At a time when the Texas Supreme Court's case backlog has reached record levels, Justice Paul Green was spending Friday driving to Corpus Christi to speak to a group of appeals lawyers. "It's 40 (degrees) and raining and I'm driving four hours to Corpus Christi," Green said from his cell phone. "Yes, I've got stuff to do at the office, but some of us like to do this."
Green, who wrote the fewest opinions — four — of the high court's nine justices during the 2007 fiscal year, said he thinks it's important to get out of the office and talk about the court's work. "If all of a sudden I said I'll just stay in my chambers and work on opinions, I don't think people would like that," Green said, adding that he has a "bunch of cases" that are ready to be issued.
Jim Jordan, a Democrat who is challenging Republican Chief Justice Wallace Jefferson, has a different opinion.
He said Green needs to take care of the court's business before he travels to "schmooze" with lawyers. When parties in a legal dispute get to the Supreme Court, they already have been through an expensive and time-consuming trial and appeals process, said Jordan, a Dallas County trial judge.
"Texans don't need to be told they need to take a number and get in line and wait," Jordan said. "These kinds of delays create a distrust in the legal system."
At the end of 2007, the court left more cases pending than ever before. The court had heard arguments but not issued rulings in 111 cases, including 36 that were more than a year old and 13 others more than 2 years old.
Jefferson said he's concerned about the backlog but denied it's because the justices aren't working hard. He said the court disposed of a record number of cases last year, but also accepted more cases for review, a trend since 2005.
Green is one of three justices facing ethics complaints about payments to themselves from their campaign accounts for travel. Green reimbursed himself nearly $16,000 for 272 trips between Austin and San Antonio, his former hometown.
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