Drugs fuel increase in court cases

BOISE – The state’s legal caseload kept growing last year, when appeals filed with the Idaho Supreme Court numbered more than 1,000 for the first time – an increase of 6.6 percent over 2004, according to the high court’s recently released annual report.

District courts also logged record highs last year, with 20,683 cases filed, up nearly 30 percent from 1995. Part of the increase can be blamed on the state’s ever-increasing drug problem, officials said.

“The number of drug cases filed is where we have seen the most significant increase, and the judges would attribute that to meth production, use and addiction,” said Patti Tobias, administrative director of the courts. “The increase in criminal cases overall is fueled by methamphetamine.”

Last year more than 4,700 felony drug cases were filed, up from fewer than 1,500 in 1995. The 2005 number was more than 6 percent higher than the 2004 number, according to the report.

Juvenile cases also increased for the second year in a row, with nearly 13,000 cases filed last year, a 1.3 percent increase over 2004.

That’s because the methamphetamine epidemic is affecting the state’s youth, Tobias said, with magistrate judges seeing more teens struggling with meth addiction and abuse than in previous years.

The increases prompted Chief Justice Gerald Schroeder to ask lawmakers earlier this year to add more judges and increase salaries for those on the bench. They were the first such requests from a chief justice in eight years, Tobias said, and lawmakers took note, approving the addition of six new judges.

The Legislature also increased judges’ salaries and provided continued support for the state’s alternative court programs, such as drug and mental health programs and family courts.

“Just a few years ago we didn’t really have any family court services, and we served almost 75,000 people last year. That really is astounding,” Tobias said. “The Legislature recognized the additional caseloads by not only adding the new judgeships but by fully funding the senior judges, and we’re very appreciative of that.”

Not all criminal and civil case categories saw an increase last year, however. Small claims dropped slightly, as did petitions for domestic protection orders, also called restraining orders, according to the report.

Tobias said that may show that intervention programs offered at the community level are working. She said that would be difficult to determine without measuring the trend over a longer period.