LARAMIE - Knowing that justice delayed can sometimes mean justice denied, courts in some counties affected by the energy boom are struggling to process civil cases without excessive delays, a Campbell County judge says.

Campbell County District Judge John Perry, in a Wyoming Law Review article titled "The Effect of Energy Development on the Courts," wrote that the coal-bed methane surge has increased the numbers of criminal and juvenile cases, which must be given priority for trial dates under state law. But the increased energy activity has also resulted in more filings of civil cases, including complex energy-related litigation.

Disputes over mineral taxation, environmental quality, eminent domain, insurance and contracts sometimes require three weeks or more for trial, he said. Reviewing and deciding these highly specialized cases with "voluminous records" can take up several days or even weeks of a judge's time.

As a result, "our trial dockets for civil litigation have extended out more than two and a half years," Perry said.

While district judges were presiding over recent trials in homicide cases in Gillette, some attorneys in divorce cases agreed to have their cases decided by Circuit Court judges to obtain earlier resolution.

Another problem faced by the district judges is handling "pro se" cases filed by the litigants themselves when they either cannot afford a lawyer or cannot find an attorney who has time to handle the case, Perry said.

Particularly when child custody and support issues are involved in a case where the litigants do not have attorneys to represent them, he said, "you really do have to have some type of hearing to know and understand what the effect is going to be on those children."

Pro se cases often result in "unenforceable provisions" being included in the final decrees, he said.

"Imagine the shock the pro se litigant faces when he or she shows up and realizes that it is not like it is on TV," Perry wrote.

Processing cases in Sweetwater County is often impeded because judges there only have one courtroom for jury trials, District Judge Jere Ryckman said in a recent interview. The addition of another judge for that judicial district several years ago has reduced the backlog, Ryckman said, but having only one courtroom requires that the judges stack 12 to 15 criminal jury cases on the same date.

"We rely on plea bargains and so forth to keep the dockets moving," he said.

Ryckman said he had just made a trip to Utah to visit judicial centers in Tooele and Park City.

"Our courthouse is 40 years old, and we've outgrown it," he said. "The county commissioners are planning to expand our court facilities."