SOUTH JERSEY (KYW Newsradio) — Divorce court and civil hearings will be suspended Feb. 21 in six New Jersey counties due to a severe judge shortage.
New Jersey Supreme Court Chief Justice Stuart Rabner has been sounding the alarm on this shortage, and there’s been a clear lack of urgency and collaboration in Trenton. Currently, courts are 69 judges short. In Vicinage 15, covering Cumberland, Gloucester, and Salem counties, 9 of 28 seats are vacant. The shortages, Rabner says, leave him no choice but to suspend some non-essential trials indefinitely.
“He warned everyone in May, and since then we have had six judges confirmed,” Micah Rasmussen said. He’s the director of Rider University’s Rebovich Institute for New Jersey Politics. He says there’s plenty of blame to go around for this failure.
“One of the things that’s really important to note is that the governor and the senate, the majority in the Senate, are the same political party,” he said. “They’re both Democrats and they can’t get their act together.”
Governor Murphy’s office issued a statement acknowledging the problems and said the governor has been committed to ensuring vacancies are filled and that there are 17 pending nominees awaiting confirmation. He nominated 46 judges last year.
“He did, but it’s not enough,” Rasmussen said. “Unfortunately, I would say that there’s not a resolution in sight.”
New Jersey is one of the only states with a mandatory retirement for judges when they reach age 70. That could be one of the reasons for the shortage, but Rasmussen says it’s certainly not an acceptable excuse because we know when the judges will age out and it’s the responsibility of lawmakers to plan accordingly.
“We certainly don’t have a shortage of people who are willing to serve and are interested in serving,” Rasmussen said.
There is also the issue of senatorial courtesy, which is a long-standing tradition allowing local senators to block nominees they don’t like. Rasmussen says up until now, New Jersey’s system for nominating judges has been pretty well regarded. It’s only been this current senate and the current governor that can’t get it together. It’s unclear how many – if any – names were blocked in the three South Jersey counties.
“But ultimately, the buck stops with the governor, and the governor has got to find a way to get his nominations through,” he said.
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State Senator Doug Steinhardt is new to that role but worked for 30 years as an attorney, and he says this should light a fire under lawmakers to get something done. His Vicinage 13 (Hunterdon, Somerset, Warren) is also on Rabner’s list for no civil or divorce court hearings.
“We need to put the public’s interest first and ensure that we get these seats filled,” he said.
But that’s not as easy as waiving a magic confirmation wand. Background checks take time and substantial vetting is required for judges.
Steinhardt says there’s another problem he hopes to address while this is on everyone’s mind: unequal Vicinages. Think of vicinages as judicial districts, like legislative districts. Political maps are updated to reflect population changes. Steinhardt says that hasn’t been happening for judge allocation.
“You have vicinages that have 200,000 or 300,000 more people and a half-dozen fewer judges,” he said. “There’s a real parity problem.”
Rabner says unless there is significant progress on confirmations, this issue will only worsen and other counties will see a reduction in the types of cases heard in courts.
“I can’t imagine being a person who is trying to get on with their life, trying to settle a divorce, trying to move on and being told ‘I’m sorry you can’t do that’ because Trenton can’t get its act together,” Rasmussen said. “We want a basic level of government competence here and that’s not what we have at the moment.”