What the courts need

There is talk that the Massachusetts courts should be restructured. It is proposed that the new chief justice of the Supreme Judicial Court should be named as chief administrative officer of all the state courts.

Presumably this change would merge the seven trial court departments into one, under the supervision of the chief justice.

These proposals should be rejected, just as similar proposals were rejected by the Legislature when the courts were reorganized a decade ago. The Massachusetts courts desperately need certain resources; they do not need tinkering with their framework.

The present structure works well. The chief justice of the Supreme Judicial Court meets regularly with the chief administrative justice and the chief justices of the trial court departments. Policy decisions and suggestions of the Supreme Judicial Court, as well as progress reports of the trial court, are exchanged. This implements the constitutional mandate that the justices of the Supreme Judicial Court have control over all the courts.

That the system works well is shown by the extraordinary list of recent administrative improvements. These include complete revision of the procedural rules of court; modern personnel and affirmative action standards; broad programs for continuing education of judges and law-related education in the schools; legal assistance to the poor; central purchasing and systematic budget preparation; a bar-discipline structure paid for by lawyers; a system for reimbursement by the bar to persons who suffer from the negligence or defalcations of attorneys; and an emergency response system which provides round-the-clock judicial service.

The chief justice of the Supreme Judicial Court plays a crucial part in the administration of the courts. However, his more important function is to join with the other justices in writing the opinions of the high court. Any mandate that the chief justice is to assume detailed administrative duties will bring about one of two results. Either he will delegate the new duties, returning in effect to the present system, or he will of necessity default in his duty as a full participant in the writing of Massachusetts law.

What the Massachusetts courts really need is dictated by their staggering workloads. Spousal abuse and child-protection cases occur by the thousands each year. Drunken-driving cases and other misdemeanors are counted in hundreds of thousands. Felony indictments are returned by the thousands to the Superior Court each year, and the Constitution requires that they be tried promptly. The number of drug cases has soared. More than 70,000 civil cases are backed up in the Superior Court, despite all efforts to accelerate the pace.

Nor can the demands upon the courts be measured in numbers alone. Mandatory sentences have greatly increased the number of cases which go to trial. By statutes and rules of court, the procedures and the paperwork have multiplied. Pretrial motions and proceedings are either required or permitted. These things promote justice and fairness, but they greatly increase the workload of judges and court staffs.

The courts desperately need additional judges and supporting personnel. Last year the Legislature and the governor established 37 judgeships for the trial court, to be appointed over two years. A comprehensive program for renovating our disintegrating courthouses was also passed. Court staffs are optimistic that these things will come to pass.

At the same time, by a policy of attrition which the Legislature has applied to all departments of government, supporting court personnel of all kinds (clerks, probation officers, etc.) have shrunk in numbers. Despite the explosion in court business, personnel are now at the 1979 level. This shortage is aggravated by statutory limitations on transferability of personnel. In some courts, necessary processing of cases is dangerously delayed.

Structural changes would be a trivial and unnecessary response to the needs of the courts. What is needed is the appointment of the 37 judges and a helpful measure of relaxation of the cap on supporting personnel. Everyone shares concern for the commonwealth's fiscal difficulties, but the courts' needs are not matters of option. These needs are basic to the ability of the courts to provide even minimally efficient service at a time when the courts are inundated with the community's problems.

Edward F. Hennessey is the retired chief justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court.