Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, March 29, 1992                   TAG: 9203290076
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: LAURENCE HAMMACK STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

COURT MAY HAVE TO APPEAL FOR HELP

A steadily increasing caseload is stretching the court to its limits, Chief Judge Lawrence L. Koontz Jr. says.

Since the 10-member intermediate appellate court was created seven years ago to lighten the Supreme Court's overloaded docket, its own caseload has increased by 40 percent.

The Court of Appeals, which usually hears criminal appeals in three-judge panels across the state, has improved tremendously on the average of the two to three years it once took the high court to dispose of cases.

But as judges are forced to hear more cases and write more opinions while the court's staff level remains the same, "at some point the quality of the work product begins to suffer," Koontz said last week during an interview in his chambers at the Roanoke County Courthouse.

"There is a point at which the judges simply become overloaded."

So far, the court has been able to stick to its target of resolving cases within 280 days, except in criminal petitions that involve a two-stage process.

"The point is that in order to meet this time standard, the judges at my request have consistently taken on more and more cases per Koontz panel," Koontz said.

Judges are being asked to write an average of 70 opinions a year - in addition to hearing many more cases - whereas bar studies suggest that half of that is the appropriate number, Koontz said.

Some judges have expressed concerns that although they can always resolve the immediate issues of a case, they don't have the time to expand their opinions on points that circuit judges look to for guidance in making their own decisions.

In addition, some judges can't find enough time to discuss cases after hearing oral arguments before a panel. "My feeling is that we have less and less time to do a lot of discussing," Koontz said.

Koontz has made sure that those concerns are passed along to both lawyers and lawmakers.

At its last session, the General Assembly approved funding for two new staff attorneys to review cases at the court's headquarters in Richmond. The court had asked for eight.

Koontz said he will continue to push for more staffing and better support resources for the court, which were recommended by a long-range planning committee.

"There's really not any magic in appellate court case management," he said. "There are generally two things you can do. You can add judges or you can add staff . . . to help the judges."

Koontz credits a "very energetic, hard-working" Court of Appeals for keeping up with the rapidly increasing caseload.

He pointed out that the number of cases in which the court agrees to hear oral arguments and then issues orders or opinions - about 20 percent - has remained constant despite the increase.

"One solution to an overloaded court is to limit the number of petitions it grants, but this court has consistently declined to do that," he said. "We have no quota."

With no signs that the caseload will level off or decrease, Koontz said it's possible that the court could one day experience the same sort of yearlong backlogs that once plagued the Supreme Court.

But, he said, "I'm determined not to let that happen, if I can help it."