Study shows Sedgwick County District Court needs to expand by eight judges

WICHITA — Kansas has enough judges, but they’re not in the right places, a study says, and the Kansas Supreme Court wants the right to change that.

The Blue-Ribbon Commission on the Judiciary wants the state to give the Kansas Supreme Court the power to put judges where they are needed the most — including more in Sedgwick County.

State law now requires each of Kansas’ 105 counties to have its own judge. The commission says in a report recently made public that some counties don’t generate enough cases to warrant a full-time judge “while other areas of the state have workloads that justify additional judges.” The commission hopes to get the Kansas Legislature to repeal the law and give judicial authority to the Supreme Court.

A weighted caseload study conducted last year shows that Sedgwick County District Court — the state’s 18th Judicial District — needs 22 new court employees and eight more judges. District court now has 28 judges.

The 18th District had the highest caseload, the study by the National Center for State Courts showed. Last year, the district had

84,404 case filings, or 16 percent of filings statewide, according to the study.

Chief Judge James Fleetwood said Thursday that he doesn’t expect to get eight new judges anytime soon. He said the district needs more people on the bench but isn’t sure it needs as many as eight.

The 18th District last added judges in 2008, when Eric Commer and Jeffrey Syrios joined the bench.

“I don’t think we’ve ever been staffed to the point that would be considered reasonable anywhere else,” Fleetwood said. “Fortunately, we have some judges who are very cooperative right now. I think we could certainly use some people right now.”

Moving judges is controversial, said Sen. Jean Schodorf, R-Wichita, who serves on the Senate’s Judiciary Committee.

It makes sense to place judges where caseloads are higher, she said, but there also is concern about people getting a speedy trial in rural areas that might not keep a full-time judge under the proposed changes.

“There are magistrates who are very worried about this in the rural areas,” she said. “It seems like it makes sense, but it will depend to me on how people can access judges so that justice is speedy. Certainly we know that Sedgwick County is very busy. Judges have huge caseloads but people need to have access to judges in rural counties, too. I will need to hear more about how that would work.”

Finding room for more judges in the 18th District also could be problematic for the county, which already has moved offices out of the courthouse to make room for courtrooms.

“Whatever the state does, Sedgwick County will do what it always does and make it work,” County Manager William Buchanan said.

“I know the county is looking at separating the administrative footprint here and the court footprint,” Fleetwood said. “Those are big decisions for the county to have to make.”

Ron Keefover, spokesman for the Office of Judicial Administration, said the weighted caseload study was the first for Kansas.

“This is historic,” he said. “There have been others in thirty-some states.”

The commission understands that the idea of some counties losing full-time judges is not popular with everyone, Keefover said.

“There’s always been a concern that if a court would be closed in a particular county, then the courthouse would close and the county would dry up and blow away,” Keefover said. “But the commission does not recommend closing any of the courts. We would leave them open but perhaps transfer personnel.”

Keefover said figuring out where to locate judges will be a process over time.

“The Supreme Court is going to do whatever it can to adjust the case loads. A lot of these are just not quick fixes,” he said of the commission’s recommendations.

The commission also has recommended e-filing statewide. Filing and managing cases electronically would make the courts more efficient, which could cut down on the need for as many new workers, he said.

“As the process becomes more efficient, we won’t need that extra staff,” Fleetwood said.

The commission also wants new magistrates in Kansas to be lawyers. Now, magistrates don’t have to have law degrees. Sedgwick County has never used magistrates, Fleetwood said. The district could in the future.

Those in smaller counties do a good job, he said. They have limited jurisdiction and aren’t allowed, for example, to try felony criminal cases. But they can oversee preliminary matters such as first appearances and bond hearings and traffic cases.

“They can come in and they get can get rid of a lot of that stuff for us,” Fleetwood said.