‘The public is angry. Very angry’

By Mark D. Killian
Managing Editor

“People used to say that justice delayed was justice denied. Now they say that justice delayed is exactly what we expect.”

That’s the message Tanner Andrews of DeLand left on the bulletin board created on the Bar’s Web site where Florida lawyers are being asked to leave accounts of how the state court system budget crisis is affecting their ability to have cases heard and disputes resolved.

“Have you tried to get hearing time recently?” Andrews asked. “The courts are buried in cases, and while the judges are making valiant efforts to move them, the sheer numbers are overwhelming.”

Lawmakers slashed court spending by $44 million in the last two years, resulting in the loss of 280 positions out of the judiciary’s 3,100-member workforce. Now faced with an additional $2 billion shortfall, lawmakers are contemplating more cuts to plug that hole in the state budget. Looking for ways to bolster grassroots support for putting the court system on fiscally sound footing, the Bar’s Judicial Independence Committee created the online bulletin board to get a feel for how the budget losses are impacting the everyday practice of law.

 Appellate practitioner Dorothy Easley of Miami wrote that staffing shortages are taking a toll on the courts’ ability to process cases. For instance, she said, some files have gone missing in their entirety because the trimmed workforce is not available to locate them.

“The documents, though filed, did not make it into the court file and, were it not for stamped copies and the agreement of opposing counsel, they would be recorded as never having been filed,” said Easley, adding information requests are impossible to obtain and the citizens can spend hours “making call after call” to obtain court information on where to file and how to file documents.

“In the final analysis, attorneys are resourceful and will find ways to struggle through this quagmire. Florida citizens cannot,” Easley said.

Stephen Cobb of Crestview put it more bluntly: “The public is angry. Very angry.

“Witnesses, crime victims, law enforcement officers, defendants, and casual observers wait in long lines outside of crowded courtrooms,” Cobb wrote, noting it is becoming more difficult for the public to get in touch with the offices of the state attorney, public defender, clerk, or judges.

“As people are losing faith in the legal system, we see and hear of more and more cases where people are resorting to ‘self help’ when they are unable to redress their grievances,” Cobb said. “Why call the cops if you believe ‘nothing will happen to protect my family’ and you can’t get anyone to help you? So, ‘John Doe’ is much more likely to go over to confront ‘Jack Doe’ about a domestic violence action involving his sister. Another case pops up with a battery charge (or worse) simply because overworked staff in the state attorney’s office, the clerk’s office, and all of the other offices cannot keep up with the caseload.”

Cobb said court productivity “is at the lowest level I have seen since becoming a member of the Bar in 1989.”

John W. Boelke of Mims said the increase in filing fees has negatively affected citizens’ access to the courts.

“Clients have decided not to file due to the cost of filing and when they do, it takes longer for them to get to trial or even initial hearings,” Boelke said. “Defendants have become bolder as they know it is too expensive to file and it may take years for anything to be heard.”

Karen A. Myatt of Ft. Lauderdale laments that cuts to court budgets and staff have slowed the pace of the courts to the point where “nothing is treated as an emergency.

“[H]omes are being foreclosed upon; children are being hurt and alienated; and the parties are losing hope and faith in the system,” Myatt said. “The system is used as another method by which one spouse controls and negatively impacts the life of another, using time between hearings as a torture test. The system appears to be completely broken.”

Myatt said in order to just keep up with the ever-increasing caseloads, judges are plowing through their dockets at breakneck speeds.

“They yell. They have become less patient,” Myatt said. “Consistency and stability is a thing of the past. From one week to the next, I do not know what to expect from judges, some of whom I have known for years. I try to keep my clients out of court.”

As a result, she said, judges’ oral and written work is suffering, leaving attorneys to do more cleanup — revising the simplest of child support guidelines, pointing out omissions and errors, and having to use court time to fix errors.

“This means that in addition to being slower, the system is even more expensive,” Myatt said. “The stress is unrelenting on the court, its staff, the parties, and their children. I have no good answers for my clients.”

Judge Barry Stone of the Fourth District Court of Appeal warned that the next round of cuts is likely to force further curtailing of law clerks at the appellate level, which will result in diminished legal research, backlogs, and delays.

Charles Joseph F. Schreiber, Jr., of Tallahassee said increasing court funding now is essential to control expenses later.

“If the state funds upgrades to technology to interconnect the entire state court system and place court files online with appropriate redaction rules for parties and lawyers, it will reduce costs over time, reduce labor, increase law enforcement access and thus law enforcement, and expedite resolution of criminal and civil docket loads,” Schreiber said.

Douglas Linn Wilson of Naples wrote the justice system is one of the most important functions of good government.

“For it to be undermined by fiscal neglect is as bad as if our enemies were blowing up courthouses,” Wilson said. “Justice is not just another government service. Like the election process, it is one of the cornerstones of our liberty. If it is undermined, the liberty and the rights of everyone are undermined.”

Easley said the court system “currently is not even at a McJustice drive-through quality.

“It is unfortunate that our other two branches fail to understand that the heart of our democracy is the rule of law and, as such, an unmaintained and underfunded legal system erodes the very foundation on which we stand,” Easley said.

Not everybody is concerned about reducing the courts’ budgets.

“During the preceding good economic times, the Florida courts, like other local governmental departments, jumped on the tax-surplus bandwagon and developed bloated budgets that resulted in over-hiring, waste, and bad management,” said Mark Terry of Miami, adding that instead of using the additional tax monies to refine and better manage the jurisprudential process, the courts padded their budgets with unnecessary items and threw financial resources at unneeded new hires.

“Restricting the Florida courts to their current budgets will force them to undertake a much-needed reengineering, including, among other things, the firing of incompetent staff, a hierarchical reorganization, and the trimming of excess fat,” Terry said. “Appeasing the Florida courts with an increased budget will only worsen the situation. The courts can do their job just fine with the resources they have, if we simply force them to.”

Here is a sampling of other comments left on the Bar’s bulletin board:

• “It typically takes months to schedule a hearing on a motion before a judge or general magistrate in Broward County and then it takes considerable time to get an order on the motion. We understand that there will be cutbacks in the number of general magistrates, which will lead to further delay or cause the parties who can afford it to pay for the services of a special master.” — Frank Morreale, Jacksonville

• “In Miami-Dade, half of the probate staff is gone, which means that a case that used to take a maximum of two weeks to process and issue letters of administration is now taking almost a month and a half to begin.” — Javier Banos, Miami

• “Judges are consistently reporting a backlog in civil divisions due to the foreclosure crisis that is affecting docketing of other matters. This is verified by the volume of cases and dramatic increase documented by clerks’ offices. More judges were needed before this crisis ensued. Delays resulting from this are really the equivalent of hindering access to the courts.” — Lawrence Kolin, Orlando

• “We are falling behind in our ability to comply with the federal funding timetable requirements for the handling of dependent and abused children cases.” — Louis D. Lazaro, Attorney General’s Office, Tampa.

• “[B]ecause the civil dockets are being jammed with foreclosures, trying to get hearings or trial dates for other civil cases is being pushed three to four months out for a simple half-hour hearing.” — Mark C. Mann, Brandon

• “Frankly, it is time to sue the Florida Legislature to force proper funding as the continued increases in costs and delays in having cases heard makes a mockery of our judicial system and creates animosity toward it by ordinary citizens who do not understand how the Legislature’s continued cutting of funds has caused these huge backloads of cases.” — Terry A. Slusher, Ft. Pierce