JOE PYRAH - Daily Herald | Posted: Tuesday, September 4, 2007 11:00 pm
Utah County is spending an additional $1 million this year on court-related costs, and the County Commission has had to delay projects to cover the new expenses.
Commissioners voted Tuesday to spend $120,000 on three new public defenders, but it was not to ease caseload. Instead, they say, it's to handle the way 4th District judges are handling cases.
About a year ago, judges in the 4th District began changing the way they handle cases. Instead of being lumped into one of three divisions -- civil, criminal or municipal -- the judges are now handling a mix of all three.
The reasons for the change are twofold, said Derek Pullan, presiding judge for the 4th District:
When judges transferred to another division, they would leave uncompleted cases behind. Judges coming in to a division would have to get up to speed on cases that may have been grinding away for years.
The concentration of criminal cases had reached "unmanageable" levels.
"The quality of justice that was rendered in that environment needed to be improved," he said. "Dramatically."
For example, the law and motion calendar, which is when motions and special arguments are heard, was held three times a week. Now each judge has a law and motion calendar each week, totaling nine.
While that can mean more time for judges to spend on each case, it also means prosecutors, defense attorneys and the sheriff's office have to staff three times the previous number of calendars.
"It's not just a function of how many cases, it's a function of how many places you can be," said Utah County Attorney Jeff Buhman.
Buhman agrees that caseloads for judges, especially in the law and motion calendar, were getting pretty heavy.
"The pace of the courtroom was almost frenetic sometimes. We agreed they needed to change that," he said. But he would have preferred simply adding one more calendar instead of the wholesale changes.
Buhman's office hired two new attorneys this year to handle the changes, and so far so good. But Utah County Commissioner Gary Anderson said the need for that kind of additional cost and manpower is unwarranted.
"It's certainly not more efficient for county attorneys, public defenders and the sheriffs," said Anderson, who has been both a prosecutor and defense attorney.
The sheriff's office is looking at an additional $400,000 in transportation costs, mostly tied to the new system, said Sheriff Jim Tracy. Deputies are making more trips to the district courthouse in American Fork, and trips to Provo now require bigger vans because more judges are handling arraignments.
"That's not a minimal thing," he said.
There is also a looming problem tied to Provo city, which has handled the district court's more than 500 class A misdemeanor cases for years. Because those cases are now spread over nine calendars instead of one place at one time, Provo officials have said they can't afford to do it anymore.
"With various judges with various times on their various calendars, we have to have people who would have to sit there and wait," said Provo Mayor Lewis Billings.
The additional cost to the county for handling the misdemeanor cases alone will be about $500,000, Anderson said.
Having class A misdemeanors handled by district court personnel isn't necessarily a bad thing, said Richard Gale, assistant director of the Utah County Public Defender Association.
"Frankly, I prefer to have cases in district court," he said. That's because the district court is a court of record and requires law-trained judges.
"Maybe in the long run it is the most efficient manner to take care of it," he said. "It just hurts now."
Hurting now means the County Commission has to delay capitol projects this year to pay for court costs. How to pay for next year and beyond is still in question. The commission isn't likely to pass a tax increase, which means the money will come from current programs.
Commissioner Steve White said a million dollars covers the cost of the county's chip sealing and asphalt patching budget, as well as special road projects each year.
"What is it the judges would not want us to dofi" he said. "Just because we want an independent judiciary and impartial juries doesn't mean we want to throw away a million dollars a year."
This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page B1.