Strib reports the dire things said, if the Courts do not get their cash - justice held hostage, not in so few words, but you decide:As Gov. Pawlenty looks to cut budgets, the chief justice he appointed is playing hardball over the justice system's future.
By PATRICIA LOPEZ, Star Tribune, Feb. 21, 2009
Supreme Court Chief Justice Eric Magnuson bundled into his car on a recent bitter Sunday, set his satellite radio to a favorite old-time radio serial about a crusading insurance investigator, Johnny Dollar, and headed for Moorhead.
There, he would embark on his own crusade to save Minnesota's justice system as he knows it.
Just seven months into the job, Magnuson is facing off against the man who appointed him, Gov. Tim Pawlenty, over budget cuts.
The clash could be titanic.
Pawlenty proposes a budget, and the Legislature appropriates funds. But Magnuson decides how the court system's money gets spent.
If another budget cut of 5 percent or more comes down, Magnuson will recommend dramatic action -- shutting down conciliation court, cutting hours and suspending prosecution of 21 types of cases, including property damage, harassment, probate, and more than 1 million traffic and parking cases a year.
That last step could interrupt a $200 million flow to local governments.
Magnuson said that shutting down traffic cases is no small move, "but we're running out of choices here, and I will not compromise the prosecution of criminal cases."
What happens when truants, runaways, small-time shoplifters and trespassers realize they won't be brought to court? "That will be a real problem," Magnuson said calmly. "That will be the erosion of the rule of law. That will be the tear in the fabric of society that I'm trying to warn people about."
There's more to the Strib article, read it all here, but that huff-and-puff-and-blow-the-rule-of-law-down diatribe is a plain disgrace. Shameful and false.
The truth is, any simple civil motion gets put onto the calendar, is heard, and taken "under advisement." It can be sat on for ninety days. Some judges move paper quicker than others. Some opinions - you get a decision and an opinion - are helpful, others are thrown together by the law clerks, and often ill-reasoned.
That's Minnesota practice. The most major motion, one for summary judgment where the trial "day in Court" can be forestalled on points of law - those an appellate court will review de novo - new on the law and the record the trial judge had, without deference to the legal reasoning of the opinion the lower court issued.
So why bother?
Streamline it.
In King County, Washington, mainly Seattle and the East side of Lake Washington, and other Washington State courts, the practice was to have a motions calendar, be heard by a judge who'd had and read the paperwork in advance, and then you'd get a ruling that day, and an order signed; no opinion involved to clutter things and waste time.
Less trial court level work, for the same result, a decision well or ill-reasoned, but a decision on a point at issue so that then the litigating sides can move on.
That simplification, and truly severe sanctions for the discovery games lawyers play, each milking a separate cash cow on each side; and where the judges, lawyers themselves, play along and do not put teeth in what the discovery rules say the lawyers should do without any motion needed - honestly and forthrightly respond to discovery requests and interrogatories in good faith and sensibly, and in reasonably expected detail, not evasively with much quibbling over wording as if holding a poker hand under a hat.
There are no real secrets to positions in litigation, facts are to be discovered honorably when not known, but doing otherwise consumes court time, looks impressive to the clients, and is billed impressively.
Kabuki theater, which Wikipedia characterizes as "highly stylised classical Japanese dance-drama" has its fans too.
Trim the fat. Streamline. But don't threaten to cut essential services. Throwing a snit-fit is unimpressive. Dire forcasting can be insincere. Putting public service duty on hold if you do not get your way, what does that say?
Do more, with less time consumed on window-dressing motions taken "under advisement," and without all that other stuff; and then the unwholsome set of scenarios Justice Magnuson dared to try to market to an unsophisticated public can be avoided.
Let judges judge.
Let the politicians in the legislature play "chicken" on the budget.
There's no place for unseemly brinksmanship out of our top State Court, the one we should respect implicitly and explicitly because of its stature, AND because the conduct seen by us from those on that bench earns our respect.
photo from STRIB