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Lagniappe (out of Mobile) this week picks up on the Supreme Court report on the disparities among the justices’ …um… working tempos that we had here last month.
Lagniappe adds comments from Court Clerk Robert Esdale:
Court Clerk Robert Esdale said the length of time in disposing of cases has become an issue for the court and for Chief Justice Sue Bell Cobb. He said he believes she has spoken with the other justices about their pace in rendering decisions.
“Of course (it’s a problem),” Esdale explained. “When you have an aspirational target of 290 days and one justice has an average of over 400 days, it slows things down.”
Lagniappe observes that Tom Parker takes about four times longer to dispose of cases than the average time of Justices Sue Bell Cobb, Champ Lyons, Greg Shaw, Patricia Smith, Lyn Stuart, and Tom Woodall.
According to the report, Parker takes an average of 217 days on decisions involving certiorari petitions — review of a lower court’s cases — and an average of 534 days to render original decisions after being assigned a case. By way of comparison, Justices Cobb, Champ Lyons, Woodall, Lyn Stuart, Patricia Smith and Greg Shaw together average 56 days on certiorari petitions and 129 days on original decisions. In other words, Parker’s certiorari time is 161 days longer and 405 days longer for original decisions. That is 388 percent and 414 percent longer respectively.
I think it fair to say that the frustration level in the Supreme Court has been remarkably high for us to see cases (and staff) taken from one justice (to be assigned to others) and for us to hear public comments like Esdale’s.
See some of the numbers and a link to the report itself in last month’s Parlor post. We also had a similar report in May 2008.
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In any other line of work, if you had an employee who took twice as long as your other employees to do his job, forced you to reassign his staff to other employees because he couldn’t get his work done, and then produced work that was inferior in quality, you would unceremoniously fire him. Particularly if he was making more than $150,000.00 a year. It is time for the citizens and taxpayers of Alabama to fire Tom Parker.
its does seem a little ridiculous…
case to help the other justices out… That Judge will do whatever SHE tells him to do
Maybe SuE Bell could get that Judge she sent to Mobile to hear the Herman Thomas case to help out her Supreme Court buddies…. That Judge will do whatever SUE BELL tells him to do…
Here’s a suggestion, Libby — don’t drink before you comment on the internet.
Sue Bell makes quick decisions. Just a quick call to the Trial Lawyers Assoc. and she’s got her ruling.
I don’t see Murdoch’s name mentioned in your summary. He is not known as the Speedy Gonzalez of the state judicial system.