Unavailability Simply Won’t Do
Relatives of murder victims Gertrude and Richard Mattausch left court disappointed last Tuesday.
They had expected to hear one of the defendants in the case plead guilty, part of a deal with the prosecuting attorney. Once before the judge, though, Cheyenne T. Brown changed his mind.
Criminal trials are full of surprises. The lives and calendars of lawyers, victims and witnesses are at the mercy of defendants’ whims and the complexities of the justice system.
It’s worse yet for the parties, lawyers and witnesses in civil lawsuits that routinely languish for want of a judge to hear them.
Because the Constitution promises every criminal defendant a speedy trial, criminal cases have priority on the courts’ docket. And today’s public insists on prosecuting criminals, so legislators and voters have toughened the law. Prosecutors make fewer deals; defendants resist more energetically. Consequently, criminal cases consume more court time and civil cases get pushed back, especially the less significant civil cases that don’t involve millions of dollars and require high-priced expert witnesses from out of town.
But those cases are plenty significant to the parties involved. The funds at stake are what they live on. Their lives are on hold while property settlements or adoptions inch toward finalization.
The delays pile up, month upon month, growing into years of stress, uncertainty and despair.
With 11 Superior Courts and five court commissioners, Spokane County has 16 of the 18.37 judicial officers that national standards suggest for a county of this size.
The Washington Legislature, which pays half the salary of Superior Court judges, has authorized Spokane County commissioners to create two additional courts.
Those courts aren’t cheap. The county would have to pay not only for the other half of the judges’ pay but also for the courtrooms and staff. But the courts are needed. A fundamental role of government is to referee disputes among honest citizens.
The public has made its preferences about lawbreakers clear. We want them arrested, tried and jailed. Insisting on those things implies a willingness to pay for police, courts, cells.
People who have civil conflicts to resolve shouldn’t be obliged to subsidize that cost even further by forgoing their own rights.
Stretching limited funds to cover important county programs is an unenviable chore that falls to the county commissioners. But justice, civil as well as criminal, should be among the top priorities.
, DataTimes The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Doug Floyd/For the editorial board