SC Chief Justice Asks For 9 New Judges

South Carolina’s court system is one of the most backed up in the nation and Wednesday the state’s top jurist called on lawmakers to help clean it up.

South Carolina Supreme Court Justice Jean Toal delivered her 12th State of the Judiciary address, asking the joint session to give her funds for nine new judge positions — three circuit court judges and six family court judges.

She shared that the state is last in the nation for number of judges for the population and that each circuit court judge has 5,011 cases a year, which is nearly three times the national average of 1,791 cases. Right now the state has 53 circuit court judges.

But Toal said the heavy case loads burden South Carolina families more than the judges.

“Family court is the huge priority. People are hurting and desperate in our family court system because of the huge volume of cases and their inability to get their disputes heard. One out of every five days in family court is taken up simply collecting child support which mostly does not go to custodial parents,” Toal said.

To help those families she will implement mandatory mediation in some cases, hoping that taking the adversarial nature out of difficult family situations will mean quicker resolutions for families in crisis.

Toal asked for $3.1 million of recurring funds to pay for the new positions and the staff to support them.

But she also told lawmakers that by implementing an online case-filing system, the courts will save a lot of time and money in paper, document delivery and productivity. She estimated that the system would replace the department’s need for federal funds, which make up about 10 percent of the $63.1 million budget.

That’s because most states contract their e-filing systems and pay an outside company, but South Carolina’s justice department has created their own system with on-staff IT personnel.

“They’ll build this system and we’ll own it and the fees that are generated will go right back into the technology system,” Toal said. “We believe we’ve got a sustainable project here and technology is certain the key to your not spending any more than you have to in terms of new judicial personnel.”

By June, every county will be fully live for using an electronic case management system, with the online filing component integrated.

Toal is also working with prosecutors around the state to try to make case dockets more efficient.