North Carolina lawmakers have a $150 million surplus and a sense of election-year urgency on their hands. So why in the world are they considering cutting the state's court system budget?

Legislators make the case sound cut and dry. The judiciary's budget has grown by 40 percent over the last five years. The state has plenty of other needs.

As a result, leaders in the N.C. House and N.C. Senate have suggested cutting court allocations by $9 million.

Fiscal responsibility is all well and good, but surely anyone looking at this year's headlines would realize the court system in North Carolina has issues. The Eve Carson case alone has illustrated one mishap after another in the way courts handled suspects now accused of killing the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill student.

The court system makes up only 3 percent of the state budget. There is a $23 million need right now for technology that would help the courts do such basic tasks as filing and sharing case information.

Crowded backlogs spur poor decisions and rushed judgments. Even with a budget surplus, lawmakers have limited resources to meet a huge list of needs, but cutting the judicial budget shouldn't be on the table.

The state can ill afford more nightmares.