A properly funded court system is a requirement of the United States and the Florida Constitution. One of the few things that separate this country from the chaos that reigns around the globe was the fact that we had a stable and well funded judicial branch. This is no longer the case and as those countries go, so too will we if we continue on this path.
” We are now facing a $72.3 million deficit between now and June 30,” Goodner said. ” We are projecting that we will run out of money in that trust fund in March”¦Obviously, that is a huge problem for us.”
The issue of lack of funding crippling our Constitutional rights was recently addressed by the Florida Supreme Court in Crist v. Ervin: (read the full decision for a discussion on court funding)
[T]his Court (The Florida Supreme Court) has stated that Florida’s court system is operationally underfunded, see, e.g., In re Certification of Need for Additional Judges, 29 So. 3d 1110 (Fla. 2010), we have not determined that the judiciary is underfunded to the point of it being a violation of the constitution.Note the Supreme Court stopped just short of making that key decision, but what if the $9.6 million dollar rocket docket funding had not been provided in 2010?
