The interests of justice and the public are poorly served by a tiff between District Attorney Carol Chambers’ office and the judges of the 18th Judicial District, which includes Arapahoe, Douglas, Elbert and Lincoln counties.
The issue became public after Chambers took the unusual step of complaining to Colorado Supreme Court Chief Justice Mary Mullarkey that judges have threatened to retaliate against her because of her efforts to show that the courts were wasting time. Her letters (which Chambers says were private) somehow leaked to 9News.
Chambers claims judges cause excessive delays, keeping witnesses, including cops on overtime pay, waiting hours after scheduled hearing times. Another complaint was that judges took too many breaks. To prove her case, Chambers asked prosecutors to log the breaks and other delays. But the judges got wind of her ad-hoc efficiency study and, according to Chambers, threatened repercussions.
All this was a bit of a surprise to Chief Judge John Leopold, who said the court meets every other month with representatives of the DA’s office, public defender’s office, and office of alternate defense counsel. “I’m not sure why these things didn’t come up,” Leopold said. “That means we as judges and lawyers need to do a better job working out these communications lines.”
Leopold admits a transition from having judges specialize in either criminal or civil cases to having all district judges take 60 percent criminal and 40 percent civil hasn’t been entirely smooth. Leopold says the court needs more judges. His district, with a population of more than 789,000, has 16 district judges, compared with 24 in Denver, which has 574,000 residents. There are only seven county judges for Arapahoe County, versus 16 in Denver.
Leopold says frequent breaks (required by law for court stenographers) allow judges to sign warrants, handle emergency rulings and other matters.
“We’re trying to resolve this in (a professional) way,” Leopold says. When Chambers was asked if there had been a rapprochement with the court, she replied, “I don’t think there’s any loss of relationship that there needs to be any kind of reconciliation.”
We hope that’s true. If problems arise, we’d suggest Chambers deal directly with the judges instead of hurling down the gauntlet.
In-your-face confrontation, a staple of TV drama, seldom produces results in the real world.
