Democrats have been selling their vice-presidential candidate, Senator Edwards of North Carolina, as a folksy lawyer crusading for “the little guy,” as Mr. Edwards himself likes to put it. But the legal system in the senator’s home state has been poorly serving the little guy for some time — and Mr. Edwards seems not to care.

The United States District Court for the Western District of North Carolina ranks among the worst in the country for the time it takes to move from indictment to trial to sentencing, leaving federal defendants waiting that much longer in detention. It takes an average of 12 months to complete a criminal case in the Western District, almost twice the national average of 6.4 months.

It’s not the judges’ fault. The Western District’s judges bear among the heaviest caseloads in the country. Each judge handles about twice as many criminal cases and conducts about three times as many trials as the national average. Each sentences between 175 and 200 defendants a year, among the highest number for judges throughout America.

North Carolina’s Western District has been overloaded for some time. In 1998, judges shouldered a weighted caseload of 744 cases each, and the caseload hasn’t dipped below 677 in any year since. If judges’ weighted caseloads are 600 or greater, the Judicial Conference of the United States considers their district to have a judicial emergency.

Western North Carolina’s cramped judicial system not only harms the accused; it also costs the federal government $12 million a year in payments to county prisons for holding defendants awaiting trial or sentencing in federal court. There is no federal prison in the Western District, so every day more than 500 federal inmates are being held in county prisons. About 700 criminal defendants are free on bond pending their appearance in federal court.

The situation may threaten North Carolinians’ civil liberties. The clerk of the federal court, Frank Johns, tells us that if the judges do not soon get some relief, they may have to suspend the legal deadlines that guarantee the right to a speedy trial.

With such a dire situation, voters might be surprised to learn that a seat on the Western District court has been vacant since 1999, when Congress approved two new judgeships to provide some relief. President Bush nominated Robert Conrad, formerly a United States attorney in Charlotte, to fill the post 14 months ago. Mr. Conrad is still waiting for a hearing in the Senate.

Before the Senate can even consider a judicial nomination, both of the nominee’s home-state senators need to approve or reject the nominee by submitting a form called a “blue slip”to the Senate Judiciary Committee. Senator Elizabeth Dole has already returned a positive blue slip for Mr. Conrad. Mr. Edwards, though, has avoided making a decision, leaving Mr. Conrad in limbo for more than a year. Mr. Edwards’s office tells us that the Conrad nomination remains under consideration.

This is a pattern for Mr. Edwards. Judge Terry Boyle, chief judge of the Eastern District of North Carolina, has been waiting for a blue slip from Mr. Edwards since May 2001, so that the Senate will be able to consider his nomination to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. Judge James Dever, a federal magistrate judge, has been waiting since President Bush appointed him to the United States District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina in 2002. Judge Dever’s nomination is still under consideration, according to Mr. Edwards’s spokesman, but the senator considers Judge Boyle, nominated by President Reagan to the district court in 1984, to be “not in the mainstream.” Still, Mr. Edwards hasn’t returned a negative blue slip, by which he would at least take responsibility for derailing Judge Boyle’s nomination.

Mr. Edwards’s stalling on the nomination of Mr. Conrad stands in particularly sharp relief owing both to the extreme nature of the Western District’s judicial emergency and the bipartisan consensus behind the nominee.

“I’m a Democrat. I’ve known John Edwards for a long, long time. I’ve contributed to his campaign. But I’ve been very frustrated with the handling of Bob Conrad’s nomination,” a leading North Carolina attorney, Martin Brackett, told us.”After 14 months, he ought to be able to tell him something.” Regarding Mr. Conrad, Mr. Brackett says, “I personally think he would be an excellent judge. We don’t agree on everything politically, but he should be on the court. People need to have their cases heard promptly.”

When Mr. Edwards was campaigning in South Carolina’s Democratic primary, the chairman of South Carolina’s Democratic Party, Joseph Irwin, urged Mr. Edwards to approve the Conrad nomination. The previous state Democratic Party chairman in South Carolina, Richard Harpootlian, also came out in favor of elevating Mr. Conrad to the federal bench: “I’m certainly not some Republican hack saying he’s qualified,” Mr. Harpootlian told us. “He’s definitely qualified.”

Mr. Conrad also enjoys the support of Janet Reno, who led the Justice Department in the Clinton administration, as well as Roy Cooper, a Democrat who is the attorney general of North Carolina. In 2000, General Reno called on Mr. Conrad to head her department’s Campaign Finance Task Force. In 2003, Mr. Cooper wrote to Senator Hatch, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, and Senator Leahy, the top Democrat on the committee, to recommend Mr. Conrad.

“We are from different political parties, but I believe he is a student of the law and his decisions are not affected by partisan politics,” Mr. Cooper wrote. “I believe he has the insight, the judicial temperament and the desire to adhere to the law necessary to be confirmed as a Federal District Court Judge.”

Mr. Conrad’s conduct has not been governed by partisan politics. Alas, the same cannot be said of Mr. Edwards’s treatment of the nominations. Mr. Edwards has so far managed to keep Mr. Bush’s nominees off the bench without taking responsibility for obstructing them. That may be good for the Democratic ticket, but it does a disservice to the citizens of Mr. Edwards’s home state.

“There’s an issue in North Carolina that needs to be solved, and the only people who can solve it are the United States senators, who are holding these — holding these nominations up,” Mr. Bush said last week while visiting the Tarheel State.

No doubt it will be said that the blue-slip veto process was allowed to blossom by the Republican leadership in the Senate. That doesn’t relieve Mr. Edwards of his responsibility in the cases of Mr. Conrad and Judges Dever and Boyle. He may have a busy campaign schedule, but surely 14 months, 25 months, and 37 months, respectively, are more than enough for Mr. Edwards to wipe the smile off his face long enough to make a decision on these judicial nominees. Were Mr. Edwards really for the little guy, he’d have done something for those with business before the federal bench in his home state. He’d have either sent these nominations to the Senate for a vote or have shown the gumption to reject them outright.