California Justice System Collapsing

As budget problems continue to plague California, we now read that San Francisco has shut down it's courts.

SAN FRANCISCO -- The San Francisco Superior Court announced Monday that it's laying off more than 40 percent of its staff and shuttering 25 courtrooms because of budget cuts.

Presiding Judge Katherine Feinstein said the actions were necessary to close a $13.75 million budget deficit caused by state budget cuts. She said the cuts mean it will take many more hours to pay a traffic ticket in person, up to 18 months to finalize a divorce and five years for a lawsuit to go to trial.

"The civil justice system in San Francisco is collapsing," Feinstein said.

"The future is very, very bleak for our courts," Feinstein said at a Monday press conference. Feinstein said criminal cases would remain largely unaffected because of constitutional guarantees of speedy trials. Every other type of court, though, is facing significant cutbacks.

See it here; http://www.ktvu.com/news/28586520/detail.html

Of course this news comes on top of the earlier news that California is going to be releasing 40% of it's felons from prison because they don't have the money to incarcerate them any more.  Also my long time readers will know that we believe the events happening in  California to be a foreshadowing of what is coming for the rest of us.

As I reflected on justice collapsing in California and the law being paralyzed there, I couldn't help but think about the words of the prophet Habakkuk:
 ² How long, LORD, must I call for help,
but you do not listen?
Or cry out to you, “Violence!”
but you do not save?
³ Why do you make me look at injustice?
Why do you tolerate wrongdoing?
Destruction and violence are before me;
there is strife, and conflict abounds. ⁴ Therefore the law is paralyzed,
and justice never prevails. The wicked hem in the righteous,
so that justice is perverted.

Seems about right....violence is all around us, the law is paralyzed and justice is perverted.  How long O Lord must we see all these things?