Golden – Expansion of Jefferson County’s courts is inevitable to ease a growing space crunch, according to the 1st Judicial District’s chief judge.
“There are no unoccupied courtrooms now,” Brooke Jackson told a citizens panel working on how to wring $12 million from next year’s county budget.
Jackson said some efforts, such as reconfiguring judicial space in the county’s main building, can help, but only in the short term.
Also being considered is forming a drug court like Denver’s, mediating criminal cases as El Paso County does, and moving programs off site.
The problem is a skyrocketing caseload, Jackson said. Since Jackson was appointed to the bench in 1998, 1st Judicial District criminal cases have risen 67 percent, civil cases are up 80 percent, and dependency and neglect cases have increased more than 200 percent.
District Attorney Scott Storey called Jackson “the ultimate team player” in working with the state to delay adding new judges.
While “the judges can suck it up for a while,” Jackson said, space is critical for probation services and the clerk’s office.
“In two to four years, we will be jampacked, and we will need to find a solution to it,” Jackson said. “There is a limit to how much you can pack in.”
Jackson said the preferred solution is to expand “this magnificant building” – referring to the “Taj Mahal” – with a 10-courtroom addition and popping out the east side to create more clerk’s office space.
The tentative expansion price tag: at least $50 million, with an ongoing annual expense of more than $600,000.
While the state pays judges, the county would foot the bill for the expansion and staff, such as more deputies to provide security and more district attorney personnel.
Panel member Dick Sargent asked Jackson if night or weekend court times could be arranged. Jackson said court has been held occasionally on Saturdays, but the logistics of arranging security and attorney time are complex.
“Whatever we do, there is a ripple effect,” another panel member, Greg Stevinson, noted.
Jackson said the judges and magistrates are “very much aware we’re part of a campus here. … We don’t want to come in and say, ‘Gimme, gimme,’ when there are other needs, and we’re obligated to be as efficient as we can be.”
Staff writer Ann Schrader can be reached at 303-278-3217 or aschrader@denverpost.com.
