Justice Delayed Costs County Money
Justice should be swift and sure. But in Pinellas County FL, it would be more fitting to call the criminal justice system slow and costly.
Over the course of two decades, the time it takes to close a criminal case in Pinellas has increased dramatically. Example: In 1989, the typical robbery case took 96 days to wrap up in court. Now it’s 244. This costs money. Two-thirds of the inmates at the county jail are not there serving time. They await trial. Each extra day they wait costs about $100 per inmate, according to Pinellas Sheriff’s Office figures. Multiply that cost by 20 years and tens of thousands of extra jail days and it adds up to a financial hit for Pinellas taxpayers totaling tens of millions of dollars …
The county’s disposition rate — the percentage of defendants whose cases are closed in a year divided by the number whose cases are opened — has ranked worse than all of its large county peers and among the slowest statewide. “We weren’t used to being anything other than frankly the most progressive here,” said Pinellas-Pasco Chief Judge Robert Morris. “We were humbled by that.” Bernie McCabe, state attorney for the Pinellas-Pasco circuit, spoke for some in the system when he put the blame on a lack of awareness and “simple procrastination.” He said the system as a whole — prosecutors, defense attorneys and judges — failed to manage their resources as efficiently as they should. “I don’t think you can escape that,” McCabe said …
Now, officials said, they’ve infused day-to-day dealings with a new sense of urgency, cutting days here and there from the amount of time it takes to file charges or turn over discovery. A Violation of Probation court was established. There has been intermittent use of a “rocket docket” to pick off stagnating cases. The courts lowered bond amounts across the board. Said Morris, the chief judge: “We are taking risks with letting people out of jail … that a year ago we would have said, ‘You know the public doesn’t expect us to do this,’ but the message now from the public is, ‘There’s no money’”…
Today, Pinellas judges and prosecutors say they approach each case with a sense of urgency. And they say they’re committed not to let the system get out of whack again. A consultant hired by the county has been studying the problem and is supposed to present a final report this month.
These are extracts from a much longer article at the Tampa Bay Times.