Chief Justice Valerie Stanfill delivers the annual State of the Judiciary address at the Maine State House in Augusta on Tuesday. Joe Phelan/Kennebec Journal

AUGUSTA — Maine’s top judge has watched with increasing alarm as the state’s court system continues trying to climb its way out of a backlog in cases.

In her annual State of the Judiciary speech at the Maine State House on Tuesday, Chief Justice Valerie Stanfill described an agency that’s trying to keep its head above water after years of underfunding.

Criminal cases and family matters are more complicated than ever before and are taking longer to resolve, she said. Judges and other court employees are paid less in Maine than other states. The judicial branch is struggling with vacancies, including a spot on the high court that has been open for more than a year. (A spokesperson for Gov. Janet Mills said Tuesday she “intends to proceed with an appointment as soon as possible.”) And under the current two-year budget proposal, the judiciary faces a $1.8 million annual shortfall due to a recent decline in surcharges on fines.

Many of these are the same concerns Stanfill highlighted in her speech to lawmakers last year. But now, she says the judiciary is tackling all of that while facing a national decline in trust in public institutions — including the courts. A Gallup poll late last year found that Americans’ trust in the judicial system had reached an all-time low.

“I don’t think it’s specific, in some ways, to the court, but I do think there has been an undermining of the respect for institutions,” Stanfill told reporters after her speech. She referenced threats against court employees and increased confrontations in the courtroom that have required court marshals to intervene.

“I think it’s important that all people — whether it’s the Legislature, whether it’s the executive, whether it’s all of you — we can disagree,” she said. “We can disagree with a court order. But we have to have a certain respect for the way things work. … If you want society to function, it does take a certain level of respect for the institutions and what their functions are.”

Stanfill declined to weigh in on the Trump administration and its executive orders that are being challenged in court. Some legal experts fear what could happen if he ignores court orders.

In her speech Tuesday, she made references to the country’s values of “justice, equality and fairness for all people,” saying “these aren’t liberal or conservative sentiments. They are the ideals upon which this country was founded.”

PUBLIC DEFENSE

To help address Maine’s public defense crisis, Stanfill urged lawmakers to pass a bill that will allow judges to appoint any lawyer to represent indigent clients, regardless of whether or not they’re rostered by Maine’s public defense agency. Stanfill said judges have the ability to do this already, but the three-year emergency legislation would ensure lawyers get paid when they’re appointed.

Some in the defense bar have been resistant to the idea out of fear they’ll be overwhelmed with work that they didn’t sign up for. The executive director of the Maine Commission on Public Defense Services recently said that he doubts there is a “tidal wave” of lawyers available to take court-appointed work who aren’t already doing so.

Stanfill seemed to disagree, telling lawmakers “there are people out there who are able and capable of taking these cases who are not on the rosters.” She said the unavailability of attorneys in cases “where significant rights are at stake” is making cases take longer, and it’s not helping address a backlog.

She distanced herself from the commission’s requests to the Legislature, because it is a separate quasi-state agency charged with finding lawyers for those who cannot afford their own. A court-maintained list of people who need lawyers has declined in recent weeks, from more than 900 criminal cases at the end of last year to under 600 cases as of Monday.

Still, Stanfill said it’s the judicial branch that regulates attorneys and is intent on making it easier for people to practice, including students and attorneys licensed in other states.

“Cases have simply gotten more complicated,” Stanfill said. “People expect more from the courts. They expect us to solve their problems and their parenting problems — not just to grant the divorce.”

Chief Justice Valerie Stanfill, addressing the Legislature on Tuesday, is urging lawmakers to pass a bill that will allow judges to appoint any lawyer to represent indigent clients, regardless of whether or not they’re rostered by Maine’s public defense agency. Joe Phelan/Kennebec Journal

TECHNOLOGY INVESTMENTS

The justice also spoke about Maine’s slow effort to move its paper court records online.

For more than a decade, the state has been working with Tyler Technologies to digitize court records. So far, they’ve moved only civil and family cases online in Penobscot and Androscoggin counties.

They’re slowly working on criminal cases now — but that also involves dealing with law enforcement agencies’ record-keeping systems, Stanfill said.

While the state was able to pay for initial investments in 2013 with bonds, those don’t cover all of their annual fees and repairs. Now, the courts are struggling to continue to afford all the technology they need to stream remote hearings and broadcast digital evidence.

The courts have been relying some on added surcharges to fines and fees, including those for traffic violations, but they’re receiving less every year as prices continue to rise, Stanfill said.

“This has to be part of just how we do this,” she said. “Trying to pay for this technology, through surcharges on fines and fees, is not a sound plan. … Those surcharges, of course, are often imposed on those least able to pay.”