Public Notice Detail
West Central Minnesota Courts Seek Resources to Cope with Increasing Caseloads, Hold Criminals Accountable
Posted: Monday, April 2, 2001
The Judiciary’s proposed budget helps the Eighth District attract and retain law clerks, which play an important role in helping judges cope with caseloads that have more than doubled. Since 1982, the district’s major criminal cases have increased 142 percent and major juvenile cases have increased 127 percent. Major cases take about 80 percent of judges’ time.
Despite the increases in workload, court administration staff has remained the same over the last decade. The district is asking for three new positions as part of the budget request.
In 11 of the past 12 months, the district has experienced one or more law clerk vacancies. Recently, seven out of the 11 judges in the district worked without a law clerk, some for as many as four months. Each vacancy forces judges to conduct their own legal research, decreasing the time available for hearing and considering cases. That can lead to major delays, particularly in family court where research can be more complicated and detailed explanations of each court action is required.
Judges believe low clerk salaries have made it nearly impossible to attract law clerks to Greater Minnesota districts like the Eighth, which includes the counties of Big Stone, Chippewa, Grant, Kandiyohi, Lac qui Parle, Meeker, Pope, Renville, Stevens, Swift, Traverse, Wilkin and Yellow Medicine. First-year attorneys employed as district court law clerks earn $26,706 a year. By comparison, first-year attorneys earn as much as $95,000 a year at private Twin Cities firms, $43,000 a year in the Public Defender’s Office and $39,000 in the Attorney General’s Office.
“With $800 a month in law school loan payments, his salary of $26,000 just wasn’t cutting it,” said Judge Gerald Seibel, Chief Judge of the Eighth Judicial District, about one of his former clerks. The clerk eventually left the Stevens County Courthouse for higher paying employment outside of the court system.
“Judges don’t want to shoot from the hip when they are deciding Minnesotans’ most important disputes. They want to deliberate and consider the best decision for each case,”
Judge Seibel said. “Without the assistance of a law clerk, sometimes we just don’t have the time to do that.”
Technology
The Eighth District has also cited the need for technology that maintains better criminal records. The court system’s current computer system is out-of-date, poorly integrated and hard to use. As a result, judges often know little about the offenders who appear before them.
Due to current technology deficiencies, the files of more than 100,000 felony and gross misdemeanor offenders are missing from the state’s criminal history database. This means that defendants with a criminal record may be sentenced inappropriately or as a first-time offender.
In a February report, the Minnesota Legislative Auditor said that a comprehensive integrated data system should be a priority for the criminal justice system. Currently, the report said, “Criminal justice agencies are unable to access complete information on an offender’s criminal history.”
CriMNet will resolve that problem by integrating information from 1,100 Minnesota agencies and making it accessible to all elements of the criminal justice system. The Judicial Branch budget request includes $20 million in the next two years to keep its portion of CriMNet on schedule.
“If we fail to provide judges with the tools they need to render the best and most fair decisions, there will be real consequences for real people,” said Minnesota Supreme Court Chief Justice Kathleen A. Blatz.