Maine's Judicial Machinery at the Crossroads

There is really no such thing as "a court"; in modem society, at least, there is only something which may be called a court system. Even that designation, however, may be a misnomer; a court system is really no more than a group of people, judges, clerks, lawyers, bailiffs, and so forth, tied together by certain functional arrangements. Even the finest institutional organization for a court system will produce delay and injustice if it is not staffed by competent people. Conversely, the most competent and dedicated people cannot produce satisfactory results from an institutional arrangement which does not permit them to operate up to their full capacities. A judicial system is, therefore, somewhat like the proverbial chain, only as strong as its weakest link. Like the chain, the system may appear to be operating satisfactorily until stress is placed upon that one weak link. There are clear signs that just such a situation exists today in the State of Maine; the critical overload has not yet been reached, but the weakness is there, and the question before us is whether we will act now, or only when crisis is upon us. President Nixon recently noted that "Justice delayed is not only Justice denied, it is also Justice circumvented, Justice mocked, and the system of Justice undermined." Neither lawyer nor layman can take issue with this appraisal. In civil cases, justice delayed means, for successful plaintiffs, excessive delay in receiving rightful compensation, and for defendants, an excessive period of uncertainty as to their liability. On the criminal side, delay means that society may be leaving at large and unsupervised those who have committed crimes or, in the case of those defendants unable to raise bail, that it may be detaining those who will be ultimately set free, either because they are innocent or because they are safe probation risks. Delay, therefore, means a repudiation of the two basic purposes for which the judicial system stands; the prompt resolution of civil disputes, and the prompt disposition of criminal charges. For the benefit of both society in general and the parties immediately concerned, such delays must be minimized and hopefully eliminated. A positive step toward that elusive goal would be administrative regionalization of Maine's court system.