The events are not related and the comparison is hardly apples to apples, but the irony is too great to ignore. At the same time that the state's liquor commission is defending its use of $422,000 in federal funds to purchase and outfit a mobile command center to facilitate DWI arrests and convictions, the state's judicial system is suspending jury trials in civil cases and instituting a freeze on filling vacant judicial positions.

Like all but a few states, New Hampshire is facing a severe budget crisis. The expected deficit this year alone is estimated at $250 million.

Gov. John Lynch has asked sacrifices of everyone, but the cuts that Supreme Court Chief Justice John Broderick has suggested show how bad the situation is. The judicial system is a coequal branch of government that was under-funded before the economic downturn. When it suspends one of its essential functions for want of money, the state is in trouble.

To comply with Lynch's request for reductions to the judicial system budget, Broderick asked the governor and Executive Council not to replace Justice Richard Galway, who is retiring in February, until next summer. That would save the state $63,000. The courts are cutting back on security and leaving 12 percent of full-time judgeships vacant. The work of the courts is labor-intensive. When the workforce shrinks, securing justice takes longer. In Merrimack County, for example, the delay in scheduling civil cases will grow from its current 30 to 60 days to between 90 and 120 days.

Criminal cases should not be affected by the budget cuts, but people involved in civil disputes over contracts, property liability, auto accidents and malpractice accusations, the categories which account for a majority of trials, will have to wait longer for resolution.

Now about that mobile police van. The van, which is currently in storage, cost $355,000 plus another $67,000 for additions like a heat-seeking camera, subscriptions to satellite TV and radio service and a flat-screen TV that can be used to display evidence or to allow agents to watch the news while waiting to process drunken drivers. The van contains two cells, a bathroom and breath-testing equipment.

The mobile command center no doubt will, as liquor commissioner Mark Bodi says, improve the evidence used in court and prove useful in emergencies. But Bodi practically tied himself in knots while trying to justify its purchase during the worst economic downturn in decades. It will, for example, be helpful when educating people about the dangers of drunken driving, he said. Not while it's in storage, it won't.

President-elect Barack Obama's administration-in-waiting understands the plight of the nation's states and cities. Obama has begun to outline the massive public program he intends to use to repair the nation's neglected infrastructure, put people back to work and set the nation on an economic path that will restore long-term prosperity. Direct aid to ailing state and local governments is also under consideration.

As the suspension of jury trials in New Hampshire proves, that aid is sorely needed. But if and when - and we hope it's when - that aid comes, it should be based on priorities that don't result in funding for phenomenally expensive boondoggles like mobile command centers that go unused while court cases go unheard for want of money for judges.