Maine’s top judge, Valerie Stanfill, Maine Supreme Judicial Court, recently claimed Maine courts, “are overwhelmed, and underfunded.” At best, she is half right re: her newspaper, front page comments (KJ, Feb. 26). Maine courts are overwhelmed by workloads, but not underfunded, simply because major cities like New York pay more and have better means to maintain courtroom decorum.

Stanfill claimed high judicial workloads exist due to cases having “simply gotten more complicated.” Whoa there! Respectfully, judicial stumbling blocks are not befalling the District Court! Instead, please examine the sad judicial history of that court’s lackadaisical sentencing management.

In my 15 years as a Maine district court judge, 1975-1992, the sentence-system consistently abandoned application of “the deterrent effect of the law,” replacing it with a published “indicated fine schedule” all new judges received, seeking uniformity of sentences across the state. It shunned the “statutory deterrent effect of sentencing;” akin to dead leaves of fall, strewn along the countryside. The management of sentencing emphasized judicial uniformity over deterrence, across the state. And every sum suggested was minimum. Educating the public that way does not turn them away.

I never used the referenced fine list. When $50 was the administered minimum fine for school bus violations, I decided the minimum fine for a school bus violation, protecting children, entering or leaving a school bus, flashing red lights, should be $250. I was the lone judge, at that level until the Maine Legislature learned the higher fine dropped the Farmington area violations from 34 a month to 4. It legislated $250. That result has been law 38 years.

One closing poke at Valerie Stanfill’s article involves her insistence that lawyers be paid at “the time they’re appointed.” Sounds iffy. Does she pay the plumber before the faucet is fixed?

John Benoit

Manchester