Mars Needs More Judges!

Did I say Mars?

I meant South Florida.

Here's some of the bad news affecting civil:

Workload associated with the residential mortgage foreclosure crisis continues to impede disposition times and rates in our circuit civil division. The Court is grateful to the Legislature for funding the Foreclosure and Economic Recovery Initiative, which terminated on June 30, 2011. The case managers and senior judges used in the Foreclosure and Economic Recovery Initiative made a significant difference in reducing backlog throughout the state. Unfortunately, due to the severity and protracted nature of the crisis, our trial courts continue to struggle with heavy pending caseloads and the slow resurgence of foreclosure filings. The absence of additional case processing resources, such as case managers and senior judges, will continue to delay case processing times and pending caseloads in our civil divisions for the foreseeable future. Moreover, this crisis has a ripple effect on the workload of other court divisions as chief judges and administrative judges allocate limited court resources to address demand.

It's a disgrace that the courts have to go hat in hand every year and pretend to be servile and deferential to what is supposed to be a co-equal branch of government.

Indeed, there is no need for the Supremes to be overly "grateful" the Legislature decided to help with the foreclosure crisis in this State, given how large a crisis it is and how many Florida homeowners are affected.

But hey, thanks for providing minimal assistance and then terminating the program in the middle of the year, leaving everybody in a lurch.