New Hampshire's courts continue to feel the strain of too few judges and clerical employees, with delays for trials and judicial orders and constant rescheduling of cases regular events at many courthouses, according to judges, lawyers, clerks and other members of the state's legal community. "New Hampshire's justice system is in some jeopardy," Supreme Court Chief Justice John Broderick said in an interview this week.

"We're not closing the courts; we're not going out of business. But the question is, what kind of justice system are the people of New Hampshire entitled to? And we're edging to the point where we won't be proud of it."

The state's courts are short seven judges - three at the superior court level, three in the district courts and one probate judge. But those numbers could increase very soon. Gov. John Lynch nominated Superior Court Judge Carol Ann Conboy to the Supreme Court last week. If, as expected, Conboy moves to the Supreme Court by next month, it would leave another vacancy on the superior court. Judge Philip Mangones is expected to remain on medical leave for several weeks, adding a fifth absence to the superior court bench.

And court officials say that even if the courts were staffed at their current allotment of 21 superior court judges, it wouldn't be enough. A recent study by the National Center for State Courts found New Hampshire's caseload merited at least 26 trial judges.

"The difficulty is, we really are having to push cases out much further than we'd like to, to the point that in some cases it's pretty difficult to get a trial in a reasonable time frame," said Judge Robert Lynn, chief justice of the superior court system.

A squeeze in the courts

The state has already taken severe measures to compensate for the judge shortage. Jury trials were canceled for a month over the winter at nine of the state's 11 superior courts. The backlog has not eased since then, court members say. Lawyers talk of constantly rescheduling meetings with clerks, court staff worry about boxes of judicial orders that go unissued for months, and administrators try to arrange for part-time or retired judges to fill scheduling gaps.

"We're doing triage day to day," said William McGraw, clerk of Merrimack County Superior Court.

In the state's family court division, which hears divorce, child custody and child support cases, the strain has been particularly acute. Last month, a number of judicial orders in the family court in Manchester were delayed by about eight weeks. Administrators pulled together a "SWAT team" of court employees to process the orders in just a couple of days.

"You can imagine the frustration of the public when they can't get out to them," said Judge Ed Kelly, head of the state's district and family court divisions.

Whether such conditions improve depends on the budget proposals being debated in the Legislature. House and Senate negotiators are hammering out differences between their two plans. The House proposal would fill one of the three existing vacancies on the superior court, while the Senate version would fill two of those positions. The Senate budget would also strip money that pays daily wages to retired judges who cover vacancies in courts in Concord, Manchester and Nashua.

Lynch has said he wants to appoint judges to all seven vacancies, with superior court vacancies being his top priority. But Broderick said he's afraid the Legislature's budget might not have enough money to pay for all the judgeships - forcing the court system to cut elsewhere.

The New Hampshire Constitution protects the right to a jury trial in all cases where more than $1,500 is at stake. "This method of procedure shall be held sacred," the constitution says, though it does not specify how swiftly such trials must be held.

But because of constitutional requirements that a criminal defendant receive a speedy trial, much of the judicial slowdown is in civil cases. McGraw said his court has been forced to "concentrate entirely on the criminal docket."

He continued: "We basically have become a court that only hears civil cases when we have the time, and that's not very often."

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