INDIANAPOLIS | Indiana courts saw fewer cases filed in 2009 compared to the year before, but case filings are up 16.5 percent in the last decade, according to a new report.
Statewide there were 1.95 million criminal and civil cases filed last year, or one for approximately every three Hoosiers. That's up from some 1.6 million cases filed in 2000.
"If you get more workload without increased resources, something has got to give," said Lilia G. Judson, executive director of State Court Administration.
Judson said the Indiana Supreme Court is working with county courts to improve efficiency using new technology, but she said the additional cases have slowed courts down.
Lake County courts had 208,980 filings in 2009 and reached a result in 187,669 of them, or 90 percent. In Porter County, 45,544 new cases were filed and 46,074 cases were resolved, including cases carried over from 2008.
With so many Hoosiers involved in the court system in any given year, state courts have an obligation to mete out justice efficiently and effectively, Judson said.
"The justice system is the place that most people get their first interaction with state government," Judson said. "It's very important for us that the first interaction, the first result of justice, that people get a good impression."
Chief Judge John G. Baker, of the Indiana Court of Appeals, said part of the extra workload stems from "offense inflation."
"That which was punished as a misdemeanor is now treated as a felony," Baker said. "It takes more time to process a more complicated, more harsher case and it takes more money."
When the Indiana Criminal Code was rewritten in 1977, the number of criminal offenses was dropped to 200 from more than 4,000. Since that time, the number of offenses has climbed back over 2,000, Baker said.
Baker said reorganizing the courts to make them more of a statewide system rather than local "fiefdoms" might improve efficiency enough to meet the added workload.
"We can do it better," he said.