Overloaded Courts & Trial Delays

Nimmer challenges five popular assumptions about the impact of reform of the courts. He believes that reforms are all too often attempted based on "assumptions" about judicial behavior which are inaccurate or which misstate or misperceive the process of change. Each assumption is challenged as tending to oversimplify and prepackage reform.

The first assumption challenged by Nimmer is "technocratic." Under this assumption, reformers often propose technological changes such as "the newest computer or information system." Although reformers assume that computerized systems will benefit the courts, their assumption frequently misperceives that manual processing is simply not the cause of the problem. Nimmer also challenges the assumption that more "resources" will solve the problems of the courts. This assumption postulates that judicial problems will disappear by adding courtrooms, clerks, judges or attorneys. Unfortunately, it lacks both specificity and empirical support and cannot be evaluated

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ther asserts that speedy resolution of cases constitutes a positive systemic and administrative goal. He believes his research establishes that attorneys, not judges, tend to control the pace of civil litigation, whereas judges, not attorneys, tend to control the pace of criminal litigation. To achieve a speedier resolution of cases, Church argues, case management exercised by the courts can play an important role, particularly in criminal cases, as can the calendaring system adopted and used by a court. Church believes that courts can expedite the disposition of civil cases, can generally dispose of more cases by lowering the proportion that require trial, and that a court's continuance practices are critical in case management. In short, Church believes that courts can play a strong role in achieving speedier justice. Church's proposal for reform is, in this sense, centralized rather than decentralized in its approach. Nimmer and Church both rely heavily on empirical data in advancing their new assumptions. Nimmer himself, however, is apparently the source of only one study cited in his book. He relies on data from the Institute for Court Management, the Rand Institute, Court Management Consultants, and other
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Approximate Word count = 2268
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page)