This summer wasn't easy for the Delaware Federal District Court. With one long-standing vacancy and an impending retirement, the four-seat court was hugely backlogged. "Because of the Speedy Trial Act," says Caroline Fredrickson of the American Constitution Society, "they've had to take their whole criminal caseload and outsource it to other federal courts." It was a drastic move, but the only way Delaware could have handled its growing load of civil cases -- judicial business that concerns people who have lost jobs, homes, and livelihoods and need the court's assistance. Thanks to this "fundamental breakdown in the judicial confirmation process," she says, "people are waiting and waiting, and yet there is no justice."