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Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Courts - More on: Montana Supreme Court too slow in issuing opinions; Ohio just right

Then there is Texas. Updating this ILB entry from yesterday, Janet Elliot of the San Antonio Express-News also had a Sunday story, headlined "Cases piling up before justices." Some quotes from the long story:

AUSTIN — At a time when the Texas Supreme Court's case backlog has reached record levels, Justice Paul Green was spending Friday driving to Corpus Christi to speak to a group of appeals lawyers.

"It's 40 (degrees) and raining and I'm driving four hours to Corpus Christi," Green said from his cell phone. "Yes, I've got stuff to do at the office, but some of us like to do this."

Green, who wrote the fewest opinions — four — of the high court's nine justices during the 2007 fiscal year, said he thinks it's important to get out of the office and talk about the court's work.

"If all of a sudden I said I'll just stay in my chambers and work on opinions, I don't think people would like that," Green said, adding that he has a "bunch of cases" that are ready to be issued.

Jim Jordan, a Democrat who is challenging Republican Chief Justice Wallace Jefferson, has a different opinion.

He said Green needs to take care of the court's business before he travels to "schmooze" with lawyers. When parties in a legal dispute get to the Supreme Court, they already have been through an expensive and time-consuming trial and appeals process, said Jordan, a Dallas County trial judge. * * *

At the end of 2007, the court left more cases pending than ever before. The court had heard arguments but not issued rulings in 111 cases, including 36 that were more than a year old and 13 others more than 2 years old.

And what about Indiana? The ILB recalls that the school book fees decision, Frank Nagy, et al. v. Evansville-Vanderburgh School Corporation, see ILB entry here, was argued 11/23/04 and an opinion was issued 3/30/06. Nagy may be an outlier. Or others may have lengthier examples. Figures on all cases may exist, already compiled, in the Court's online reports. Or they could be readily derived using the oral argument dates available here.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on January 29, 2008 02:02 PM
Posted to Courts in general