U.S. Department of Justice

Office of Justice Programs

National Institute of Justice

R e s e a r c h i n B r i e f

National Institute of Justice

Julie E. Samuels, Acting Director

continued...

June 2000

Issues and Findings

Discussed in this Brief: Factors

that influence the timeliness and

quality of felony case processing

in State criminal court systems

located in Albuquerque, New

Mexico; Austin, Texas; Birmingham, Alabama; Cincinnati, Ohio;

Grand Rapids, Michigan; Hackensack, New Jersey; Oakland,

California; Portland, Oregon; and

Sacramento, California. In each

jurisdiction, researchers analyzed

approximately 400 felony cases

that reached resolution in 1994.

Key issues: Despite efforts to

identify the sources of delay in

felony case processing and find

ways to alleviate it, the problem

persists. Indeed, much of its apparent intractability can be traced

to the longstanding belief that

improvements in timeliness compromise the quality of case processing. To test the influence of

factors thought to affect case processing time, the study measured

the relative impact of each factor,

alone and in combination, within

and across all jurisdictions. Researchers also interviewed and surveyed judges, attorneys, and other

court officials to ascertain attitudes

toward court resources, management, and the skill and tactics of

opposing counsel. Researchers

then compared these opinions

with the overall processing speed

of their respective jurisdictions.

Key findings: The study challenges conventional thinking that

the timeliness and quality of justice

are mutually exclusive, arguing

Efficiency, Timeliness, and Quality:

A New Perspective From Nine State

Criminal Trial Courts

by Brian J. Ostrom and Roger A. Hanson

The Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees the fundamental right to “a

speedy and public trial,” yet balancing the

pace of the legal process with quality case

processing remains a formidable challenge.

Other equally vital and fundamental values,

such as due process, equality, and protections against double jeopardy, excessive

bail, and self-incrimination, demand time

and attention. Indeed, conventional thinking holds that these two values—the timeliness and the quality of justice—are in

conflict, with a gain in one coming only at

a loss in the other.

This Research in Brief discusses a study

that challenges such thinking by demonstrating that courts can, in fact, improve

the timeliness of case resolution without

sacrificing defendant rights or quality of

justice. With support from the National

Institute of Justice, researchers at the

National Center for State Courts (NCSC)

and the American Prosecutors Research

Institute (APRI) examined nine State

criminal trial court systems. The study

concluded that timeliness in felony case

processing occurred in court systems that

promoted effective advocacy, an integral

component of quality case processing. In

addition, researchers determined that all

of the courts studied, regardless of their

case processing speed, adhered to a norm

of “proportionality”; that is, more serious

and complicated cases took longer to resolve and received more attention than

less serious and complicated cases. In the

more expeditious courts, however, the

work got done in a tighter timeframe.

About this study

In response to widespread concern about

delays in case resolution, an extensive

body of research in this field has emerged

in recent decades. Most of these efforts

sought to explain disparities in the length

of time needed to resolve criminal cases

by comparing caseload characteristics

and aspects of court organization, management, and resources. When these

factors failed to account for more than a

small portion of the variation in the pace

of litigation, however, researchers began

to examine the qualitative social and

political dynamics of court systems.

The NCSC/APRI study rigorously examined how this blend of quantitative and

qualitative factors influenced not only the

pace of litigation, but also the quality of

case processing in nine trial court systems: Bernalillo County (Albuquerque),

New Mexico; Travis County (Austin),
2

R e s e a r c h i n B r i e f

instead that courts can exercise considerable control over how quickly

cases move from indictment to resolution without sacrificing advocacy

or due process. Other highlights of

this examination of quantitative and

qualitative characteristics of case

processing include the following:

● Meaningful and effective advocacy was more likely to occur in

criminal justice systems where case

resolution was the most timely.

● The relative pace of litigation

depended largely on the local legal

culture, that is, the expectations and

attitudes of judges, prosecutors, and

defense attorneys. In the more expeditious courts, personnel had more efficient work orientations, including clear

case processing time goals. Attorneys

in these courts had more positive

views about resources, management

policies, and the skill and tactics of

their opposition than did their counterparts in less expeditious courts.

● All courts treated cases proportionately, giving each case the time

and attention that it deserved. More

complex cases took longer to resolve

than less complex cases did. In the

more expeditious courts, however,

the time needed to reach resolution

was shorter.

● The combined influence of four

factors—a violent felony charge, the

issuance of a bench warrant, pretrial

release on bond, and resolution by

trial—produced a significant increase in

case processing time in all nine courts.

● All courts can become more efficient by maximizing attorney skills,

management techniques, and available technology. Increases in efficiency will simultaneously improve

the timeliness and quality of felony

case processing.

Target audience: Attorneys,

judges, court officials, and criminal

justice researchers and practitioners.

Issues and Findings

continued...

Texas; Jefferson County (Birmingham),

Alabama; Hamilton County (Cincinnati),

Ohio; Kent County (Grand Rapids),

Michigan; Bergen County (Hackensack),

New Jersey; Alameda County (Oakland),

California; Multnomah County (Portland),

Oregon; and Sacramento County (Sacramento), California.1

For each court system, researchers looked at

data on various case and defendant characteristics drawn from a random sample of approximately 400 individual cases resolved

in 1994; questionnaire responses from

prosecutors and criminal defense attorneys;

onsite observations and interviews with

judges, prosecutors, and defense attorneys;

and community and court organizational

attributes (see “Study Methodology”).

Trial court system profiles. The trial

courts surveyed were in large urban or

suburban counties with populations ranging from 522,328 to 1.3 million. Population density varied substantially, from

fewer than 600 to more than 3,500 people

per square mile.

The jurisdictions varied in income level

and racial composition. Violent crime

rates also varied markedly, from 161 per

100,000 population in Hackensack to more

than 1,400 per 100,000 population in both

Birmingham and Portland.

Despite their geographic and demographic diversity, the jurisdictions surveyed reported similarities in the types of

cases coming into their court systems:

● The majority of cases involved drugrelated offenses and burglary or theft.

● Although rates of violent crime varied,

very violent crimes against the person

(capital murder, homicide, rape, and

sexual assault) made up a small number of the cases filed.

● The majority of cases were resolved by

guilty pleas; trials were rare.

● Most criminal defendants were released

on bond, and most had a publicly

appointed attorney.

These profiles suggest that virtually every

State trial court in the country likely

shares some key attributes with one or

more of the nine courts in this study.

Therefore, the findings of this study

should be widely applicable.

To determine the pace of litigation in the

nine courts, researchers used a modified

version of the American Bar Association

(ABA) standards on felony case disposition

times (see “How Fast Is Fast Enough?”).

Measured against this modified standard,

the nine courts fell into three clusters:

Cincinnati, Grand Rapids, and Portland

were the most expeditious; Oakland, Sacramento, and Albuquerque were intermediate in terms of timeliness; and Austin,

Birmingham, and Hackensack were the

slowest (exhibit 1).

Timeliness and quality linked to

court efficiency. The study team conducted a comprehensive and systematic

inquiry into the relationship between the

pace of litigation and the quality of case

processing. To clarify this relationship,

an analytical framework was developed to

determine how a court system’s efficiency

affects timeliness and quality.

Timeliness was measured as the number of

days from indictment or bindover to final

resolution of the case.2

 The quality of case

processing—somewhat more difficult to

gauge—was measured in two ways:

● The extent to which the decisions and

actions of the trial court were based on

attention to each individual case and

were in proper proportion to the nature

and magnitude of the charges, as established in Standard 3.3, “Equality,

Fairness, and Integrity,” developed by

the Commission on Trial Court Performance Standards.3
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R e s e a r c h i n B r i e f

Study Methodology

he National Center for State

Courts (NCSC) and the American Prosecutors Research Institute (APRI) conducted this study in nine State general

jurisdiction courts in urban and suburban counties. The sites represented

five geographic regions of the United

States, with specific attention given to:

● The way the courts managed their

cases (one jurisdiction had unified trial

courts, and the others had two-tier

systems; five courts used an individual

calendar system, and four used a

master calendar).

● Geographic location and socioeconomic context.

● How the courts provided indigent

defense criminal services.

In each of the nine counties, research

staff worked with court and/or district

attorney staff to select a random

sample of approximately 400 felony

cases, all of which were resolved in

1994. These samples provided statistics

with a reliability of ±5 percent and

a confidence interval of 95 percent.a

Research staff hired and trained court

clerks and law students to complete a

1-page coding form for each of the

3,779 cases in the sample. Coding

forms were sent to NCSC, where data

were entered and analyzed.

Site visits and interviews

Data also included responses to questionnaires completed by prosecutors and

criminal defense attorneys; onsite interviews with judges, court managers, prosecutors, and criminal defense attorneys;

and contextual measures of community

and court organizational characteristics.

Two senior researchers from NCSC and

APRI visited each court in the study.

Research staff spent 3 days at each site observing the courtroom and conducting interviews with the following individuals: three

judges; three prosecutors; three public defenders and a private attorney who handles

criminal cases only for private clients; the

court administrator and chief deputy administrator in charge of the felony division

(those who manage tasks such as calendaring and records management); two courtroom clerks; two probation officers; and two

police officers.

The 60- to 90-minute interviews involved

primarily open-ended questions designed

to assess (1) the caseload size and adequacy of staff resources; (2) the nature

of the felony case management system, including its strengths and weaknesses; (3)

the seriousness of delay in felony adjudication, along with its causes and possible

solutions; (4) the nature and effectiveness

of informal and formal methods of interagency communication and coordination

regarding felony case management issues;

and (5) the nature and effectiveness of

court, prosecutor, and criminal defense

leadership in addressing problems in the

felony adjudication process.

Questionnaires

A three-page questionnaire was distributed to

each judge, prosecutor, and full-time public

defender who handled felony cases in 1994.

Response rates varied, but at least 15 prosecutors and 15 defenders completed questionnaires in each jurisdiction.b Because

responses were anonymous, no determination could be made as to whether substantial

differences existed between respondents and

nonrespondents. Accordingly, questionnaire

data should be interpreted cautiously; however, the questionnaires provided a broader

picture of opinions than could be obtained

through personal interviews alone. Responses

were analyzed using four combinations of

questionnaire items that measured attorney

T attitudes toward resources, court management, opposing counsel’s competence, and opposing counsel’s practices.

Preparation of statistics

An interactive regression model was used

to analyze individual case-level data. The

dependent variable was the number of

days required to resolve each case, as

measured from the time of indictment or

bindover to final disposition, adjusted for

a criminal defendant’s time out on bench

warrant.c

 This allowed direct jurisdictionby-jurisdiction comparisons of the impact

of each independent variable on the time

necessary to resolve a criminal case.

Each independent variable was multiplied

by a set of nine “dummy” or categorical

variables representing each of the nine

jurisdictions.d

 This data manipulation was

designed to help distinguish the contextual or organizational influences of specific court systems on case processing

time. The benefit of this system was that

it identified the influence of each independent variable on case processing time

according to jurisdiction, and it compared

the influence of each variable across all

sites. In Oakland, for example, one could

compare the time required to resolve the

case of an offender who was represented

by a publicly appointed attorney and convicted of a violent crime at trial with the

time needed to resolve the case of a drug

offender who was represented by a privately retained attorney and convicted by

a guilty plea. Additionally, one could

readily examine whether the same determinants had a similar impact on case processing time in the other jurisdictions.e

Results

Regression analysis was applied to the

individual case attributes for the pooled

Continued on next page
4

R e s e a r c h i n B r i e f

● Whether the criminal court system

was conducive to providing effective advocacy.

Researchers then examined how this

overall measure of quality varied

among courts with different levels

of timeliness.

In the context of case resolution,

efficiency means the effective use of

resources to produce the most of what

a court system values. Well-performing

court systems have examined the policies and practices that allow them to

better use personnel, procedures, and

technology to achieve desired results.

To become efficient, therefore, court

leaders should devote the time necessary to examine and define their court

values.

Analyses. To understand the factors

that contribute to differences in felony

case processing times, researchers

conducted three separate analyses:

Study Methodology

Continued from previous page

data from all nine sites. The statistically

significant regression coefficients are indicated in exhibit 4, which reveals the

effect of each characteristic, alone or in

tandem, controlling for the influence of

all other factors in the model. The numerical value of coefficients in the exhibit shows the average number of days

that each factor adds to or subtracts

from case processing time within and

across courts. The exhibit also indicates

the statistical significance level of each

factor and how much of the total variation in case processing time for all nine

sites combined is explained by the

model (R2 = 0.30). This relatively small

number of common case and defendant characteristics accounted for nearly

one-third of the variation in the time

required to resolve criminal cases in all

nine courts.

a. Herbert Arkin and Raymond Colton, Tables for

Statisticians. (New York: Barnes and Noble,

1963).

b. To protect the anonymity of the small number

of felony judges in some courts, judges’ responses to questionnaires were not included

in this analysis.

c. A primary goal was to ascertain how a number of case- and defendant-related characteristics influenced case processing time while the

defendant was under court control. Approximately 21 percent of the defendants in the

sample had a bench warrant issued for failure

to appear. For those cases, the number of days

that the defendant was outside of court control

(bench warrant time) was deducted from total

case processing time.

d. This technique expanded the number of independent variables in the model from 14 to 126

(14 times 9).

e. This approach circumvented many previous

methodological roadblocks. One technique

used in the past was to include a set of

dummy variables that identified each court

participating in the study. However, using a

dummy variable for each site, rather than using an interactive model, did not permit the

investigation of any differential impact of case

and defendant characteristics across sites (e.g.,

whether the existence or absence of a prior

record makes a substantial difference in case

processing time in one court but makes little

difference in another). Rather, all aspects

of court context were merged into a single

indicator and the effects of the context were

assumed to be independent of case characteristics. As a result, the prior approach assumed

that individual case characteristics did not

have a differential impact on processing time

based on where the case was filed—say in

Austin or Portland. This method presumed

that the Austin context affected the time necessary to dispose of cases by trial or guilty plea

to the same degree as the Portland context.

● Court-level analysis. An examination of aggregate court-level data

to determine the extent to which

various caseload characteristics

contributed to differences in the

pace of felony litigation.

● Case-level analysis. An examination

of individual case- and defendantExhibit 1. Felony case processing time in the nine courts

Percentage of felony cases

resolved within 180 days

Court of indictment or bindover

Most expeditious:

Cincinnati† 89

Grand Rapids 83

Portland† 80

Intermediate:

Oakland 71

Sacramento 67

Albuquerque† 64

Least expeditious:

Austin 56

Birmingham† 51

Hackensack† 49

All courts combined 68

† Jurisdiction charges most of its felony cases by grand jury indictment.
5

R e s e a r c h i n B r i e f

related factors whose collective impact

is believed to affect case processing

time.

● Legal culture analysis. A qualitative analysis of the local legal culture

to determine whether attorney attitudes toward the work environment

varied systematically with the speed

of case processing.

Court-level analysis

In previous research, the analyses of

felony caseload characteristics focused

on four factors: the severity of the charge

at indictment, procedural aspects of local justice systems, defendant resources,

and manner of case resolution. To

determine how these factors affected

case processing time in the nine court

systems under study, NCSC/APRI researchers used a traditional bivariate

approach to examine aggregate courtlevel data for each jurisdiction.

Severity of the charge at indictment. The composition of a court’s

caseload is often considered a primary

determinant of case processing time

because certain types of cases (e.g.,

most violent felonies) are thought to be

inherently more complex (e.g., they involve more motions, more trials, more

victims and witnesses); therefore, such

cases require more court time and attention to resolve than do other felony

cases. The research literature, however,

does not necessarily support this assertion. Some studies confirm that more

serious cases take longer to resolve, but

others conclude that the seriousness of

an offense has only a weak relationship

to case processing time.4,5

The initial results of this study were

also mixed. Almost all of the courts

studied took longer to adjudicate the

most violent cases, such as murder and

rape, than other less serious cases.

n important role of courts is to

balance the competing interests of

speed and due process. But what is the

optimal combination of expedition and

quality justice?

The American Bar Association (ABA),

the Conference of Chief Justices (CCJ),

and the Conference of State Court

Administrators (COSCA) addressed this

question in the mid-1980s.a

 Because

the needs of each case differ, and a

single time standard could not be applied to all cases, the groups determined that practitioners should draw

on their own experience to estimate

case processing times.

The ABA standards suggest that, from

the date of arrest to the date of disposition (e.g., entry of guilty plea, verdict,

or dismissal), courts should dispose of

90 percent of their felony cases in 120

days; 98 percent in 180 days; and 100

percent within 1 year.b

The study summarized in this Research

in Brief focused on general jurisdiction

court case processing, and the researchers adopted a modified version

of the ABA standards—in part because

of practical considerations, such as unreliable or unavailable arrest dates in

some jurisdictions. Also, in felony adjudication, various stages of the legal

process frequently occur in two different courts—one of limited jurisdiction

and another of general jurisdiction.c

Speedy trial rules in almost every State

take effect when the indictment is

A How Fast Is Fast Enough?

issued and the defendant is arraigned

in the general jurisdiction court, further

complicating the issue of a uniform

starting point for measuring time

to resolution.

Therefore, this study modified the ABA

standard calling for 98 percent of all

felonies to be resolved within 180 days

of the initial arrest to a standard calling

for the disposition of 98 percent of all

cases within 180 days of indictment or

bindover. No court in this study met the

unmodified ABA standards.

a. American Bar Association, Standards Relating to Trial Courts, As Amended (Chicago:

American Bar Association, 1987); Steve

Otto, “National Time Standards for Case

Processing,” Court Management Journal 7

(1985): 32.

b. The ABA standards, which this study uses

as a framework, are similar to the standards

promulgated jointly by CCJ and COSCA.

CCJ/COSCA criminal standards state that

100 percent of felony cases should move

from arrest to trial in 180 days except in

cases where the court determines exceptional circumstances exist. Since 1985, most

States have adopted disposition time goals

(besides speedy trial rules) for adjudicating

all felony cases. NCSC has compiled a report

on State disposition time goals for criminal,

civil, and other cases; the report is available

upon request.

c. Eight of the nine jurisdictions employed a

two-tiered court system; only Sacramento

had a unified court system.

Accordingly, courts with a larger proportion of violent crimes had longer

overall case processing times. Exhibit 2

shows that violent felonies made up

20 percent or less of the caseload in the

three fastest courts. However, exhibit 2

also shows that the same violent crimes

accounted for 20 percent or less of the

caseload in the two slowest courts.

The data also failed to show a clear

relationship between case processing
6

R e s e a r c h i n B r i e f

time and the proportion of less serious

cases, such as drug sale and possession.

Among the fastest courts, for example,

Portland had almost three times the

proportion of drug cases (53 percent)

as Grand Rapids (19 percent).

The absence of a clear relationship between caseload composition and processing time may reflect explicit court

practices and priorities. Some have noted

that courts can exercise control over their

caseload composition; it is not necessarily a product of chance.6

 For example,

the proportion of violent criminal cases

was highest (39 percent) in Sacramento,

where the court system strives to obtain

guilty pleas prior to preliminary hearings in municipal court. Because this

practice substantially reduces the

number of less serious (nonviolent)

cases that are bound over to superior

court for trial, it produces a relatively

high percentage of violent cases in the

superior court caseload.

Courts may also influence caseload

composition by processing one type of

case in a highly efficient manner. In

Portland, where the proportion of drug

cases was highest, a drug court processed more than 50 percent of the total

caseload with only 10 percent of the judicial resources. As a result, Portland

not only prosecuted more drug cases

but also made the timely processing

of its remaining, and relatively more

serious, caseload a priority.

These examples illustrate two points.

First, courts can and do set priorities

for processing different types of cases.

Second, establishing priorities can affect both the caseload composition and

the time allocated to each type of case.

Procedural aspects. Particular

crime and defendant characteristics—

mandatory sentence enhancements,

charge reductions, multiple-defendant

cases, and bench warrants for failure to

appear—are believed to increase the

procedural complexity of cases and

lengthen time to disposition. Some

observers maintain, for example, that

mandatory sentence enhancements for

offenders who use weapons when committing crimes make defendants less

likely to plead guilty and/or more likely

to delay final disposition in an effort to

avoid the enhancement.7

 Overall, there

was no apparent relationship between

the percentages of weapons-related

felony charges and the corresponding

case processing times (exhibit 3).

Sentence enhancement for offenders

with prior felony convictions is also

common, especially for those involved

in violent or drug crimes. Generally,

the fastest courts had higher percentages of defendants with prior felony convictions than the slowest courts. This

finding seems counterintuitive, but interviews at some sites suggested that

prosecutors used sentence enhancement

as a “hammer” in plea negotiations. For

example, a defendant facing a habitualoffender penalty may be persuaded to

plead guilty to the underlying charge

sooner if the prosecutor offers to waive

the repeat-offender enhancement.

Charge reduction rates also may affect

case processing time. Some prosecutors

“charge high” with the expectation that

they will negotiate a guilty plea to a

lesser, and perhaps more realistic,

charge. Other prosecutors interviewed

suggested that having something to offer the defendant, such as reducing or

dropping a charge, often facilitates plea

negotiations. However, variations in

plea negotiation tactics did not appear

to be related to case processing times.

Exhibit 2. Composition of cases in the nine courts

Most violent crimesa 6 4 5 5 8 12 5 7 7 5

Other violent crimesb 17 13 15 13 23 27 26 17 11 15

Burglary, theft 32 28 45 24 14 18 40 36 36 35

Drug sale, possession 34 40 19 53 45 32 18 28 39 30

Other feloniesc 11 15 17 6 9 12 11 12 7 15

Totald 100 100 101 101 99 101 100 100 100 100

Number of cases 3,779 485 463 455 417 200 375 499 478 407

a. Most violent crimes include capital murder, homicide, and rape.

b. Other violent crimes include robbery, assault, kidnaping, manslaughter, and child abuse.

c. Other felonies include weapons possession, DWI, destruction of property, and escape from confinement.

d. Totals may not equal 100 due to rounding.

Type of felony case, as

a percentage of total

caseload Overall

CincinnatiGrand

 Rapids

Portland

Oakland

Sacramento

Albuquerque

Austin

Birmingham

Hackensack
7

R e s e a r c h i n B r i e f

In six of the nine jurisdictions examined,

the percentage of cases involving multiple offenders ranged from 22 to 34.

Such cases can be more complex in that

they require separate criminal defense

counsel and, therefore, have greater potential for problems with scheduling and

coordination.8

 Extra time also might be

required to persuade one or more defendant to testify against each other. Again,

researchers found no apparent connection between the number of defendants

per case and case processing times.

The extent to which defendants fail to

appear for scheduled hearings appears

to be only weakly connected to case processing time. In the three slowest courts,

bench warrants were issued in 24 to 34

percent of cases. Only one of the fastest

courts had such a high proportion of

defendants with a bench warrant.

Criminal defendant resources.

Researchers and practitioners often assert that a defendant’s economic status

can affect case processing time in two

ways: in the ability to post bond and in

the ability to retain a private attorney.

Additionally, State laws requiring that

cases be brought to trial more quickly

when defendants remain in pretrial custody can complicate the adjudication

process.9

 Courts with a large proportion

of defendants in custody may exert more

pressure on them to plead guilty than

courts in which most defendants are released on bond.10 Conversely, detained

defendants are likely to be accused of

more serious offenses. These cases are

more likely to go to trial and, therefore,

take longer to resolve. In this study,

however, little or no relationship existed

between the proportion of defendants in

custody and case processing times.

As exhibit 3 indicates, the four slowest

courts had the highest percentage of

cases with privately retained attorneys

(29 to 47 percent, compared with 9 to 20

percent in the five fastest courts). This

finding supports the contention that privately retained attorneys contribute to

longer case processing times in felony

adjudication. Cases handled by public

defenders move more swiftly because

these attorneys are usually systematic in

handling cases and have a clear understanding of court operations.11 In addition, defendants who can afford privately

retained attorneys also may have the

economic resources to contest evidence

and file more motions.

Manner of case resolution. Conventional wisdom suggests that higher trial

rates, especially jury trial rates, will be

associated with longer case processing

times.12 Data in this research, however,

showed that higher jury trial rates did

not necessarily lead to slower case processing times. Two of the fastest courts,

Cincinnati and Portland, reported the

two highest jury trial rates (exhibit 4).

Six of the courts studied had guilty plea

rates of 80 to 90 percent, and two had

guilty plea rates of nearly 75 percent.

These differences also were not associated with overall case processing time.

Despite the intuitive importance of these

case characteristics, this analysis of aggregate court-level data found little systematic connection between each court’s

individual case- and defendant-related

attributes and the pace of litigation. It

is possible, however, that the examination of individual caseload factors

Exhibit 3. Case- and defendant-related characteristics

Reduction in

category of offense 27 8 40 25 27 31 38 34 23 17

Weapons charge 14 12 12 5 26 21 19 12 13 16

Case has multiple

defendants 25 19 22 23 27 47 27 16 23 34

Bench warrant for

failure to appear 21 16 8 28 13 27 16 34 24 25

Prior felony

conviction 43 75 40 48 55 28 43 30 30 28

Out on bond 64 67 69 69 34 66 74 69 49 81

Privately retained

attorney 25 20 15 9 18 13 29 34 41 47

Characteristic Overall

Cincinnati

Grand

 Rapids

Portland

Oakland

Sacramento

Albuquerque

Austin

Birmingham

Hackensack

Percentage of defendants with named characteristic, by court
8

R e s e a r c h i n B r i e f

understates and obscures their collective

impact. To ascertain the factors’ collective influence, researchers used the

statistical technique of multivariate regression to pool the datasets and uncover

similarities and differences in how individual case attributes influence case

processing time within and across the

nine jurisdictions.

Case-level analysis

Though aggregate data on case and defendant characteristics had little effect on

case processing time, an individual-level

analysis of those factors in combination

revealed a set of characteristics that consistently affected the time to resolution

in all courts. Like the court-level analysis, this case-level interactive regression

analysis examined important aspects of

felony case processing, such as the severity of the charge, procedural aspects

of the case, defendant resources, and

manner of resolution. The analysis

showed that, collectively, four specific

factors—violent felonies, the issuance

of a bench warrant, release on bond,

and a trial by jury—were key determinants of case processing time.

Severity of charge at indictment.

An analysis of the time required to

resolve various types of cases found

that the most violent felony cases (i.e.,

capital murder, homicide, and sexual

assault) took the longest to resolve in

eight of the nine courts (significantly

longer in six of them). The analysis

withheld drug sale and possession

cases from the model in order to create

a base category against which other

types of charges could be compared.

Therefore, each of the coefficients under severity of charge at indictment

shows the average number of case processing days that a particular charge

adds to or subtracts from the time required to resolve a drug-related case.

Exhibit 4 shows that disposition of the

most violent felony cases took about 39

days longer than drug cases in Cincinnati and 152 days longer in Birmingham.

In five of the nine courts, moreover, the

combination of cases involving the most

violent offenses and cases involving

other violent offenses (e.g., armed

robbery) took the longest to resolve.

Procedural aspects of the case.

The analysis found that only one procedural factor—the issuance of a bench

warrant—clearly and consistently affected case processing time. Cases involving the issuance of a bench warrant

took considerably longer to resolve in all

nine courts (significantly longer in six).13

In addition, cases involving a charge

reduction added time in seven of nine

courts (though significantly in only

three). The three courts in which

charge reductions significantly affected case processing time were

among the slowest (Albuquerque,

Birmingham, and Hackensack), but

charge reductions added little or

nothing to case processing time in

the fastest courts.

Potential procedural complexities, such

as weapons charges, multiple defendants, or prior felony convictions, had

little or no consistent relationship to

case processing time.14 The presence

of multiple defendants significantly

affected case processing time in six of

the nine jurisdictions, but the effect in

Grand Rapids and Austin (to reduce)

was the opposite of the effect in Oakland, Sacramento, Hackensack, and

Birmingham (to increase). Weapons

charges and the existence of a prior

record were significant in few courts.

This finding was somewhat surprising

because established literature shows

that weapon use and prior record are

important determinants of offense seriousness and sentence length, yet they

appeared largely unrelated to case

processing time.

Level of defendant resources. In

seven of the nine courts, case processing time was significantly longer when

defendants were released on bond. As

expected, courts gave priority to cases

in which defendants were detained. The

net effect of this practice varied. In the

three fastest courts (Cincinnati, Portland,

and Grand Rapids), release on bond

added 19 to 33 days to case processing

time; in the three slowest courts

(Austin, Birmingham, and Hackensack),

bail added 77 to 119 days to case processing time. Additionally, privately

retained attorneys did not consistently

contribute to delay. Although the data

showed that defendants in the slower

courts tended to use privately retained

defense attorneys more frequently, attorney type had little impact when all

case characteristics were taken into

account. Privately retained attorneys

were associated with significantly longer

case processing times in only three

courts (Cincinnati, Grand Rapids, and

Albuquerque).

Manner of case resolution. Cases

resolved by trial rather than a guilty

plea took significantly longer in eight of

the nine courts. Measured against case

processing time for a guilty plea, case

resolution by trial took approximately

147 days longer in Austin and 133 days

longer in Grand Rapids. The analysis

also indicated that trials led to longer

case processing time regardless of other

factors. Assembling jurors, witnesses,

defendants, attorneys, judges, and court

staff—regardless of the type of offense

or case and defendant characteristics—

is more time consuming and complicated than negotiating a guilty plea. As

a result, trials had a significant impact

on the pace of litigation in all courts,
9

R e s e a r c h i n B r i e f

but the relative impact was less among

faster courts.

Cases resolved by deferral or dismissal

often took far longer than cases resolved

by guilty plea. Although dismissal

hearings can be completed in minutes,

the time necessary to schedule such

hearings supports the notion that prosecutors are reluctant to dismiss charges

against defendants who proceed through

the screening and indictment process.

Deferrals were a rare form of disposition, except in Austin, where they were

treated much the same as a traditional

guilty plea. The lengthy deferral process

in Grand Rapids, Portland, and Oakland

reflected the terms of their deferrals,

which require monitoring a defendant’s

progress before final disposition of a case.

Two overall observations emerged from

this analysis. First, the combined influence of a most violent felony charge, the

issuance of a bench warrant, pretrial

release on bond, and resolution by trial

tended to produce a significant increase

in the time to resolution in all courts

studied. Violent crime cases that went

to trial, for example, took about the

same proportion of case processing

time in the faster courts as in the

slower courts. Still, these core case

and defendant characteristics accounted for less than one-third of the

variation in case processing time for

all nine courts combined.

Second, the nine court systems handled

their common caseloads with the same

relative degree of timeliness. In all courts,

more serious and complex cases took

Exhibit 4. Factors affecting case processing timea

Severity of charge at indictment

Most violent 39 105*** 24 282*** 110*** 106*** 62* 152*** 26

Violent –12 20 –4 10 68*** 5 14 20*** 48**

Burglary/theft –31** 3 4 13 13 9 5 –4 4

Other felony –52* 13 13 –12 61* –21 –26 11 –24

Procedural aspects

Bench warrant 40** 29 43*** 84*** 33 90*** 69*** 67*** 14

Charge reduction –21 13 5 26 –11 97*** 11 74*** 46*

Weapon 45* –5 38 66*** –36 –17 –12 –6 18

Multiple defendants 24 –30** –8 29** 35** 24 –49* 26* 41***

Prior record –4 –20 –23** –12 –11 8 2 –7 26*

Manner of resolution

Trial 37* 133*** 85*** 158*** 27 122** 147*** 118*** 53**

Deferral 29 128** 343*** 139*** 98 –88* 14 c –1

Dismissal 19 146*** 26 –51* 128*** –10 123** 66** 33

Defendant resources

Release on bond 20* 33*** 19 60*** 25 39*** 95*** 119*** 77***

Private counsel 25* 60*** 13 –29 –19 25* 31 53 12

Constant: 68** R2 = 0.30d Number of cases: 3,152

Level of statistical significance: *p < .10 **p < .05 ***p < .01

a. Regression analysis using case processing time in general jurisdiction court as dependent variable.

b. The numerical value of coefficients in the table shows the number of days, as well as the statistical significance, that each factor, on average, exerts on case

processing time within and across courts.

c. Birmingham had no deferral cases.

d. R2 is the proportion of variation in case processing times explained by this regression model.

Factor Cincinnati

Grand

 Rapids

Portland

Oakland

Sacramento

Albuquerque

Austin

Birmingham

Hackensack

Effect on case processing time in general jurisdiction court, measured in daysb
10

R e s e a r c h i n B r i e f

longer than those that were less serious

and complex. Hence, the principle of

proportionality, rather than assembly

line justice, guided case resolution.

In an effort to clarify how some courts

are able to achieve higher levels of both

timeliness and quality, the next phase

of this research examined the concept

of “local legal culture.” This effort involved an indepth analysis of the attitudes of the nine court systems’ criminal

defense counsel and prosecuting attorneys toward their work situations.

Legal culture analysis

Interest in the relationship between

attorney attitudes and timely case processing reflects the widespread belief

that, in almost all court systems, attorneys and judges share common “expectations, practices, and informal

rules.” These dynamics are known as

the “local legal culture.”15 Practically

speaking, this means that attorneys’

and judges’ expectations about how

long it will take for cases to be resolved have profound effects on how

long cases actually take to resolve.

To understand the local legal culture

and to determine whether the court work

environment promotes or inhibits timeliness and effective advocacy, data were

gathered on attorney attitudes toward

four aspects of the work environment:

the adequacy of resources; court management characteristics, including

policies governing the pace of litigation;

competency of opposing counsel; and

jurisdiction practices. The hypothesis

was that in more expeditious court systems, attorney attitudes toward factors

that influence timeliness would differ

markedly from those of attorneys in

less expeditious court systems.

Adequacy of resources. The data

showed large and significant differences

between the views of attorneys in the

faster courts and those in the moderatepaced and slower courts. In the faster

courts, both prosecutors and criminal

defense attorneys were less anxious

about staffing levels and more likely to

regard their resources as adequate than

were attorneys in the slower courts. Despite comparable workloads across all

nine courts, prosecutors and defense

counsel in the fastest courts were in

strongest agreement that their courts had

sufficient judges, prosecutors, and defense attorneys to resolve their felony

caseload within 1 year of the time of arrest. In the less expeditious courts, prosecutors and defense attorneys tended to

see resource shortages. Prosecutors felt

there were too few prosecutors, and

defense attorneys believed there were

too few defense attorneys.

In all nine courts, attorneys were concerned about the budget keeping pace

with an expanding workload. They also

concurred in their desire for greater

compensation and improved facilities,

but the work environment in the fastest

courts appeared to foster a “can do”

expectation among attorneys that they

could accomplish more with limited

personnel resources.

Court management characteristics.

Attorneys in the fastest courts were significantly more satisfied with the level

and quality of communication in felony

case processing than were attorneys

in the slower courts. Prosecutors and

defense attorneys in the fastest courts

were also in greater agreement about

the clarity of time goals than were their

counterparts in less expeditious courts.

Indeed, a prosecutor in one of the

slower courts claimed that the court’s

disposition time goals were “pie in the

sky” and that “no one pays attention to

them.” Conversely, a public defender

in Portland, one of the fastest courts,

asserted: “Everyone knows about the

court’s disposition time goals. They’ve

really changed the legal culture.”

Competency of opposing counsel.

Attitudes concerning the experience,

preparation, and trial skills of both

prosecutors and defense attorneys were

significantly more positive in the faster

courts than in the slower courts. Moreover, in the faster courts, prosecutors’

positive views of defense attorneys were

reciprocated by defense attorneys.

Although this could be interpreted

asa sign of mutual respect between

prosecuting and defense attorneys in

the faster courts, strong evidence of

an adversarial relationship remains.

In the less expeditious courts, attorneys’

views on the competency of opposing

counsel were reciprocal but negative.

Prosecutors and defense attorneys were

less likely to regard each other as skilled

and well trained. This research suggests

that the significant difference in attitudes between attorneys in the faster

courts and those in the slower courts can

be traced to efficiency. Efficient attorneys are more likely to be perceived as

competent, and the evidence indicates

that they do, in fact, handle cases in a

more timely manner.

Jurisdiction practice. Attorneys in all

three court categories said delay was a

problem, although prosecutors in the

faster courts reported a significantly

more positive outlook about court practices than did prosecutors in the slower

courts. Although prosecutors in the

faster courts saw room for improvement, their counterparts in the slower

courts expressed deep concern about

delay. Prosecutors in the slower courts

also were significantly more concerned

about the ease of continuances.
11

R e s e a r c h i n B r i e f

The data on prosecutor and defender

practices also attest to the health of the

adversary system. Uniformly large and

significant differences between the views

of prosecutors and defenders were found

in courts of all speeds. Defense attorneys

thought prosecutor plea bargaining practices caused delay, but prosecutors disagreed. Conversely, prosecutors were

more likely than defense attorneys to

view the plea bargaining practices of

defense attorneys as a source of delay.

Still, prosecutors in the fastest courts

had significantly more positive views

of defense attorney practices than did

prosecutors in the slower courts. At

the same time, prosecutors and defense attorneys in the faster courts remained adversarial in their views of

each other. As this analysis demonstrates, attorneys’ attitudes about their

work environment and about each

other are linked to the timeliness of

their particular court. The pace of litigation in the more expeditious courts

reflects the efficient work orientations

of their prosecutors and criminal defense attorneys. Although prosecutors

and defense attorneys in expeditious

courts were as adversarial in their outlook as their counterparts in slower

courts, they shared views about resources, management, and the competency of their opponents that were

significantly more positive than the

views of attorneys in less expeditious

courts. In faster courts, prosecutors

and defense attorneys were more likely

to see each other as well prepared,

well trained, and trial tested and less

likely to perceive resource shortages,

even though their caseloads were no

less burdensome than those of their

counterparts in slower courts. Clearly,

high levels of both timeliness and

quality are achievable in more efficient court systems.

Policy implications

This research suggests that the court

community can achieve efficiency,

timeliness, and quality by adopting a

three-step process of self-diagnosis,

communication, and education.

Self-diagnosis. The first step requires

that court officials examine case processing practices and reach a consensus on the court’s goals. To be efficient,

a court needs meaningful time standards

and continuous monitoring of both

disposition timeframes and the size of

pending caseloads. Proportionality, a

fundamental underpinning of criminal

justice, is another important subject for

discussion. Both efficiency and due

process require proportionality in the

amount of time attorneys and judges

devote to the preparation and resolution

of criminal cases.16 Such an examination would likely sharpen a court’s

knowledge of how different case and

defendant characteristics affect case

processing times.

Communication. This study’s survey of

prosecutors and defense attorneys revealed a significant difference between

faster and slower courts in the clarity

of goals for case processing time. This

finding suggests that effectively communicating a court system’s goals is essential

to attorney receptivity to and shared understanding of those goals. Courts could

conduct a similar survey to help determine the clarity of their own message

among judges, prosecutors, and criminal

defense counsel. The more a court understands about the attitudes of its attorneys,

the better the court can tailor management strategies to improve efficiency.

Education. National, State, and local

judicial and attorney training programs

should emphasize how judges and attorneys can become more efficient and how

gains in efficiency can be used to secure

timeliness and quality in felony case processing. Such programs should not focus

simply on delay reduction. Indeed, one

reason that delay is such a formidable

problem for courts, despite the development of delay reduction techniques, is

that successful delay reduction continues

to be viewed as a threat to quality. Promoting both delay reduction and enhanced quality as natural consequences

of efficiency will help courts overcome

this resistance to change and, ultimately,

achieve higher levels of timeliness and

quality in felony case processing.

Notes

1. For ease of exposition, the nine jurisdictions

are identified henceforth by their primary city

rather than county name.

2. Bindover refers to the date the decision is

made to bind over or transfer the case or defendant to another forum.

3. Commission on Trial Court Performance

Standards, Trial Court Performance Standards,

With Commentary (Williamsburg, VA:

National Center for State Courts, 1990).

4. Studies by Church and by Hausner and

Seidel found that more serious cases took

longer to resolve. See Thomas W. Church, Jr.,

“The ‘Old’ and the ‘New’ Conventional Wisdom,” Justice System Journal 7 (1982): 395–

412. Also see Jack Hausner and Michael

Seidel, An Analysis of Case Processing Time

in the District of Columbia Superior Court

(Washington, DC: Institute for Law and

Social Research, 1979).

5. The following studies concluded that the seriousness of an offense was only weakly related

to case processing time: David W. Neubauer

and John Paul Ryan, “Criminal Courts and the

Delivery of Speedy Justice: The Influence of

Case and Defendant Characteristics,” Justice

System Journal 2 (1982): 213–235; Mary Lee

Luskin and Robert C. Luskin, “Case Processing Time in Three Courts,” Law and Policy 9

(1987): 207; Roy Flemming, Peter Nardulli,

and James Eisenstein, “The Timing of Justice

in Felony Trial Courts,” Law and Policy 9

(1987): 179.
R e s e a r c h i n B r i e f

6. Neubauer and Ryan, “Criminal Courts and

the Delivery of Speedy Justice.”

7. Flemming, Nardulli, and Eisenstein, “The

Timing of Justice in Felony Trial Courts.”

8. Luskin and Luskin, “Case Processing Time

in Three Courts”; Neubauer and Ryan, “Criminal Courts and the Delivery of Speedy Justice”;

Paul Wice, Criminal Lawyers: An Endangered

Species (Beverly Hills and London: Sage Publications, 1978).

9. Neubauer and Ryan, “Criminal Courts and

the Delivery of Speedy Justice.”

10. Jonathan D. Casper, American Criminal

Justice: The Defendant’s Perspective (Englewood

Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1972).

11. Roger Hanson, Brian Ostrom, William

Hewitt, and Christopher Lomvardias, Indigent

Defenders: Get the Job Done and Done Well

(Williamsburg, VA: National Center for State

Courts, 1992); Roger Hanson, Brian Ostrom,

and Ann Jones, “Comparing Publicly Appointed and Privately Retained Criminal

Defense Attorneys” (paper presented at Sato

conference, Berkeley, CA, April 1998).

12. Raymond Nimmer, The Network System

Change: Reform Impact in Criminal Courts

(Chicago: American Bar Foundation, 1978);

Luskin and Luskin, “Case Processing Time in

Three Courts”; Neubauer and Ryan, “Criminal

Courts and the Delivery of Speedy Justice.”

13. Because the case processing time dependent variable is calculated by deducting the

number of days from the scheduled hearing for

which the defendant failed to appear to the

defendant’s rearrest, the bench warrant variable is not influenced by the length of time that

defendants are outside court control. Instead,

the bench warrant variable can be interpreted

as the additional court time related to processing a defendant who has been apprehended

after jumping bail.

Findings and conclusions of the research

reported here are those of the authors and do

not necessarily reflect the official position or

policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.

Brian J. Ostrom, Ph.D., is a senior research associate at the National Center for

State Courts, where his research interests involve felony sentencing, indigent

defense, civil justice reform, and assessing the quality of court performance.

Roger A. Hanson, Ph.D., is a consultant in Williamsburg, Virginia, assisting State

appellate and trial courts, as well as reform efforts in England and Japan.

The study reported in this Research in Brief was cofunded by the State Justice

Institute and the National Institute of Justice, U.S. Department of Justice, under

grant number 94–IJ–CX–0003.

NCJ 181942

The National Institute of Justice is a

component of the Office of Justice

Programs, which also includes the Bureau

of Justice Assistance, the Bureau of Justice

Statistics, the Office of Juvenile Justice and

Delinquency Prevention, and the Office for

Victims of Crime. This and other NIJ publications can be found at and downloaded from the

NIJ Web site (http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij).

U.S. Department of Justice

Office of Justice Programs

National Institute of Justice

Washington, DC 20531

Official Business

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POSTAGE & FEES PAID

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14. Oakland was the only jurisdiction where

both weapons and multiple defendants were

significant.

15. Thomas W. Church et al., Justice Delayed:

The Pace of Litigation in Urban Trial Courts

(Williamsburg, VA: National Center for State

Courts, 1978).

16. The handling of a criminal case requires a

reasonable effort by the criminal defense attorney. In the absence of such an effort, the judgment may be overturned because of counsel’s

ineffective assistance, which is a violation of

the Seventh Amendment. What constitutes a

“reasonable” effort by a defense attorney is

inevitably determined by the seriousness and

complexity of the case. Furthermore, from a

management perspective, the desire for proportionality is driven by a concern for efficiency

and quality case processing. A district attorney

and chief public defender typically have limited

staff resources. They want their staff to make

the most of these resources by devoting an appropriate amount of time to each case: less time

to simple and less serious cases; more time to

serious and complex cases.