33rd / 424th District Courts

The day was like any other day. A docket in Blanco County that should be finished by noon and then back to Burnet County for an afternoon docket. Well, not like ANY other day because we usually don't do two dockets in a day. But other than that .... The prisoners in custody were already in the courtroom, the bailiff had everyone organized, the court reporter was chipper.

But then it started. One case -- a divorce that was hotly contested -- announced they needed three hours. They were told they could have an hour and it would be after the rest of the docket was cleared. The probation revocation began. The lawyers on the appeal from the associate judge's order of incarceration were negotiating. The divorce case waited.

Then the revo began to drag. On and on. Extremely slow questioning by each side. A losing contest to the allegations -- punishment was the only real issue and we took forever getting there. The appeal case was still negotiating and the divorce case was watching the clock -- as was the judge. As 10, then 10:30 and 11:00 came and went the revo finally finished (5 years in the pen), the appeal announced a settlement and the divorce case was sent to lunch.

As you can guess, it all cratered. The appeal case came and went and the divorce finally began at 12:15 with no lunch for the judge or reporter. At 1:15 the office was advised that it could perhaps be concluded by 2 and we'd be there when we could. The divorce case had about five motions to be heard but two of them really did need some time. Apologize for rushing them, but press anyway. Note from the clerk -- the Burnet case (which had announced for three hours) has rescheduled for next Thursday. That was going to be my one office day for the week. We finally finish the divorce case (pretrial motions only) and decide the trial, now scheduled for next Monday, must be rescheduled. It's just not ready and the husband's case had gotten behind the curve in furnishing discovery. After a solid 15 minutes on the phone with the court administrator we finally find a slot that may work in December (skipping from the 10/27 setting).

That setting has problems. There's a Llano criminal week and if the cases don't all plead then a visiting judge will be needed. That will kill the rest of the fiscal year's allotment. And it has another problem. There is another jury trial starting the following week so if we don't finish in the week (and that could be a real problem) we'll be working Saturday and Sunday.

When we had visiting judges we could handle these problems. No longer. Huge impact on lawyers and their clients.