Emergency variances were granted because of the sudden increase in prison population that resulted from greater police anti-narcotics activity as well as from delays in the overburdened courts.

Offenders would not be processed through the overburdened courts but might be fined or let off with warnings, the report suggested.

And the Legislature's Republican leaders refused the judiciary's request for new judgeships for overburdened courts, in part to protest the way those judges would be chosen.

Bypassing the overburdened courts, aggrieved parties are seeking streamlined ways to adjudicate civil cases like employment discrimination suits, landlord-tenant disputes, consumer complaints and divorces.

The courtroom workgroup shows remarkable explanatory power in overburdened courts dealing with large caseloads.

For one woman trying to get her children back, the path through the overburdened court is littered with obstacles.

Vacancies on our federal courts have reached historically high levels are resulting in overburdened courts that now face crippling caseloads.

Taking Trains Out of Service Mr. Gunn said the overburdened courts hampered the transit system's quest for safety.

State officials said the measure would ease the strain on overburdened courts and help coax drug-addicted parents to seek help for their children without fear of legal complications.

Unfortunately, those improvements would not cure the bill's core defect: namely, that it would move almost all major class-action lawsuits to overburdened federal courts from state courts.