Talking Points
- States are experiencing their worst budget crises since the Depression. Essential services such as health care, education and law enforcement, are being subject to deep cuts. At this time, funding for our state courts is particularly at risk.
- Courts are an essential function of state governments. They enforce the rule of law, upon which our social and economic relationships are based. The judiciary is not another state agency - it is an independent, co-equal branch of government.
- Cuts in court funding have resulted in:
- Closings of courtrooms - and entire courthouses in some states - and shortened hours of operations
- Increased filing fees
- Elimination of key court staff - including probation officers, security personnel, court interpreters, clerks, and legal counsel for indigent defendants
- routes to alternative justice, such as drug courts and mediation programs, being greatly circumscribed or eliminated
- in at least one jurisdiction—Oregon—civil jury trials have been delayed indefinitely.
- The real outcome is restricted access to justice.
- The funding crisis exerts a disproportionate impact on the judicial system. In Justice in Jeopardy, The American Bar Association Commission on the 21st Century Judiciary reports that state courts on average receive only about 1.5 percent of states' budgets. Any reductions to funding are immediately felt.
- High-volume courts (those that hear family and juvenile matters, misdemeanors and small claims disputes) are experiencing the brunt of budget cuts. These courts serve the most vulnerable in our communities: battered women, abused and neglected children, and victims of vandalism and theft.
- The civil justice system is threatened. Under speedy trial rules,
courts that are forced to hear criminal cases before civil matters may
never get to the civil matters, or not any time soon. Such a breakdown
in the civil justice system harms all of us.
- Individuals cannot look to the courts for redress of wrongs or protection of rights
- Economic growth and stable business relationships are endangered when contracts can't be enforced or lawsuits defended against
- The ABA Commission recommended that minimum funding standards for
judicial systems be established to isolate the core functions a judicial
system must perform and the critical services it must provide, which
states can then use as a guide when determining funding allocations.
