CHIEF JUSTICE PEGGY QUINCE, left, attended the third Criminal Law Section organized budget summit meeting in Tallahassee, saying it’s important for public safety agencies, including police, corrections, and others, not to fight over the same dollars but convince legislators that they all need more funds to cope with increasing demands. Hank Coxe from Jacksonville, right, chaired the event.

‘Our main goal . . . is to find a way to stabilize the funding situation’

By Gary Blankenship
Senior Editor

Florida courts are continuing to have increasing difficulty because of a lack of funds, while support is building among the business community for better court funding.

Those were two among many points made at the third court budget summit held by the Bar’s Criminal Law Section in Tallahassee October 23.

The seriousness of the problem was underscored by the attendance of Chief Justice Peggy Quince, who brought both cautionary and encouraging words.

Saying she was there as an observer hoping to glean some ideas, Quince said it’s important for public safety agencies, including police, corrections, and others, not to fight over the same dollars but convince legislators that they all need more funds to cope with increasing demands. She added that particularly in hard economic times demand for court services increases — from higher crime, more domestic violence cases, and more civil filings such as foreclosures and business cases and public safety services.

“We need all the resources we can gather to take care of these situations,” Quince told the gathering. “We are here to find out what we can all do . . . collectively to make sure we can take care of our constitutional responsibilities.

“We have been going round and round trying to figure out how we can find some money for all of us. I was hoping collectively we could come up with some ideas for that.”

The meeting included representatives from public defenders, state attorneys, the Department of Corrections, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, the Department of Juvenile Justice, the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles, the Office of the State Courts Administrator, the Criminal Law Section, and the Trial Lawyers Section.

Former state Sen. Rod Smith, hired by the Criminal Law Section to help push for more criminal justice system funding, discussed frequently mentioned funding options.

“Everyone seems to say we want one of two things: either a dedicated source of funding or a fixed percentage of the [state] budget,” he said. “From my perspective, the idea of a branch of government having a percentage of the budget makes more sense than having dedicated funding.”

The reason, Smith added, is there is no effective way to make the criminal justice system self-funding, particularly operations like state attorneys and public defenders. He said legislators and others will come up with various fees and charges that on paper will seem to provide enough money, but in the real world won’t work.

“The criminal justice system is not going to self-sustain; that’s not going to happen,” he said, adding the problem is even harder in smaller counties with fewer cases.

Another problem is if more funding does come from a dedicated source that is put into a trust fund for the justice system, the Legislature may simply reduce general revenues allocated to the third branch by an identical amount, he said. The Legislature can also simply raid the trust fund, as it has other trust funds in recent years as general revenues fell.

That leaves getting a fixed percentage of the overall state budget and “the answer is plainly the Legislature is never going to designate dollars in that fashion. If that’s going to happen, that is something that will have to be imposed from the outside,” Smith said.

Quince asked if that meant an initiative petition for a constitutional amendment, and Smith noted that has its own problem. He and others noted that wouldn’t completely insulate the courts because the overall state budget would still fluctuate up and down.

Steve Metz, the Bar’s chief legislative counsel, said he’s been working to assemble a coalition of groups, including business interests, to support improved court funding. As part of that, he said the Bar is negotiating with a consulting company for an analysis on how the business community is affected by an inadequately funded court system.

He said the Bar is also working on a strategy for members of the coalition to talk with legislative leaders in both chambers, as well as rank-and-file members to build support for better court funding.

Bar General Counsel Paul Hill noted the Bar will have a gathering at the Midyear Meeting to go over the court funding crisis, and is also setting up a section on its Web site for Bar members to relate how the financial crunch is affecting their ability to use the courts.

Several participants at the meeting talked about strains on the legal system, noting cuts for the past two years have totaled about $100 million for the courts, state attorneys, and public defenders.

State Courts Administrator Lisa Goodner noted the court has cut around 280 positions, about half vacant and about half from layoffs. That includes all traffic court hearing officers, and several magistrates, court administrators, case managers, and law clerks, which helped cases move through the system, she said. District courts of appeal have been so hard hit they’ve had to reduce their hours.

Her office has identified about $250 million of fees, charges, and other funds that are raised from the court system, but are not returned to help finance the courts, Goodner said.

“Our main goal at this point is to find a way to stabilize the funding situation for the court system,” she said. “We have a lot of irons in the fire.”

Asked by former Bar President Hank Coxe, who chaired the summit meeting, if she had any specifics, Goodner said, “I can’t answer that question at this point. We’ve spent a lot of time trying to determine what those possibilities are.”

Smith, a former prosecutor, said he’s heard state attorneys talk about being forced to put lesser experienced attorneys in charge of complex and serious cases because experienced prosecutors are leaving. The result, he said, is more errors which lead to appeals and retrials, further stretching already limited resources.

“We are creating our own nightmare in the system by making mistakes,” Smith said. “The system will get worse. It will mechanically get worse if we don’t have the personnel to keep [mistakes] from occurring and ironically creating more work.”

He also warned that he’s had conversations with some state attorneys, whom he characterized as “some of the toughest advocates in the state,” and they are privately saying they may stop prosecuting certain types of cases because they lack the resources.

“It’s not going to be the official policy, but it’s going to be the unofficial policy,” Smith said.

Eighth Circuit Public Defender Rick Parker said defenders aren’t faring any better.

“We are struggling to provide even minimally acceptable services to the clients who are assigned to us,” he said.

Glenn Burton, chair-elect of the Trial Lawyers Section, said civil lawyers are seeing the slowdown because criminal trials have priority with the courts, both at the trial and appellate levels.

“If you want an appeal heard on a mortgage foreclosure, you may get that in a year, you may not,” he said.

Earlier this year, the section supported legislation raising filing fees, fines, and other court-related charges, with the idea it would help with court funding, Burton said. But then much of that money was diverted from court-related uses.

“The Trial Lawyers Section, as we sit at the table, has one motive and that is access to the courts,” Burton said. “We think they are not being kept as open as they should be.”

Mark Zadra, assistant commissioner for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, noted that legislators face demands from all parts of the budget, but said those involved in the criminal justice system have to keep emphasizing: “From a public safety standpoint, if we’re not safe, does anything else really matter?”

Summit participants discussed whether they should take any immediate action or positions, but decided to wait. Chief Justice Quince noted there are two upcoming events that will have a major impact on public safety funding. The first is the November 4 general election, which will determine the final makeup of the state House and Senate, and the second is an updated revenue estimating conference early in December, which will provide the latest projects on the state’s expected income.

“I think we’ll have a better idea once the election is over and once the revenue estimating conference is done,” Quince said.

Depending on that conference, the new Legislature could have a special session in January to further reduce the state’s 2008-09 budget, participants noted.

Quince noted she’s met with legislative leaders to discuss the funding difficulties for the court system.

“They seem to be listening and understanding that this is really a bad time for all these cuts,” she said.

“There are some special issues that are facing the court system and the justice system, and it’s not a real good time to be making drastic cuts.”

The next meeting for the summit is tentatively scheduled for November 20.