April 1, 2011 Letters
Letters
Justice Reforms
The News ’ March 1 article, “Governor’s budget calls for cuts in court funding,” highlights the worry that Gov. Rick Scott’s proposed budget could cripple the courts, state attorneys, and public defenders. While there is legitimate concern that budget limitations could adversely affect citizens, this is also an opportunity to implement reforms to make the system more cost- effective.
You may assume that judges and attorneys working in the criminal justice system spend most of their time in trial. Such is not the case. We do not have a jury trial system; we have a plea bargain system.
In Brevard County, over 20,000 defendants were accused of a crime in 2010. These cases resulted in approximately 128 jury trials and 25 nonjury trials. With 14 judges doing mostly criminal dockets and 153 trials a year, each judge averages less than one trial per month. The time- consuming work was in more than 4,000 felony and 8,000 misdemeanor pleas and sentencings. Judges and attorneys also spend considerable time with violations of probation, bond hearings, docket soundings, arraignments, and a wide variety of other hearings.
The time spent on each of these hearings increases year-by-year, as new rules are enacted, making each hearing more complex. The increased time and effort needed never seems to be a consideration when a new rule is piled upon the existing rules.
For example, doing a plea and sentencing takes about twice as long as 20 years ago. The questions a court must ask a defendant get ever longer. A recent “improvement” requires each defendant, citizen or not, be informed that if he is not a citizen, entry of the plea may subject him to deportation. Courts and attorneys fuss over the speedy trial status of a case at every hearing. A simple rule change requiring any defendant wanting a speedy trial to file a demand would save much aggravation. Probation has adopted a zero tolerance policy that results in thousands of unnecessary violations of probation. Hire good probation officers and trust them to do their job.
These are a few of the many reforms that would ease the work load on judges, state attorneys, and public defenders and reduce the cost to taxpayers without detriment to the quality of justice.
Kenneth E. Rhoden
Cocoa
The Sky is Not Falling
I love reading the News. Thank you so much for publishing it. Every time my inferiority complex rears its ugly head all I have to do is read the pages of the News, and I start feeling a whole lot better.
I absolutely loved ABA President Steve Zack’s comments about the judiciary. That’s a great article. I especially liked the bit where our judicial system gets compared to Cuba. Now that is a gem. More lawsuits are filed every year in this country than in all the rest of the world combined. We are without doubt the most sue-happy people on the planet. We have this vast state and federal judicial system to accommodate every single thing, from a traffic ticket to first degree murder to copyright infringement to personal injury, you name it. All of it gets handled, eventually, and nobody gets shot in the street over what happens in court.
I don’t know how many of you agree with me, but we do not have “mob rule” in this country, and for the president of the largest and best known organization for lawyers in the country to suggest that our court system is the same as some Third World hellhole because it presently has some difficulties with funding is really remarkable.
Here’s my question to Mr. Zack: “Hey Steve, when you were coming over here from Cuba, how many southbound rafts did you see?” Oh, and then there’s this: “We cannot fight to establish the rule of law around the world and watch it jeopardized in this country. When 80 percent of poor people, mostly women and minorities, have no access to the court system, we do not have the rule of law.”
Will somebody tell me what that even means? I go to court every day. I’ve been going to court every day for the last 25 years. I don’t know how many millionaires I’ve seen in there, but it’s not too many. When I go to court, I see mostly women, poor people, and minorities in there. Where is this 80 percent coming from? Is he kidding? Nobody, in 25 years, has said to me, “Gee, I tried to get into court on this, but they turned me away because I live below the povery level, and I’m a minority.”
It gets better. How about this one: “Eighty percent” of Americans think the courts should be ruled by majority vote. Is there some empirical evidence somewhere that backs that up, or are we to accept it just because the president of the ABA says so? One thing’s for sure: If five justices on the Supreme Court or a majority of appellate judges in a court of appeal or state supreme court agree on a point of law, then they win. I guess the majority really does rule.
All I know is that our court system might have its funding issues right now (welcome to the private sector’s world), and having to appear in court is never good. But I can’t think of a place I’d rather have to face a judge than right here in this country, all the infirmities of our judiciary notwithstanding.
Ernie Mullins
Kissimmee
