SWEETWATER COUNTY– Last week, 3rd Judicial District Court Judges Richard Lavery and Suzannah Robinson discussed the need for a fourth district judge with the Sweetwater County Commissioners.
Currently, the 3rd Judicial District has three judges with one serving in Kemmerer and Evanston. The third judge drives about 300 miles a week between Kemmerer and Evanston, Judge Lavery said.
Judge Lavery said the number of cases each judge is seeing indicates they should have 4 1/4 judges.
Each judge has a workload of 2.72 per judge, according to Judge Lavery. He believes the need will continue growing and he would not be surprised if they needed a fifth judge in the near future.
The issue with the workload is that criminal and juvenile cases require immediate action, and therefore civil cases get pushed back.
“There’s not enough courtroom space or time to hear those cases,” Judge Lavery said.
The district court judges have been operating at this workload for a while now, but Judge Lavery said they are wanting to act on it now, as there are other districts with lesser need that are approaching legislation.
According to Judge Lavery, Campbell County is going to legislation to get another judge and their workload isn’t as heavy as the 3rd Judicial District judges.
To get another judge, they need to approach legislation to fund the new judge. He said the most economical way to get a judge would be to place them in Kemmerer and have them help with cases in Sweetwater County. However, Lavery sees this as a short term option.
Judge Robinson said the longterm solution of having a third judge in Sweetwater County would require the addition of a third courtroom. She said currently, they do have three courtrooms, however, the third one is only suitable for small hearings. Trials and juries cannot be held in there.
Commissioner Wally Johnson said he recalled a few years ago this same issue being brought up. He asked how and where they would add the third courtroom.
Judge Lavery said a plan was already designed by the architects during the Justice Center planning. The plan was to have a third courtroom upstairs in the current facility. He said it would take some “fairly significant remodeling”.
If the legislation approves the addition of a fourth judge during this year’s session, Judge Lavery said the soonest they could bring another judge on would be July 1.
In the short term, Robinson said they could make it work with their current facility but would need to figure something else out for the long term. She said full days of hearings will make it difficult to operate out of two full-sized courtrooms.
