Panhandle Judges Busiest In State District Court System Flooded; Supreme Court To Seek Help
It’s been 16 years since North Idaho was given an additional district court judge.
Since that time, the number of criminal cases filed each year has almost quadrupled. It often takes well over a year for many civil cases to get to trial. And North Idaho judges now carry the heaviest case loads of any in the state.
“We’re really getting to the point of crisis in the first district,” said Judge James Michaud. “We’ve passed the number of cases that any one district judge should reasonably be expected to handle.”
And nearly 20 percent of North Idaho’s district court cases now take longer to get through the system than Idaho Supreme Court guidelines say they should.
The Supreme Court hopes to fix that in the next legislative session. The court will ask state lawmakers for two new district court judges - one for North Idaho and one for the Boise area, Chief Justice Chas F. McDevitt said Tuesday.
“Our district judges are more stressed than they have ever been before,” Supreme Court Justice Byron Johnson said during an interview Tuesday.
Four district court judges are currently assigned to the five northern counties. Among other duties, district judges decide cases involving the most serious crimes and the largest civil lawsuits.
The Supreme Court anticipates about 2,293 cases will have been filed in first district court by the time 1996 comes to an end. That’s more than twice the 1,040 cases filed in 1979 - the last time an additional judge was approved for North Idaho.
“The real problem is, just keeping up with everything that is coming in,” said 1st District Judge James Judd. “There’s just more to get done than you can get done.”
“It’s like the criminal justice system is expanding at the bottom and … we’re just trying to force more and more and more through the small neck of the bottle up at the district court judges,” said Lansing Haynes, Kootenai County chief deputy prosecutor. “They’re at their wits’ end on how to manage it.”
It should take no more than 540 days from the time a civil case is filed in district court until it gets through a trial, according to standards set by the Idaho Supreme Court. A felony criminal case should take no more than 150 days. But the crush of cases and lack of judges makes that impossible.
Michaud said 18 percent of his civil cases and 17 percent of his criminal cases surpassed those time standards. Judge Gary Haman reports similar problems with 22 percent of his civil cases and 19 percent of his criminal cases.
Judd said it’s especially difficult to get civil cases to trial. Criminal cases - as ordered by law - always take precedence on the judges’ schedules. Judd sets civil trials a year out. But by the time the trial date comes up, the civil case usually has to be bumped by a pressing criminal case.
“Civil cases get put back and put back and put back,” McDevitt said.
“There’s an old saw, ‘Justice delayed is justice denied,”’ Johnson said. “Whatever truth there is in that is being proven month by month, year by year as we wait for these cases to be resolved.”
The work load is wearing not only on the justice system, but on the judges who feel the pressure.
McDevitt said many judges are not taking their vacation time. “They feel too responsible for their case loads,” Johnson said.
The Supreme Court asked the Legislature for three new judges last year but got only one for the Third District.
Should the Legislature approve the Supreme Court’s request, the new judge will sit in Kootenai County. In 1995, 65 percent of the 1,223 criminal cases filed in the five northern counties were filed in Kootenai County district court.
It costs about $140,000 a year for an additional district judge. That money pays for the judge’s salary, a court reporter’s salary and other items the judge will need.
The Supreme Court believes the cost is well worth it. After all, “The judges are the cornerstone of the system,” Johnson said.
, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Graphic: Criminal and court cases increase