Susan Gaertner: A court system starved equals justice denied

Minnesota's justice system -- the envy of many across the country -- is in deep financial trouble and is close to failing in one of its crucial missions -- to protect public safety through fair, impartial application of the law. After years of cost cuts and underfunding, this system is on the brink of collapse. Unfortunately, the governor's response to this crisis is a proposal to cut millions of dollars more from court budgets.

As a career prosecutor and as the Ramsey County attorney for 14 years, I see these cuts as a recipe for disaster. They would delay or deny justice and jeopardize public safety. I am also concerned about the lack of adequate funding for our state public-defense system, which represents criminal defendants who have a constitutional right to an attorney but cannot afford one.

Our criminal-justice system depends upon key and separate players: an independent judge and attorneys for each party. In criminal cases, that means that both the state and the defendant have attorneys who vigorously argue their cases before an impartial jurist, often with a jury of citizens making the final decision. That system is only as good as its weakest link.

If there aren't enough judges, court staff and public defenders to handle the increasing load of criminal cases, the system breaks down -- even when prosecutors are ready for trial. (And prosecutors' funding is threatened as well.)

A recent felony case handled by my office drives home this point. We went to trial and won a felony conviction of a woman who a jury determined had assaulted an off-duty St. Paul police officer working as a security officer at a food store. But last month, the Minnesota Court of Appeals reversed the conviction because it had taken eight months for an overworked and underfunded court system to hear her case. Our Constitution gives criminal defendants the right to a speedy trial. Eight months of delay, the Court of Appeals ruled, violates that right.

In this case, the court said, the defendant suffered because of the lengthy wait for trial. But scheduling lags caused by an underfunded justice system also hurt crime victims and law enforcement. Lengthy delays in criminal cases often make the work of police and prosecutors more difficult. Witnesses, some of whom are reluctant to cooperate with police at all, can disappear or change their stories. And the memories of even cooperative witnesses can begin to fade.

I am especially concerned about the hardships for crime victims and their families when trials are continued for months and months. As weeks and months pass, the stress of waiting for justice compounds their suffering. Sometimes, crime victims decide they would rather settle for a plea to a lesser charge than endure a prolonged and emotionally draining series of trial continuances. In a very real sense, justice delayed is justice denied to crime victims as well as defendants.

These are times of great financial difficulty. Families face hard choices, and elected officials are struggling to decide how to allocate shrinking tax dollars. We have to focus on what's really important. Public safety and our justice system must be among those top priorities. We can't allow the quality of justice in our state to ebb and flow with the economy.

The public rightly demands that Minnesota's justice system be as efficient and cost-effective as possible, and the courts have risen to that challenge. But after years of funding cuts, our court and public-defense systems are at the breaking point. Enough is enough. More cuts will do irreparable harm. A broken justice system is a price we cannot afford to pay.

Susan Gaertner, DFL, is the Ramsey County attorney and a candidate for governor.