

Courts - Minnesota: "Showdown could leave our courts in chaos"

This ILB entry from Sept. 5th, 2008, headed "Commission on Courts discussion of judicial mandates," included this quote about the tension between Indiana's county judges and county councils over funding local court expenses:

The CJ observed that currently a lot of local court costs are paid by fees. And the State pays a share. But the county remains the place of last resort. If the State were paying for all the costs of the courts, the CJ said, this tension would go away. He said it was his view that this is where we ought to go. The whole mandate problem arises from financing; if the legislature were to move in the direction of HEA 1001, the mandate problem would be ameliorated.
In a follow-up ILB entry the next day, I concluded:
In the end, if a similar effort to move to state funding is successful, rather than local judges submitting their budgets to county councils, local judges' recourse would become the Division of State Court Administration. And the potential for a judicial funding mandate would be elevated to the State level -- as the Supreme Court would be submitting its state-wide judicial budget to the General Assembly.
It was that last sentence that came to mind today when I read this story by Patricia Lopez in the Minneapolis-St. Paul StarTribune. Some quotes:
Just seven months into the job, [Supreme Court Chief Justice Eric Magnuson ] is facing off against the man who appointed him, Gov. Tim Pawlenty, over budget cuts.

The clash could be titanic.

Pawlenty proposes a budget, and the Legislature appropriates funds. But Magnuson decides how the court system's money gets spent.

If another budget cut of 5 percent or more comes down, Magnuson will recommend dramatic action -- shutting down conciliation court, cutting hours and suspending prosecution of 21 types of cases, including property damage, harassment, probate, and more than 1 million traffic and parking cases a year.

That last step could interrupt a $200 million flow to local governments.

Magnuson said that shutting down traffic cases is no small move, "but we're running out of choices here, and I will not compromise the prosecution of criminal cases."

What happens when truants, runaways, small-time shoplifters and trespassers realize they won't be brought to court? "That will be a real problem," Magnuson said calmly. "That will be the erosion of the rule of law. That will be the tear in the fabric of society that I'm trying to warn people about." * * *

Magnuson says the courts have streamlined and now are starting to erode. Trial dates are pushed further out. Public counters are closed on some mornings. Jurors who once were paid $30 per day of duty now get $10 -- barely enough to cover parking in Minneapolis.

The courts, Magnuson said, have reached a tipping point where the focus must shift to preserving resources for criminal trials.

"We don't have the option of doing some things less well," he said. Under Pawlenty's recommendations, the courts, with a two-year budget of roughly $103 million in 2008-09, would get $6 million less in the 2010-11 budget period at a time when caseloads and expenses are rising.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on February 22, 2009 12:35 PM
Posted to Courts in general