The judicial system

The feeblest branch

An underfunded court system weakens the economy as well as access to justice

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Very interesting article.

In a recent visit to the Supreme Court of a somewhat Western country with a lot of politics on its plate, I heard in a closed-to-the-public conversation with one of the Justices that the politicians of that country have a distinct interest in keeping the Supreme Court overworked and overloaded so that it is too flooded with work to supervise them properly. It is important to mention that in this country the court is considered to be a bastion of the liberal left, whereas the country has been run by the right for quite a few years now. That (supreme!) court now regularly hears up to 10,000 cases a year. When I told this to an American lawyer he almost fell off his chair.

Point being? Hamilton was right. Beware.


Public Dude

The losing defendant or the plaintiff should be asked to pay for court charges. This will eliminate silly cases being brought in the first place – like one judge (yes, a judge) near Washington DC who sued his dry cleaner for millions of dollars for ruined set of clothes when his whole wardrobe did not cost even a few thousand. This will help fund the court system. Why should tax payers bear such burden?


At the state and federal level: Stop passing so many criminal laws and stop mandatory sentencing schemes and the stupid and constant "get tough on crime" and "war on drugs" laws making everything a crime. The legislative branch has only itself to blame - by politicians falling over themselves to show the voters how tough they are on crime, HELLO???

You would accomplish two things: Shift funding from corrections to the courts and free up court time to hear more civil cases. I have little sympathy for judges' salaries being too low. For the federal bench, life-time tenure is pretty good!!!

Finally, state and federal constitutional mandates don't requires judges to relinquish control over cases , especially civil matters, to lawyers to drag them out!!!

Ultimately where the judicial system went astray was when they started assuming the responsibility of "doing god's work". This was frenzy to slowly "purify" society was fueled further by huge private investment in the prison system. The number of people in prison or dealing with the courts for victimless crimes is absurd. It might be helpful to note that we incarcerate people like its our job, with about 25% of the worlds prisoners in our prison system. Not to be the hippie in the room but the war on drugs has probably been the biggest pitfall of this nation which has thrown hundreds of billions of dollars which has done nothing but boost the profits of the Mexican mafias and make our judges hear case after case of victimless "crimes"



Actually the judicial branch is tasked with interprting the law...passing laws is reserved to the aptly named legislative branch!


Americas GDP = 17 Trillion

American Tax Revenue (Total)= 1.4 Trillion

And the staple holding it all together...the lady of blind and balanced justice is broke. The only reason people make money between contracts is because of the law. Its should be supported by the system with out restriction.

What are people thinking about when they cut judicial spending?

1. Eliminate enforcement of crimes who have no real or even potential victims.
2. Accept as many judges as is needed to cover the caseload.
3. The constitution states the right of a speedy trial. Speedy should mean less than two hours even for the most serious offenses.
4. Judges can go home for the day after they hear all cases pending.
5. Therefore, no one should have to wait even overnight for a court hearing. Of course, the judge may postpone a case for good cause, such as lack of evidence found, but
6. if there is not enough evidence to convict, the person should be FREE WITHOUT BAIL until there is enough evidence to convict, because he is guaranteed by the constitution to be presumed innocent until proven guilty.
7. Eliminate ALL staff.
8. Stenographers are no longer needed in the day of video cameras.
9. Police who bring in an accused should present the evidence to the proscecutor and stay till the end of the trial, and appologise if the person is found not guilty.
10. Judges should be selected from those qualified and able to serve WITHOUT PAY.

Civil SERVICE should again be a civic duty, not a paid profession.
There are plenty of retired lawyers who would serve for free as a civic duty.

Polititians should also be paid nothing, and have no staff whatsoever. With a laptop and Email, any litererate person should be able to handle the task themselves better than with a staff.
It a law is too long to read, vote against it, because it is too long for the public to read as well !

We are far from the days of king Solomon, when the judges and rulers were respected.


Most of the comments thus far have been rather bizzare, to say the least (the stuff from Romney.Schield was downright weird, to the point that I am convinced it must be deliberate satire). However, one or two people did mention an actual serious change that would be enormously beneficial -- institute an English Rule style of "loser pays". This would cut down a significant amount of frivolous civil litigation.

Other than that, there is not much that can be done to rectify the funding problems unless legislatures appropriate the money for the courts. The judicial branch, by tradition, does not lobby or advertise or publicly push for more funding for itself, except on rare occassions (and even then, it is usually a very subdued report or letter). This is why the judicial branch tends to get ignored, and suffers from budgetary neglect.

WT Economist

"Even as the caseload has grown, federal judges’ salaries have risen by only 39% since 1991 while the cost of living has gone up 50%."

Are you are sure that is different from the U.S. average? Falling real wages started at the bottom, and have been working their way up over the past 35 years.

The early 1990s recession was the first white collar recession. It is also the first post-WWII recession in which college educated workers suffered severe economic setbacks.

The 1990 census was the first year in which the number of college-educated Americans exceeded the number of Americans working in managerial and professional occupations.

Finally, judges still have pensions. At the state level, though perhaps not at the federal level, these were repeatedly retroactively enhanced in the late 1990s, with the cost undisclosed and deferred. Soaring pension costs are taking away from what could have been wage increases.

Lots of people are resisting accepting less, and refusing to acknowledge that other people are also being forced to accept less. Some, of course, are still grabbing more.


I constantly hear people talk about how the system sucks and needs to change. However, the U.S. courts need to make sure that the DO follow the systemm as it is written in the constitution and not stray from it.The way districts run their court/probation/prison/traffic violation systems are a mess. States need to figure out where they need to put their attention. To me it seems a shame that courts put more attention and speed in action towards traffic violations that make them money, as oppossed to trying criminals and resolving lawsuits that will cost them money.

mises ghost

"Nothing could, it appeared, be done for the King but it cost him more than for any other man." --------
Samuel Pepys, Secretary of the Admiralty, 1684-1688, on "cost overruns."

apart from ludicrous waste and fraud in any endeavourment of a government, anyone wondering how much money is expended for trials and subsequent incarceration of such dangerous criminals like drivers who apparently "endanger public safety" if they drive 5 miles to fast in front of a school at midnight....


eliminate contingency fees for attorneys, institute loser pays legal fees, increase mediation, see if the courts are less clogged


The whole justice system is rotten to the core. Here are some examples:

Someone mentioned an average person breaks law 27 times a day (some crimes can be more serious than others) such as: how many times a person drive over the speed limit in a day? How many people cheat on their taxes? Etc….

I saw TV advertisement during the lunch and at night, how many lawyers want you to suit someone? I was in a public transit and there are advertisements; it reads “you don’t have to take it, talk to me”. I was driving to work and heard several advertisements from lawyers, one is advertising for a person has overseas account, so this lawyer can fight IRS for you. Another advertisement from lawyers said he will fight with banks to reduce your mortgages. Another lawyer advertise if you take certain medicine, contact him for potential class-action law suits, the list goes on and on….

Just take a look at how destructive these welfare programs are; welfare checks, free medical, divorce, children without fathers, free housing, entitlement mentality, lawlessness, multiply generations of welfare recipients, and there are lawyers taking up cases to fight government for these welfare mama…. So, who is paying for all these? How many cases are related to welfare system?

Then we have police officer making $190,000 on the average with over time and can retire after 20 years service with 3% of salary per year of retirement benefits, and there is a unwritten quota for how many tickets to be written in a month, this kind of enforcing the law selectively is making anybody a criminal, if the police wants to…. no wonder there are swelling dockets and more court cases…. The police get reward for writing additional tickets?

In addition, we have this “war on drugs”, “war on terror”, “3 times you are out”, “ tough on crime”, etc…. How can a person smokes a marijuana joint become a criminal? When I was in college in the early seventies, marijuana joint were passing around in any party…. How can a person steal some food 3 times should be in jail for 25 years? No wonder there are delay cases….

California spends more than $45,000 per each person incarcerated, more than California spends for a college student? Because the Union, they want to keep their job and politician wants their vote?

I was travelling on Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) one time, and I saw a young person used a senior citizen ticket; the BART police arrested him and sent him to county/city jail. How big is this crime? This poor young man will carry a scare in his life forever for what? Is this what BART Police suppose to do? No wonder there are demonstrations every week against BART police, they killed one innocent man and another homeless man recently.

Worse of all is the city/county/state needs more money, so they install camera on many intersections to catch people/car did not fully stop on stop sign, the ticket is $545 fine, this become a revenue generating scheme? Millions new cases were generated because of that?

On January 1st of every year, Federal/state/county/city/ come up with new laws of thousand after thousand pages. I saw on TV, they use a forklift to move hundreds of book, full of new law starting that year, no wonder there are so many criminal laws and lawyers are all busy, politicians are busy too….

The answer is very simple; reduce the laws and regulations. Stop selectively enforces the law.

Making someone violates a law 27 times a day, then prosecutes someone randomly is not the answer….

What a sad joke!!!!


The other disaster in the US state and county courts is the trial lawyers associations bankrolling the election of pliable judges, ensuring that they get generous courts.


At the federal level, at least, there's good reason for the judiciary to be the feeblest branch: they are unelected, appointed for life, and virtually unaccountable to anyone. If they had the power of the purse, they might--well, nevermind. It's hard to see how the judges ruling America would be any worse than the political debacle we have now.

Kurt Lessing

The rule of law is a decisive economic factor. Something the Chinese still have to learn.
Sad to hear that the U.S. court are plagued by more than barbaric customs such as plea bargaining and punitive damage.
Big difference between common law and civilised law.


I would think the courts are very powerful today (not when Hamilton wrote his paper, when government can defy court). Nowadays Judges are Gods inside court rooms, as long as someone sues, a judge can halt new laws, Make Laws (supreme court), issue any judgement/injunctions.

So if someone sues over the cut to court systems, the judge can actually issue an injunction and stop it.

Rev. Durden

The congested court system on the civil side has more to do with insurance claims (on both sides, greedy plaintiffs and greedy insurance companies) and litigation being calculated as a cost of business. Loser pay rules would only inject attorneys fees damages into cases where they currently are excluded but wouldn't significantly change case filings. Plaintiffs' attorneys invest considerable amounts of time and money into litigation (contingency fees mean they assume all costs for years) and must calculate the timing and size of the payoff. They already aren't going to file a case in the first place if they don't think they going to recover attorney's fees. Where the rule may be beneficial is in business-to-business litigation that doesn't involve insurance or bankruptcy. However, that is such a small percentage of the litigation.

"Crazy law suits like the one filed against McDonald for the coffee being too hot (when someone spilled some and burn his/her thigh)"

That's not true. The coffee spilled didn't land on the 79-year old women's thigh; she endured 8 days of skin grafting on the most sensitive and intimate part you can imagine. She was disabled for 2 years. The woman asked the company to pay for medical expenses of $20,000 and they countered with $800. She then sued. The company turned down mediation offers that were 1/10 of what the jury awarded and less than 1/2 of what the judge cut the award down to. In the jury's determination, they found the woman was 20% at fault for spilling. The major punitive damage award involved the company insisting that coffee had to be served between 180 to 190 degrees, enough to severely scald flesh in 2 to 7 seconds, even though over 700 reports of scalding had been filed. Coffee served at home is typically 130 to 150 degrees. In truth, this case is an example of the "litigation as a cost of business" that occurs and unnecessarily floods the court system. Defendants had multiple opportunities to resolve the case to its benefit and without paying additional attorneys fees (its own) but chose to go to court and could careless if the loser pays.

The movie "Hot Coffee" discusses how this case was distorted by PR firms for tort reform purposes.


Unfortunately, this article is spot on. Our judicial branch is hurting constantly, they pretend to have power, but in reality the other two branches control the judicial branch. The Judicial branch could pass all the laws they want, but the executive branch can always find a way around it, especially with the help of their trusty sidekick, Congress. Congress has always held the purse strings, and now the judicial system is on the street begging.



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