The Chief Justice of the Georgia Supreme Court recent­ly warned that cuts to the state bud­get are mak­ing it increas­ing­ly dif­fi­cult for courts to car­ry out their con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly man­dat­ed duties. Chief Justice Carol Hunstein stat­ed that the court’s back­log has grown as mon­ey has dwin­dled. ​“The con­se­quences of these cuts … hit every­one, threat­en­ing the basic con­sti­tu­tion­al rights of civ­il lit­i­gants and crim­i­nal defen­dants as core court func­tions go by the way­side.” Death penal­ty cas­es, which are among the most expen­sive cas­es in the jus­tice sys­tem, are fre­quent­ly being delayed. Justice Hunstein not­ed that one supe­ri­or court judge has 16 death penal­ty cas­es still pend­ing, part­ly because of the elim­i­na­tion of fund­ing for senior judges. ​“The need for jus­tice does not dimin­ish with a shrink­ing econ­o­my,” Hunstein said. ​“Indeed as our case­loads attest, it grows … our cit­i­zens suf­fer when busi­ness and per­son­al dis­putes are not heard and resolved. Our pub­lic safe­ty is at risk when crimes are not pros­e­cut­ed, and crim­i­nals are not pun­ished.” In Fulton County, there are cur­rent­ly 183 mur­der cas­es await­ing tri­al, half of which are more than a year old. Chief Judge Dee Downs said of the sit­u­a­tion, ​“This isn’t jus­tice. We’re los­ing the rule of law.” At the high court, the jus­tices recent­ly had to return a des­per­ate­ly need­ed copy machine because of budget cuts.

(S. McCaffrey, ​“Ga. chief judge says bud­get cuts threat­en courts,” Danbury News Times, March 16, 2010; J. Galloway, ​“Georgia chief jus­tice: Court sys­tems on ​‘edge of abyss,’ Atlanta Journal Constitution, March 16, 2010). See also Costs and DPIC’s recent report ​“Smart on Crime.” Georgia is one of the lead­ing death penal­ty states with with 46 exe­cu­tions since 1976 and 103 inmates on death row. Judging by cost stud­ies in many states, Georgia could save mil­lions of dol­lars per year by not seek­ing the death penal­ty and could use those funds and judi­cial resources to close many mur­der cas­es and address civ­il mat­ters, such as child cus­tody cas­es, that have been put on hold.

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