STATE CAPITOL -- Gov. Jay Nixon’s new budget plan to cut 1,300 state jobs would also eliminate 132 administrative positions from the Missouri court system. 

The jobs cuts were likely on the mind of State Supreme Court Chief Justice Laura Denvir Stith Wednesday as she delivered the annual "State of the Judiciary" address to lawmakers.

Her remarks during the address did not mention the cuts.

"We're looking at it now,” said Stith. “We, of course, just got it, as everyone did, at the speech.  And so we'll be studying it and looking at it and see what we think it means for the judiciary." 

When asked exactly who will be cut Stith simply stated she will know later on.

Stith did call for more spending for the state's public defender system, which ranks last in the nation in per capita funding.

She warned of legal problems under an edict of the U.S. Supreme Court on people jailed for more than eight months without trial.

"Missouri does not want to find itself in the position of other states, such as Indiana, Montana, and Washington, which were faced with the possibility of releasing prisoners…or facing lawsuits from the ACLU…if they did not fix their public defender crises.”

Last July, the Missouri Public Defender Commission said it was okay for local public defender offices to refuse new cases after exceeding their maximum caseload capacity for three straight months.

In the fall, the offices in Springfield, Ava, Jefferson City and Columbia all began to refuse new clients.

Gov. Nixon, a former attorney general, has included funding in his budget to add 12 additional public defenders for the program.