Members of the Joint Judiciary Committee have agreed to ask permission to study the workload of District Judges in Laramie County. The decision comes after preliminary data was presented by the Wyoming Administrative Office of the Courts and district judges testified at a recent committee meeting. They say that they and other judges like them in the state are overworked and that it’s slowing down their ability to hear cases. They say civil cases often take the worst hit – making the wait time for a civil trial a year or longer.
While the study will be focused on Laramie County, Brad Bonner, president of the Wyoming State Bar Association, says the issue of overworked judges isn’t limited to just one area of the state.
"In Campbell County and in Laramie County and maybe to a lesser extent in Albany County, and Natrona County, also Sweetwater County, there really is a substantial need for some additional judges. The problem is it all costs money and I know the legislature is taking a hard look at that," he says.
If permission to study judge’s workloads is granted, committee members will aim to collect the data on judges’ hours and workloads before the 2016 session.