A strained judicial system in Ada County tries to manage workload. What are the causes?

The COVID-19 pandemic has put strain on Ada County courts, prompting them to bring retired judges back to work to try to catch up with a backlog of criminal and civil cases.

For long periods during the pandemic, courts have been closed to trials. But defendants continued to get charged with crimes, and residents continued to get sued.

Judge Steve Hippler, the administrative judge for the Fourth Judicial District, told the Idaho Statesman there is a backlog of dozens of civil cases awaiting trials. A smaller backlog of criminal cases also exists, mostly in cases where the defendant is not in custody.

During the pandemic, the court system has focused on processing criminal cases over civil, since “interests and stakes are much higher when you’re talking about somebody’s freedom versus money,” he said.

Just last week, Hippler began the first civil jury trial in Ada County since March 2020.

Trials at the courts did not happen between March and October 2020, after which they restarted for about a month before shutting down again until the spring of 2021, he said. But no new civil trials were scheduled, and last fall, trials again went on hold during the omicron wave, until March.

“Our case loads continue to be significant,” he said by phone.

And in addition to the cases that date to before the pandemic, the number of new cases is “at or above” prepandemic levels.

Much of the cause is population growth in the Treasure Valley, Hippler said. Other contributors may be that, earlier in the pandemic, prosecutors may have been more willing to charge people with misdemeanors instead of felonies.

More recently, “some of those decisions ... reverted to prepandemic times,” Hippler said.

He also said that the pandemic appears to have worsened mental health issues, which can be linked to drug use.

Senior judges ‘used more extensively’

The cases led the judicial district to draw more heavily from its well of senior judges, who are retired judges in the state who still occasionally hear cases.

Historically, senior judges have been used when active judges are ill or on vacation, or when a judge has multiple trials at the same time and cannot handle both.

“Within the pandemic, judges were used for those same purposes,” Hippler said. “But they were also used more extensively to help cover trials so that we could try more cases.”

Funds for senior judges comes from the state budget and are allocated around the state, Sandra Barrios, the trial court administrator for the Fourth Judicial District, told the Statesman. The Fourth District always goes over its allocated days, Barrios said, requiring the Supreme Court to shift allocated days away from other districts with smaller caseloads.

But the use of senior judges has lessened in recent months, because the court system also faces a shortage of court reporters, clerks and courtrooms, Hippler said.

Courts have struggled to hire clerks — who are needed during trials — in a tight labor market. Court reporters require a particular certification to work, and “there are very few ... schools that are putting out court reporters right now,” Hippler said.

Of an allocated 14 court-reporter positions, the district has six openings, Hippler said.

To ease the strain, Hippler has allowed some routine hearings to go without a court reporter and to rely on audio recordings.

Hippler said he is grateful to the Legislature and the Supreme Court, which have added two new magistrate positions and one district judge position in Elmore County, which should help with the workload.

“But as things continue to grow in this valley, I’m sure we’ll be back again, at some point in the future, asking for additional help.”

The growing caseload has created an additional need: more judicial office space.

The Ada County Courthouse was designed to host court services and other county administrative offices through 2010, Hippler said. Ada County has grown significantly over the last decade, and the building has not changed.

“The court side of things has just gotten to the point where we’re out of space,” Hippler said.