Politics & Government

Judge Says Gwinnett Court System Stretched Thin

Court system requesting slightly less money for upcoming fiscal year, but Superior Court Judge Tom Davis advises further reductions are not recommended.

The Gwinnett County court system is requesting slightly less money for 2012 than under the current budget. But Superior Court Judge Tom Davis made it clear Monday that any further reductions are not recommended.

"We've gone about as far as we can go," Davis told Gwinnett Commission Chairman Charlotte Nash and other county government leaders in Lawrenceville.

The system that handles criminal, civil and domestic cases wants about $11.3 million, about $41,000 less than the current fiscal year. And Davis outlined cost pressures and workload figures to support his claim of a system stretched very thin.

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"If our system breaks, there's no way to throw enough money at it to fix it," Davis said.

He noted two areas in which the county's 10 Superior Court judges are strained.

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-- In civil cases, the county is now required by federal law to provide an interpreter whether someone is indigent or not. He said that in 2010, Gwinnett got 2,340 requests for interpreters, or 8.7 per work day. Eighty percent were for Spanish, 7 percent for Korean. "Nobody asked us how much the services should cost," he said.

-- Gwinnett's 805,000 residents have 10 Superior Court judges, who handle all felony criminal cases and divorces. That's far above the average for Cobb and DeKalb counties, which average 69,000 residents per judge.

"We don't think we're privileged," said Davis, who noted that all the judges took the same four furlough days that other county workers did. "But we're part of the Constitution."


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