Court: Hearing denial was wrong

PORTLAND – Chief Justice Leigh Saufley reiterated her often-voiced concerns about the “chronic lack of resources” in the court system Tuesday as the state supreme court rapped a judge’s knuckles for trying to save time by deciding against a mandated hearing in a protection from abuse case.

In her concurring opinion, Saufley expressed sympathy with the District Court’s scheduling and administrative problems, but made it plain that such burdens cannot be permitted to cut short a litigant’s opportunity to be heard.

Her comments came as the justices unanimously upheld an appeal by Julie Connolly from a protection order issued last May in Waterville District Court against her husband, John Connolly, after a conference in the judge’s chambers.

The resulting protection order, to which John Connolly agreed but his wife did not, prohibited the husband from having contact with Julie Connolly or her daughter but did not include any findings of abuse or prohibit him from possessing a firearm.

Because state law requires a full evidentiary hearing in protection from abuse cases, the judge’s failure to do so when the parties failed to agree on the crucial issue of abuse was erroneous, the supreme court concluded.

Saufley, who joined in that opinion, added the concurring statement intended to address the administrative difficulties facing Maine’s trial courts, an issue she has focused on in her annual State of Judiciary speeches before the Legislature.

The chief justice noted that the judge in the Connolly case faced a lengthy docket, did not sit regularly in Waterville and could have faced a situation in which it would have taken months to complete the hearing in question.

“The court’s effort to find a resolution that moved the parties forward, yet could be accomplished within the limited resources of the District Court, was understandable,” Saufley wrote.

She said that as the court system tries to reorganize its use of resources and re-examine the way cases are scheduled, there is hope that the circumstances in which Julie Connolly found herself will not have to be repeated.

“Nonetheless, it is critical that all involved in the administration of justice in this state keep in mind the chronic lack of resources and the very real effects it may have on the lives of Maine’s citizens who look to the courts for meaningful justice,” she wrote.