Rose tells lawmakers to go slow on intermediate court

Rose said the high court has just expanded from five to seven members, and time is needed to see if the expansion and other efforts will take care of a heavy, ever-expanding caseload.

The 1997 Legislature approved the intermediate appeals court plan and the 1999 Legislature would have to do the same in order to get the proposal on the 2000 ballot.

But Rose asked lawmakers to hold up so that the question wouldn't go to voters until 2002.

That will provide enough time to see whether the seven-member high court is enough to "gun down the backlog," Rose said. The expansion has enabled justices to divide into panels to speed up work on cases.

Other speedup efforts have included a fast-track program for criminal cases, to quickly deal with uncomplicated issues; and a settlement program to eliminate some civil cases from the full appeal process.

If all those efforts still aren't enough, "we will know that there is no alternative than to give us more firepower" in the form of the appeals court, he added.

Rose also said the Supreme Court went through years of dissension among justices - "a winter of discontent."

"But this grim period has given way to, today, a spring of hope and promise," he said.

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