NCJ Number
82826
Date Published
1976
Length
27 pages
Annotation
Findings and recommendations are presented from a seminar and a survey of local courts that were designed to examine the feasibility of establishing a district court system in Erie County, N.Y., to reduce case backlog.
Abstract
The rapid expansion of the Buffalo suburbs over the last decade has precipitated a great increase in the business of town justice courts and to a lesser extent village courts, producing calls for a revised court system in Erie County better equipped to provide prompt civil and criminal case disposition. The possibility of establishing a county district court was explored in a seminar sponsored by the Subcommittee of the Judiciary Committee to Study Courts of Limited Jurisdiction and a survey of local courts that examined the financial aspects of instituting a district court. When all considerations were taken into account in the areas of convenience to citizens, lawyers, police officers, and jurors; administrative burdens resulting from establishing three separate divisions of the district court in Erie County; and the added expense indicated by the experience of Nassau County, the establishment of a district court system for Erie County does not appear appropriate at this time. With some administrative adjustment, any backlogs in cases appear controllable. Legislative recommendations include (1) the amendment of Second Class Towns Law to avoid the conflict of interest occurring when a justice is also a member of the town board and may be called on to decide a case which also came before the town board, (2) amendment to the law on layman justices to provide that only attorney judges can hear criminal cases, (3) legislation to permit towns to share a justice to hear criminal cases, (4) empowering of the administrative judge of the appellate division of a jurisdiction to assign a visiting town justice, and (5) the authorization of the appellate division to reassign case jurisdiction in accordance with backlog circumstances. Appended are the survey questionnaire and survey findings.