Section 45-45-82.51 Legislative Findings.

The Legislature hereby finds and declares the following: (1) The Madison County Judicial System faces a severe crisis. The Twenty-third Judicial Circuit has the highest caseload in Alabama. The number of criminal cases has doubled during the last five years, resulting in a backlog of almost 4,500 cases, including approximately 18 capital murder cases. Some defendants have been awaiting trial for almost five years. The caseload facing prosecutors is staggering. Individual drug crime prosecutors are assigned in excess of 500 cases and it is not uncommon for each prosecutor to prepare to try 60 cases on a single week’s docket. The sheer number of criminal defendants is so large that judges cannot bring them all into the courtroom without violating an order of the Madison County Fire Marshal. (2) While faced with these virtually insurmountable problems, the state budget for fiscal year 2004 has required the system to bear cuts so draconian that the judges will no longer be able to administer justice. Unless this subpart becomes law, judges’ staffs, which have not been increased since 1974, will be cut by 50 percent, 50 percent of the employees in the court administrator’s office will be terminated, and 25 percent of the clerks in the circuit court clerk’s office face termination, including two warrant magistrates. The Madison County District Attorney’s Office has already lost two staff attorneys and support staff for those attorneys, and this subpart would restore those positions. (3) The Madison County Preservation of Justice Act would address this problem by raising selective court filing fees.