Via the  New York Lawyer, Tony Mauro  reports that the Judicial Conference has decided to do its share to make the courts more fuel-efficient by having federal judges share courtrooms in the future, a variation on tag-team justice perhaps.

The conference agreed that in future court construction, every two senior judges will have to share a single courtroom. Similar court-sharing will be considered for magistrate and bankruptcy judges, as well as nonsenior trial judges in larger courthouses. The policy for senior judges may have limited impact, since little new courthouse construction is planned in the near future.

Anthony Scirica, chief judge of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, said at a press conference following the meeting that the move toward shared courtrooms was part of the judiciary’s ongoing cost containment efforts and a response to congressional pressure to find ways to “use courtrooms effectively.”

To the outsider, this probably sounds like a great idea on a number of levels.  First, recognition by the judicial branch that it too costs money, and that the money comes from overburdened taxpayers, suggests a level of involvement in the fiscal interests of the nation that is rarely seen.  After all, there has been a rash of courthouse construction in the past few years, building large and grand courtrooms with exotic woods and amenities reminiscent of a first class hotel.  Indeed, it’s hard to imagine that there’s any marble left after a new courthouse has popped up. 

The theory has long been that the courthouse, and its courtrooms, are a reflection of the majesty of the law.  They are built to appear impenetrable and overwhelming, to cow the ordinary citizen into appreciating the importance of the law, the court and the judge.  Since judges don’t direct armies, the impact is needed to make people take judicial pronouncements seriously.  Otherwise, who cares what some old guy in a black robe says.

Second, courtrooms are often underutilized, with doors locked and benches empty for hours each day, despite being some of the most expensive real estate in the federal government’s portfolio.  While judges are doing “stuff” in chambers, yet another wood paneled room dedicated to the robed ones, nothing is happening in the courtroom, leaving it wasted space.

But this plan has its problems as well, particularly for the practitioner.  As it stands, cases don’t get tried day after day, hour after hour.  At best, criminal trials happen four days a week now, and at worst there are numerous disruptions reducing a trial to two or three days and a few additional hours here and there.  This creates substantial disruption in the flow of a trial, prolongs trials (resulting in the potential loss of witnesses and jurors) and interferes with the ability to conduct cohesive examinations.

Imagine what would happen if a case was being tried in a shared courtroom, where in the midst of cross-examination, a second judge marched into the room and announced it was her turn to hold court.  The disruption of sharing would be manifest.  Trials could take 2 to 3 times as long, with its concomitant impact on jurors availability and willingness to serve.  Scheduling for lawyers would be impossible, never knowing when witnesses would be needed and having to keep them available for days on end.  The cost for experts would be astronomical.  And, if I may be a bit selfish, the impact on an attorney’s time and fees would be unbearable.

It appears that this otherwise fine idea has failed to take into account the practical problems the judiciary would create for the lawyer.  Of course, since so few federal judges have ever labored as a private criminal defense lawyer, they probably had no one in the room familiar with the issues, and no one to speak up to suggest that this brilliant idea might have some negative consequences.

While judges like having a big, grand courtroom in which to conduct their daily business of telling litigants to come back another day, the fact remains that the reason we need big, grand courtroom in the first place is to conduct trials.  When you make trials to onerous to conduct, you’ve defeated the reason for having courtrooms in the first place.  They are not, contrary to popular belief, just places to make judges feel good about themselves.

It’s not that there are no variations on a theme that would serve to reduce the number of courtrooms necessary, aside from my personal preference that they stop federalizing local crimes and thereby cut the volume significantly.  But the plan as stated simply ignores the impact courtroom sharing would have on the ability of criminal defense lawyers to defend.  That’s definitely not the answer.