Dear colleagues:
Florida’s justice system needs your help.
In 1998, the voters of Florida approved a constitutional amendment to Article V, which calls for a shift in funding of a substantial part of our trial court costs from the county level to the State. The amendment was essentially intended to ensure that the quality of justice in Florida not depend upon whether you were in a property poor county or a property rich county, and that a state court system be uniformly state funded.
While the amendment provided six years for implementation, the deadline for implementing this sweeping change is now only a year away on July 1, 2004. Importantly, the manner in which this transition will take place and the trial court responsibilities that the State will fund will be determined in this 2003 legislative session. The future of Florida’s trial courts will be determined in this session.
You will be proud to know that the judicial branch has been hard at work on this issue since November 1998. Essentially, we have placed the responsibility for planning this transition with the trial judges of Florida who have performed magnificently. Formally, this Court created the Trial Court Budget Commission, presently led by Judge Susan Schaeffer as chair and Judge Stan Morris as vice chair. Florida’s trial judges have, and continue to work exhaustively to identify every penny spent by the courts and every source of revenue used. Those same judges have come up with an excellent scheme that has been presented to the Legislature that would both carry out the intent of Revision 7, and maintain the operations of our trial courts throughout Florida at present levels.
As your Chief Justice, I must call upon you, the lawyers of Florida, as the front line guardians of our justice system, to act as our Legislature convenes in Tallahassee. Our elected representatives need to hear firsthand from those most familiar with the important work being done by Florida’s trial judges. Everyone in Florida will be impacted, and especially those who depend upon state courts for justice and the redress of wrongs you, your clients, your neighbors, your communities. That is why it is crucial for you, as officers of the courts and caretakers of Florida’s justice system, to make sure your voices are heard on this issue: to make sure your legislators and community leaders understand what is at stake.
Our state trial courts need your help as we face the most difficult, and potentially devastating, change in Florida’s justice system that I have seen in my 65 years. As we all know, the rosy economy of 1998 is now gone and our state is straining to meet all the demands placed upon it. There is grave danger that competition for state revenue will prove so fierce that our trial courts will be short-changed in enacting a funding scheme for their future.
Our courts affect the lives of all Floridians in countless important ways but three in particular:
First and foremost, state courts handle about one million criminal cases a year. Our criminal courts help ensure the safety of Floridians by identifying offenders while also protecting individual rights. The criminal justice system is particularly vulnerable because our criminal trial courts maintain a fragile balance in processing a huge caseload. Any interruption could be devastating.
Second, Florida courts process about half a million cases a year involving children and families. Perhaps no other single category of cases has more potential to affect the future of our society in a positive and meaningful way than cases involving children and families. Again, interruption of this fragile system could set us back decades.
Third, and most numerous, civil law cases involving businesses and individual personal interests come into Florida’s courts at a volume of about 1.2 million per year. These include everything from complex civil lawsuits to everyday property disputes, small claims and landlord-tenant problems. Civil courts are vital for the smooth operation of the businesses that form our economy’s foundation and for the redress of wrongs done to our citizens. Imagine what would happen if we go from our present system of prompt resolution of these disputes to a system that takes many years before a case even goes to trial.
The conclusion is clear: If the fundamental services the courts provide are jeopardized, it will diminish the protection afforded to everyone by the rule of law that our courts guarantee. And that includes businesses, families, and the victims of crimes. Consider what has happened when courts in other states have faced the loss of adequate funding. Actions planned or undertaken include deferring small claims and minor criminal cases in Oregon, reducing courthouse hours in Colorado, closing specific courthouses in Washington and suspending jury trials for periods of several weeks in New Hampshire and Alabama.
During this funding transition, Florida’s courts are essentially asking only to maintain their current level of operations. The statistics show that Florida’s state courts are efficient stewards, doing more with less and operating at lower judge-to-resident ratios than most other states.
Each of you knows from your daily experiences that our courts are amazingly efficient even with the limited resources now provided. Florida trial judges handle about 31 percent more filings per year than the national average, and for every 100,000 state residents, there are only 3.1 general jurisdiction judges, compared with a national average of about 3.5.
Since Sept. 11, 2001, there has been a renewed focus on America’s fundamental values and the institutions uniquely established by our founding fathers to protect those values. Of course, the Rule of Law is right at the top of those values. For many, the Rule of Law is an abstraction, but we in the justice system know it is no abstraction, and we know that hundreds of thousands of our brave heroes have not sacrificed their lives in foreign wars for an abstraction. The essential fact is that more than 95 percent of judicial activity in this country takes place in the state courts. In other words, the Rule of Law is what takes place in Florida’s county courthouses every day. Let us act to protect that Rule of Law.
I am confident that our dedicated public servants in the Legislature will come through in the end, but only if you speak out. For that reason, I personally call on each of you to come to the defense of Florida’s justice system and contact your legislators, your community leaders, and clients about the issues at stake, and to assist your local Chief Judge and judges in their efforts to maintain this country’s finest, and most efficient, trial court system.
The time to act is now, for the Rule of Law and the quality of justice in Florida is at stake.
Respectfully,
Harry Lee Anstead
Chief Justice of the Florida Supreme Court