By Dan Nienaber
MANKATO — A major road project that took years to plan and months to build opened to traffic last fall, but the legal challenges of property owners at the intersection of Victory Drive and Madison Avenue are still lingering in the court system.
The time it has taken to move Victory Drive condemnation hearings through the courts is just one of many signs of a system that’s failing to meet the needs of the people, said Ross Arneson, Blue Earth County attorney. If funding for the state court system is cut further, as Gov. Tim Pawlenty is proposing, Arneson expects things to get worse.
Criminals who have been arrested and jailed are required, by law, to appear in court for a bail hearing within hours, Arneson said. Children taken from their homes and placed somewhere else also have priority in the courts. And civil commitments also require “prompt judicial attention.”
The number of cases requiring quick hearings has been growing, pushing cases with lower priorities further down a crowded docket schedule.
“I see that as a problem now and fear it is going to get worse,” Arneson said. “When requesting court hearings, we have to wait months because the courts’ schedules are full from stomping out fires on emergency case hearings.”
Arneson’s comments came during a news conference Tuesday called by Minnesota Supreme Court Chief Justice Eric Magnuson. He has been traveling across the state warning that funding cuts that have been proposed for the judicial system could lead to a crisis.
Magnuson is concerned the cuts could take away 5 or 10 percent of the judicial system’s budget. If that happens, one result will be that minor crimes such as underage drinking, shoplifting, theft and some traffic violations won’t be handled by the courts.
That’s not an option Blue Earth County Sheriff Brad Peterson wants to deal with. He said his deputies, as well as police officers in Blue Earth County’s cities, hear firsthand from victims who feel the judicial system is failing them.
People living downtown and around the Minnesota State University campus want strict enforcement of underage drinking laws, he said. And theft victims want their property protected.
“In the fall, when all the students come to town, we do special projects for underage drinking,” Peterson said. “Are we just going to walk away from that? Shoplifting — what do we tell the business owners?
“Everything starts with us, the street cops. If these crimes go away, what do we, the street cops who are talking to the victims face-to-face, what do we tell them?”
Court staffing is already 10 percent lower than it should be and 300 to 400 more jobs would have to be cut to meet the lower budget, Magnuson said. Public defenders, state employees who have the Constitutionally required job of providing legal defense for those who can’t afford a private lawyer, have already faced major staffing cuts that have slowed down the court system.
Tony Cornish didn’t attend the news conference at Blue Earth County’s Courthouse, but he said he doesn’t believe Magnuson is exagerating at all when he describes a crumbling court system. Cornish is Lake Crystal’s police chief and a state representative.
“I think some legislators see this as a threat by the judicial system to get more money,” he said. “I don’t. There’s no threats involved. This is a reality.
“We’re talking about closed windows at courthouses, fewer services and delays for speedy trials. I think it is a crisis mode and we’re going to have to find the money elsewhere. One of the first things required by our Constitution is the protection of our citizens. That requires a sound judicial system.”
