Chief justice to visit courts in midcoast area

Chief Justice Leigh Saufley is on the road again.

She and members of her judicial staff will visit courts in the midcoast Thursday and Friday.

They will tour facilities and meet with judges, clerks and lawyers who work in Waldo, Knox, Lincoln and Sagadahoc counties.

Sponsored by the local bar associations, her visit will cover such matters as budget cuts, security and aging facilities.

In addition, topics for discussion include items that affect people who encounter the judicial system and who make their living in it.

In addition to serving as chief justice of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court, Saufley is the administrative chief for the statewide court system.

She took a similar trip last month, touring courthouses in Aroostook, Washington, Hancock, Penobscot and Piscataquis counties.

During that trip, Saufley learned that although many counties have similar problems concerning money and security, every court has its own set of challenges.

“It’s important for us to get information from people who are actually using the courts day in and day out,” she said.

Several themes emerged from the meetings in northern and Down East Maine, Saufley said. They included the fact that the courts are handling about 300,000 cases a year with less money, a difficult task for everyone. Another theme, she added, was the commitment of workers to provide the best service possible under trying conditions.

A change that has not been well-publicized involves how and when cases are scheduled in criminal and family matters in district courts around the state.

Larger blocks of time have been set aside for family matters like divorce and custody cases. That has come at the expense of time for criminal matters, according to Geoffrey Rushlau, district attorney for the four counties Saufley will visit this week.

“The district courts have reduced the number of days available for criminal cases,” he said Tuesday. “That means there’s a greater likelihood that a case will be continued because there’s just not enough time to get to it.”

Another request that came up routinely in her previous visit, Saufley said recently, was the expansion of the drug court program into counties that don’t have one.

She said statistics are starting to show that drug courts have a positive effect in communities. Washington County’s drug court is considered to be one of the best in the country for getting and keeping young adults off drugs, Saufley said.

In Bangor last month, attorneys who work in the federal and state court systems pointed out the technological disparity between the two. Nearly every document filed in federal court is e-mailed into the system and all documents that have not been sealed by court order can be viewed online by subscribers to the court’s database. State courts still function with an essentially paper system; only a limited amount of data is computerized.

“Electronic filing is way down the list of things we need as opposed to being able to tell there’s an active warrant out for the guy who steps up to the clerk’s window to pay a fine,” District Court Judge Jesse Gunther said in Bangor.

The inability of a computer in Penobscot County to have access to files in another county has meant that defendants have been released because officials were not aware they were wanted in another county. As least two deaths have been attributed to the problem.

In her meetings around the state, Saufley has urged attorneys and judges to lobby their legislators to restore funding to the judicial branch. She said in Bangor that lawmakers have told her they rarely hear from their constituents about problems in the courts.

“It’s just not on their radar,” Saufley said. “Lawyers can bring to the Legislature real instances of how underfunding has had a negative effect on their constituents. In fact, it may be part of a lawyer’s job to make that come to life for legislators.”

The chief justice plans to hold similar meetings in every county by the end of the year.