U.S. Judges Say Their Jobs Are Too Trying : Courts: Western jurists meeting in Alaska put a rapidly growing caseload at top of their list of woes.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska —  Federal Judge Stevie Fellini is going crazy.

The judge tells his wife Maria he can’t handle his rapidly growing caseload. He is troubled by new sentencing guidelines. He has nightmares about his rulings being reversed by the Supreme Court.

He also complains of being chastised by the Audubon Society because of his alleged indifference to a rare species of bird the environmental group is trying to protect by halting a multimillion-dollar construction project.

Luckily, there is no Judge Fellini. He is a composite character who was featured here in a skit last week at the 9th Circuit Judicial Conference that attempted to crystallize some of the problems facing today’s federal judges. Alfred T. Goodwin, chief judge of the 9th Circuit--which covers nine Western states including California--acknowledged that the portrayal was exaggerated.

But like most of the judges here, Goodwin said the job of judging has gotten tougher.

The theme of this year’s annual 9th Circuit conference was “The Federal Judiciary on the Frontier,” in part to reflect the location for the gathering. It could just as well have been called “The Federal Judiciary on the Edge.”

The meeting, which ended Friday, was held less than three months after a special committee of judges, lawyers, congressmen and senators declared that the nation’s 200-year-old federal court system is facing an “impending crisis.” The special committee said sweeping changes in the operations of the federal judiciary are needed.

Arthur Hellman, a University of Pittsburgh law professor who is an expert on the federal courts and has studied the 9th Circuit, said he senses a growing anxiety among federal judges. “The judges feel society is throwing all the problems on them and not giving them any help,” Hellman said.

Many judges say their workload is a key problem. The caseloads of federal trial judges have tripled since 1958, an increase aggravated in recent years by the rapid growth of complicated, multi-defendant drug cases. In addition, federal appeals have increased 10 times since 1958.

The number of federal judges authorized by Congress has not kept pace, having only doubled in that period. Making matters worse, there are 55 unfilled positions nationwide.

“The system is cracking at the seams,” said U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, who spoke at the four-day conference.

In addition to the manpower shortages, the judges say they do not have enough computers to keep up with changes in the legal world. “We are a hundred years behind the lawyers technologically,” said Appeals Court Judge Mary M. Schroeder of Phoenix.

Federal judges, who are appointed for life, also have become increasingly worried about their personal security, particularly since last December’s assassination of U.S. Appeals Court Judge Robert Vance in Alabama. In fact, on arriving here for the conference, the judges received illustrated, written warnings about an Anchorage man who was said to hate judges. By the end of the session, no incidents had been reported.

Adding to their woes, the judges say, is proposed legislation by Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) that would require changes in their daily operations, in an apparent attempt to increase efficiency. Biden, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, was not a popular figure at the conference.

“The Biden bill is a serious intrusion by the legislative branch of government on the day-to-day procedures of the judicial branch,” said U.S. District Judge Manuel L. Real of Los Angeles.

In large meetings and small workshops, the judges held spirited debates on whether they should follow rigid schedules in the disposition of cases. They discussed how to cope with the flood of drug trials and death penalty appeals they face. They talked about how to best use new technological devices such as videotaped records of court hearings.

In all, about 400 judges and lawyers participated in the gathering. Such meetings have been required by Congress for the last 50 years as “a means of improving the administration of justice.” All federal judges are required to attend their circuit’s conference unless excused by the circuit’s chief judge.

Some lawyers from each circuit serve three-year terms as delegates to the conference and some play key roles in formulating the program. One of them, Harvey I. Saferstein, a Century City antitrust attorney, came up with the idea of using skits to dramatize issues facing the judges. He played an unruly defendant accused of mail fraud in one skit.

The theme of the skits and other conference forums “is the caseload crunch at every level,” Saferstein said. “No one knows how to deal with it.”

Despite that view, some people think they have some answers to the problem. The special Federal Courts Study Committee recommended in April that federal officials responsible for prosecuting narcotics cases should not bring cases to federal courts that could be filed in state courts, especially those involving small amounts of drugs. The committee noted that drug cases account for 44% of federal criminal trials and roughly 50% of federal criminal appeals.

Many of the federal judges would like to hear fewer drug cases. Because they are required by the Speedy Trial Act to give priority to criminal cases, they say it has become increasingly difficult to find time for civil trials.

But there is little likelihood that prosecutors will heed the committee’s recommendation any time soon. Because federal sentences for drug crimes are considerably tougher than state penalties, prosecutors file drug cases in federal courts whenever possible and will continue to do so, said U.S. Atty. Gen. Dick Thornburgh, who has criticized the study committee.

And, despite their desire to reduce caseloads, the judges here emphatically rejected a potentially controversial drug-related proposal introduced by Thomas W. Hillier, the federal public defender from Seattle, and David M. Stern, a Santa Monica attorney.

The resolution urged that the U.S. Judicial Conference establish a committee to study the advisability of decriminalizing drugs.

As soon as the measure was introduced, Judge Real immediately declared that judges should not take stands on “political questions.” After a stormy discussion, the resolution was tabled.

Other than the drug measure, the sharpest debate of the normally collegial conference focused on whether appeals court judges should be compelled to write opinions within a set time period. The issue was not resolved.

Appeals Court Judge Arthur Alarcon of Los Angeles said the 9th Circuit’s 37 appellate judges should be required to turn out opinions within six months of receiving a case. He said state appeals court judges in California have time limits for deciding cases and that the limits are useful.

But his colleague, Stephen Reinhardt of Los Angeles, sharply disagreed, saying the California system often led to assembly line opinions written by court staff lawyers and approved and signed by judges. “We wouldn’t be contributing much to the legal system if we modeled ourselves on California,” Reinhardt said.

The debate grew testier when Appeals Court Judge Cynthia Holcomb Hall of Pasadena said that even 9th Circuit judges are divided on what their role is. “My primary goal is to get cases decided,” she said. “I don’t think I’m writing for posterity.”

U.S. District Judge Owen Panner of Portland said he supported Hall for practical, political reasons. “We’re going to have to take some steps to expedite justice. We give Sen. Biden a lot of material by long delays.”