Colorado’s second-highest court is overworked and needs at least three more judges, state Chief Justice Mary Mullarkey said.
The Court of Appeals hears more than 2,500 cases annually, and each of its 16 judges must write about 90 opinions a year, Mullarkey told The Associated Press in an interview this month.
“The expectations of the cases those judges are supposed to handle, the number of cases, is unrealistically high,” said Mullarkey, who heads the Colorado Supreme Court, the state’s top panel. She also is the chief administrator of the state judiciary system.
Mullarkey said she will ask for additional appeals court judges when she submits her budget request to the legislature this year.
State Sen. Abel Tapia, chairman of the Joint Budget Committee, said restoring jobs and programs that were cut in the past several years would have a higher priority than funding new ones.
“A lot of departments have been decimated, and our obligation is to go back and make them whole before we go out and try to find other ways to spend it,” Tapia, D-Pueblo, said Monday.
The last time the court expanded was in the 1985-86 fiscal year, when the court heard 1,917 cases. The total was 2,558 in the 2003-04 fiscal year, the most recent for which data are available.
The Court of Appeals works in five three-judge panels that are assigned cases by the chief judge. Unlike the Supreme Court, which can choose not to consider an appeal, the Court of Appeals is required to hear all appeals from the state’s 22 district courts and numerous state administrative boards and agencies.
Mullarkey said the appeals court has been keeping up only by recruiting help from senior judges – judges who have retired but agree to do some work when called upon.
She said each three-judge panel is assigned about 270 cases a year. Along with that work, the entire court gathers to hear appeals in some cases.
“To me, those caseloads are way too high, and the effect is that you’re not getting really three-judge opinions. Nobody has enough time. They’re basically one-judge opinions, I would say,” Mullarkey said.
On a recent typical week, the appeals court released 47 opinions. Of those, 11 were potentially significant because they could affect the way a law is applied or identify a shortcoming in a statute; or they involve an issue of public interest; or they resolve a conflict between different authorities.
