Yesterday’s Cleveland Plain Dealer featured an extensive article on the increasingly slow pace of decisions at the Ohio Supreme Court. In 2004 it took the Court an average of five months from oral argument to issue an opinion. By 2006, it took an average of seven months.
Chief Justice Thomas Moyer, who is reluctant to talk about the inner workings of the court, acknowledges that the pace has been a rising concern for him and a source of finger-pointing among the justices. But he says it’s an issue that he – despite his leadership position – is helpless to control.
“Any justice who has a pattern of taking a longer period of time than others knows the court’s concern, they know the chief justice’s concern, they know the concern of their colleagues,” Moyer said.
“But one thing we have to remember is each of the justices is an independently statewide elected official.”