NEW BRONX COURT RESOLVES 3,000 PENDING CASES
IN UNDER FIVE MONTHS
There's no new building. There are no additional
judges. But there is a new way of doing things in the
Bronx.
Judges in the Supreme and local criminal courts in the
Bronx became part of a single trial court on Nov. 8 in an
experiment designed to address both the inventory of
older felony cases and the thousands of backlogged misdemeanor
cases. In the new Bronx County Criminal
Division, which remains somewhat controversial in
terms of court restructuring issues, all the judges are
capable of handling either felony or misdemeanor cases.
Spearheaded by Deputy Chief Administrative Judge for
Court Operations and Planning Judy Harris Kluger, the
effort to implement a single, streamlined court of criminal
jurisdiction involved an extraordinary amount of
attention to operational details as well as collaboration
with courtroom and back-office personnel in both
courts. All that advance planning paid off, according to
Judge Kluger, who said that the new Division "started
beautifully from day one. We did all the ground work we
needed to do, and there were no major problems."
The impetus for the move was twofold - caseload backlogs
and efficiency in judicial resources. At the end of
September 2004, there were 11,000 pending cases in
Criminal Court and 2,800 indictments in Supreme
Court, court officials said. Forty-eight percent of the
indictments had been pending more than six months.
New York's speedy trial guidelines require that misdemeanor
cases be tried within 90 days, felony cases within six months, yet there were cases lingering for a year or
longer.
By April 2005, the new Criminal Division had reduced
the number of pending cases by 3,000, including felonies
and misdemeanors. After just one month, many more
misdemeanor cases had been tried than in all of the previous
year, according to Bronx Supreme Court, Criminal
Term, Administrative Judge John Collins.
The Division has helped clear cases in part because some
defendants faced both felony and misdemeanor charges,
which meant appearances before two judges, two proceedings
and two schedules. An attorney might request a
delay in the felony case pending the outcome of the misdemeanor
case, and vice-versa. While both cases were "on hold," delay not only impacted the courts but also
victims and witnesses, who might move away or lose
interest in a case.
On the day we visited, Judge Troy Webber had a case
that illustrated the effect of the change. A defendant
pleaded guilty to vehicular homicide and several unrelated
misdemeanor charges at the same time. Previously,
that would have required two proceedings in two courtrooms
with different judges.
The new Division will allow the court system to respond
efficiently to whatever caseload trends may develop
in the future. For now, Judge Kluger said, it's a work in
progress that she will be monitoring on an ongoing
basis.
Spring/Summer 2005
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