Panel gets plenty of workload advice.

Texas' bifurcated appellate system with separate courts for civil and criminal appeals of nine justices each should not be duplicated in Florida -- and that comes from the chief justice of the Texas Supreme Court.

He also said it's inefficient for the Texas Supreme Court to be responsible for all court administrative issues, including the Criminal Court of Appeals.

"The only reason to have it [bifurcated appellate courts] is if you all challenge us for death penalty king, which you'll never win, but you might want to try," Chief Justice Tom Phillips said.

Phillips spoke via telephone at the October 24 meeting of the legislature's Supreme Court Workload Study Commission. Also appearing at the meeting was the entire Florida Supreme Court, as well as representatives of The Florida Bar, state attorneys, public defenders, the Judicial Qualifications Commission, capital collateral regional counsels and the Attorney General.

Much of the testimony dealt with death penalty appeals.

The commission was formed by the legislature to study the high court's workload and explore whether it needed help in handling its increasing duties. The bill to create the commission came after another measure to add two justices to the court -- giving it nine members -- and allowing the Governor to name the chief justice for a six-year term stalled in the legislature.

Phillips said having nine justices wouldn't help with the workload, and would probably slow things down.

The justice said the Texas high court operates much more efficiently and quickly when recusals reduce its size to seven. Asked why the extra justices cause delay, Phillips said, "It just takes longer to get around the table, it takes longer to get an agreement.... What you get when you put more judges in is just two more voices to be heard. I would love to go down to seven."

A bifurcated system similar to Texas', with separate supreme courts for civil and criminal matters, has been mentioned as a possibility in Florida. Justice Phillips said he wouldn't recommend it.

"The Texas model with two courts absolutely equal in their prestige as far as their law powers is inefficient," Phillips said.

Problems surface when a law or evidence code affects both criminal and civil cases, and the two courts may rule differently on legality or constitutionality.

"That has happened," he said.

The Texas Supreme Court, he added, sets all ethical rules, including those applying to criminal attorneys, who the court rarely if ever sees.

"We also have five to 10 cases a year where we don't know which court they belong in," Phillips said.

Another problem is the separate civil and criminal courts of ultimate jurisdiction tend to focus on minutiae and unimportant details of the...