The District court is a statutory creation mandated by Chapter 81 of the Revised Judicature Act commonly called the District Court Act being P.A. 154 of 1968 as amended. It functions according to authority of the constitution, statute, court rule and certain case law. It should be noted that a court never generates its own business.
All business is a result of law enforcement activity, or disputes between citizens.
In 1999 the criminal division opened and disposed over 3200 case files involving criminal activity or serious traffic activity filed by 4 area law enforcement agencies and a multitude of other state and local enforcement agencies. In 1998 nearly 3000 were opened. The traffic division disposed over 15,000 traffic violations and the civil division disposed nearly 2450 civil disputes between citizens totaling over 20,650 cases. In addition 96 parking citations, that were handled identically as traffic citations were disposed. This is a labor intensive business involving filing of complaints, routing and retrieving arrest warrants, fielding inquiry from parties, attorneys, agencies, media family and friends, and entering the information into the automated processing system.