Justice by Exhaustion: How Nashua’s Courts Protect Power and Punish Dissent

PART I - WHEN THE COURTS TURN HOSTILE

Courts dread seeing a self-represented litigant walk through their doors, especially one challenging city government. In Nashua, that dread turns to hostility. Over five years of fighting for transparency, I’ve learned how the local court system uses its power not to ensure fairness, but to exhaust and financially break citizens who dare to question municipal authority.

My first Right-to-Know (RTK) case, filed in 2020, should have been simple. I sought public assessing records that by law should have been readily available. Instead, it became a slow-motion war of attrition. Hearings were postponed, filings multiplied, and months turned into years. The City’s lawyers, paid by taxpayers, fought disclosure as if it were a personal threat.

From the start, the courtroom did not feel neutral. Hearings were conducted by zoom, and the judge’s tone was distant, often non-responsive. Meanwhile, the City’s attorneys were granted extensions and indulgences no citizen could expect. The petition was meant to be expedited, but the City’s counsel persuaded the court to turn it into a long, discovery-based trial. The judge obliged, transforming a straightforward question -Are public records public?- into a complex procedural maze.

What I didn’t know was that the presiding judge was seriously ill and largely unable to manage the docket. For nearly a year, hearings were held remotely, audio only, with the judge frequently disengaged. The supervisory judge, Jacalyn Colburn, allowed the case to proceed even though, in her administrative role, she should have been aware of his condition.

I discovered the truth years later while watching the Executive Council’s 2022 confirmation hearing for Nashua’s new judge, Jacki Smith. During that hearing, it was casually revealed that the judge handling my case had been seriously ill throughout the same period. By then, tens of thousands of dollars had been spent in a proceeding that never had a fair foundation.

The Court’s indifference was bias wrapped in procedure. The court made it clear that I could keep fighting only if I could keep paying. Justice has a price tag, and that judge seemed content to let cost decide the outcome.