u.s. Department of Justice 

Bureau of Justice Statistics 

Excessive delays in adjudicating accused felons may violate a defendant's 

righ t to a speedy trial while also undermining the community's interest in 

punishing those who violate the law. 

This re90rt 9resents data on the speed 

with which felony cases are 9rocessed 

in 12 mostly urban jurisdictions. It 

shows the ela9sed time from arrest to 

disposition both for felony arrests that 

resulted in charges being filed in court 

and for those filed cases that were subsequently indicted and bound over to 

the felony court for dis~)Qsition. 

The 12 jurisdictions have a median 

90pulation of nearly 600,000 and include such major cities as Los Angeles, 

CaliL; San Diego, CaliL; :ilanhattan 

(NYC), N.Y.; Washington, D.C.; Salt 

Lake City, Utah; Portland, Ore.; and 

New Orleans, La.; as well as the State 

of Rhode Island (table 1). These jurisTable 1. Participating jurisdictions 

Population 

of leg:al 

jurisclc tion, :,lajor CI ty 

:\lost S ta tes and the Federal Government have laws ensuring that 

criminal trials take place within a 

reasonable period of time. Not only 

do defendan ts have a constitutional 

right to a speedy trial, but lawabiding citizens also can reasonably 

expect that those who victimize 

others will receive appropriate 

sanc tions wiLhou t unnecessary delays. 

As part of its "Prosecution of 

Felony Arrests" series, the Bureau 

of Justice Statistics collects data 

dictions provided data on more than 

100,000 felony arrests that resulted in 

court filings and more than 50,000 

cases indicted. In 10 jUrisdictions the 

da ta are for cases ini tia ted in calendar 

:';u:nber af 

C.l:iies Cases InCle ted 

filed in and bound 

1930 a in Jurlsdic tion Legal jurisdiction court over for trial 

Total 10~,307 51,397 

7,477,657 Los ,\ngeles, Calif. Los Angeles Co',n ty 29,~6-1b 18,752 

1,361,3-16 San Diego, Cali f. San Diego County 11,534 -1,734 

1,427,533 olanhattan, ~. Y. )few York C;:,unt',' 30,310 S,173 

947,15-1 PrOVidence, R.t. State of Rhode LSland 5,-135 3.90-1 

637,631 WaShington, D.C. WaShington, D.C. g,44~ 3 ."", ~ .-.&. , 61~ ,066 Salt Lake City, L'tah Salt Lake County 2,745 1,546 

562,6-\0 Portland, Ore. ~lultnomah C;:,unty 3,392 3,641 

557J~82 )few Orleans, La. Orleans Parish 3,559 c 3,659 

-\53,085 St. Lou is, :,[0. St. Louis City 3t 649 2,770 

374,132 Golden, Colo. 1st JUdicial District 1,338 866 

245,94-1 Brighton, Colo. 17th JUdicial District 1,H2 d 362d 

125,975 Pueolo, Colo. 10th Judicial District 339 1 ~" ," 

aU.S. Bureau of the Census, 1980 Census. 

!>-£xcludes a number of felony arrests filed as misdemeanors and handled by municipal ~rosecutors. 

crn New Orleans cases filed and cases 

ir.dic ted are the same. 

Partial counts. 

August 1986 

on the time it takes to prosecute 

felony cases in a variety of jurisdictions throughout the country. This 

special report presents such data for 

different types of dispositions-dismissals, pleas, and trials-and for 

various classes of crime. 

Special thanks are due to the 

prosecutors in the 12 jurisdictions 

who generously supplied the data 

presented in this report. 

Stev~n R. Schlesinger 

Director 

or fiscal 1981; in New Orleans and 

Rhode Island the data are for cases 

initiated in calendar 1980. Cases were 

subsequently disposed in the same or 

later years. 

The major findings include: 

.. On average in the jurisdictions 

studied, about half of all felony arrests 

for which charges were filed in court 

were disposed of in 31/2 months or 

less. For cases indic ted and bound over 

for trial the case-processing time was 

just under 5 months. 

o Cases resulting in trials took abou t 

twice as long to dispose of (slightly 

over 7 mon ths) as those reslJl ting in 

guilty pleas or dismissals. 

o Generally, the more serious the 

charge the longer the case-processing 

time. For all felony arrests for which 

charges were filed in court, caseprocessing time ranged from a low o[ 

3.2 months [or larceny and burglary to 

a high of 6.2 months for homicide. 
U.S. Depal1ment of Justice 

National Institute of Justice 

101985 

This document has been reproduced exactly as received from the 

person or organization originating it. Points of view or opinions stated 

in this document are those of the authors and do not necessarily 

represent the official position or policies of the National Institute of 

Justice. 

Permission to reproduce this c{)~~ed material has been 

granted by 

Public Domain/Bureau of Justice 

Statlstics7US Department of Justice 

to the National Criminal Justice Reference Service (NCJRS). 

FUrther reproduction ('ltside of the NCJRS system requires permission of the oopyf'igJ:lt owner. 
.--.. • 

Right to a speedy trial 

A criminal defendant's right to a 

speedy trial is guaranteed by the Sixth 

Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: 

"In all criminal prosecutions, the 

accused shall enjoy the right to a 

speedy and public trial .... " 

Determining when this right has been 

violated, however, is rarely a matter of 

simple objective fact. In Barker v. 

Wingo (407 U.S. 514, 530-33 (1972» the 

Supreme Court spelled out four factors 

for courts to weigh in determining if a 

defendant's constitutional right to a 

speedy trial has been denied. The 

length of the delay is the most im!?ortant consideration, but it must be 

judged in ligh t of the reasons for the 

delay. Deliberate attempts to delay by 

the government weigh heavily in favor 

of the defendant. Certain reasons, such 

as the absence of a key witness, are 

considered valid. The court must also 

determine if the defendant asserted his 

right to a speedy trial and if the delay 

prejudiced the case against the 

defendant. 

Speedy trial laws 

Federal and State laws, referred to 

as "s!?eedy trial laws, 11 attem!?t to 

supplement the imprecise definitions of 

the Sixth Amendment by introducing 

quantitative measures of unacceptable 

delay. The Federal Speedy Trial Act of 

1974, amended in 1979, s!?ccifies time 

standards for the two primary stages in 

the Federal court !?rocess. Thirty days 

are allowed from arrest to indictment 

and 70 days from indictment to trial. 

Certain time periods, such as those 

associated with hearings on pretrial 

motions, incompetency hearings, and 

absence of a material witness, are 

considered excludable time. 

Most States also have statutes that 

restrict the amount of time the State 

may take to process criminal cases. 

These laws differ in many respects, 

such as what kinds of events count as 

excludable time, and they vary widely 

in the amount of time they allow for 

bringing a case to triaL Among the 

most restrictive States is California, 

which specifies 15 days in felony cases 

from arrest to indictment and 60 days 

from indictment to triaL Other States, 

on the other hand, stipulate only that 

cases be processed with "no unnecessary or unreasonable delay." 

Findings 

The case disposition times presented 

here were determined by calculating 

the number of days between (1) the 

date of arrest and (2) the date a case 

was d4;missed in court, the defendant 

Table 2. Felony case-processing time 

in 12 jurisdictions 

Average elapsed time from 

arrest to disl!osition for: 

Cases 

indicted 

Cases and bound 

filed in over 

court for trial 

Total (mean) 3.5 mos. 4.9 mos. 

Typ e 0 f disposi tion 

Dismissal 2.8 5.3 

Guilty plea 3.4 4.5 

Trial 7.1 7.4 

:'lost serious charge 

Homicide 6.2 7.1 

Sexual assault -t.2 6.0 

Robbery 3.5 4.4 

Burglary 3.2 4.1 

Larceny 3.2 4.7 

Note: Data are derived from 12 different 

jurisdictions and represent median case 

processing times within jurisdictions averaged 

using the mean across all jurisdictions with 

available data. Data for "total" and "type of 

disposition" were available from all 12 

jurisdictions; data for "most serious charge" 

were available for 9 jurisdictions. The elapsed 

time in months was computed by dividing the 

elapsed time in days by 30.4 (the average 

number of days per month in a nonleap year). 

pled guilty, or the defendant was convicted or acquitted at trial.* No adjustments were made for time periods 

considered excludable time according 

to the various State speedy trial laws. 

Thus, the case disposition times represent the elapsed calendar time from 

arrest to final court disposi lion. 

The times presented represent the 

overall jurisdiction average for the 

reporting jurisdictions. These were 

calculated first by computing the 

median case-processing time within 

each jurisdiction and then taking the 

arithmetic mean (average) of these 

values across jurisdictions. The use of 

medians as the measure of central 

tendency within jurisdictions controls 

for the distorting effect of a small 

number of cases with very long 

processing times. An arithmetic mean 

is sensitive to such outlying cases; the 

median, which shows the middle value 

for all cases, is not. 

On average in the 12 reporting 

jurisdictions, about half of all the 

felony arrests for which charges were 

filed in court were disposed of in 3 112 

months or less (table 2). This includes 

cases disposed as misdemeanors in 

lower courts as well as cases disposed 

in the felony courts. 

When only cases indicted and bound 

over for trial in felony court are 

~ined, the case-processing time 

0I! the date of urrest was not known, the date 

of the prosecutor's screening W!l.S used. 

Usually, this is within a day of arrest. 

2 

rises to 4.9 months. Felony cases 

typically take longer to process than 

cases in the lower courts. This is 

because (1) unlike misdemeanor cases 

they typically require preliminary 

hearings or grand jury presentations, 

(2) generally felony cases are viewed 

as more serious and wOL·thy of greater 

attention and court resources than 

cases disposed in lower courts, and (3) 

felony court is where most trials, the 

most time-consuming type of disposition, take place. 

Type of disposition 

For both cases filed in court and 

cases indicted, trial dispositions take 

considerably longer than dismissals or 

guilty pleas. Trial dispositions for 

cases filed took just over 7 months and 

for cases indicted just under 7 1/2 

months. These times are nea.rly identical because most tr:als-in some jurisdictions almost all the trials-take 

place in felony court. 

For cases filed, dismissals take less 

than half as long as trials (2.8 months 

vs. 7.1 mon ths). This indica tes thn t 

most dismissals occur relatively early 

in the court process. After a case is 

indicted and bound over to the felony 

court, dismissals take considerably 

longer (5.3 months), though still less 

time than trials. This may be because 

the weakest and least serious casesthose most li)<ely to be quickly 

dismissed-have been weeded out 

before indictment. 

Since approximately 7096 to 8096 of 

trials typically result in a conviction, 

comparing disposition times for tL'ials 

vs. guilty pleas gives a rough indica tion 

of how much longer it takes to get a 

conviction by trial ra ther than by a 

plea. For the 12 jurisdictions in this 

study, that difference is about 3 

months. 

Seriousness of the crime 

Generally, the more serious the 

crime the longer the case-processing 

time. This pattern is particularly 

evident for cases filed in court. 

Homicide cases take the longest to 

dispose (6.2 months); burglary and 

larceny take the shortest (3.2 "months). 

Contrary to this pattern, however, larceny cases indicted actually take longer 

to dispose (4.7 months) than either 

burglary (4.1 months) or robbery (4.4 

months) cases indicted. This may 

reflect the fact that only the most 

serious larcenies make it into felony 

court. 

One reason that the most serious 

crimes take longer to dispose is because 
- . ... -'-" 

JijWi@ 

a higher proportion of these go to trial 

than the lesser offenses. Nonetheless, 

separate data examining case-processing times for each crime for each type 

of disposition show that homicides 

usually take longer to dispose than 

other crimes whether through dismissals, guilty pleas, or trials. 

Case-processing time, administrative 

practice, and dclay-reduction policies 

While numerous [actors contribute 

to the speed with which felony cases 

are adjudicated, of major importance 

are the administrative practicGs and 

delay-reduction policies of courts and 

prosecu tors. In Manhattan, [or example, the median time from arrest to 

disposi ton for guil ty pleas for cases 

filed is just 26 days. This is the result 

of the district attorney's practice of 

obtaining guilty pleas to misdemeanor 

charges for a number of less serious 

felony crimes at the time of the initial 

lower court arraignment, which takes 

place wi thin 24 hours of arrest. 

Similarly, the rapid dismissal time for 

all cases filed in Rhode Island (3 days) 

results from the fact that the attorney 

general screens felony arrests after 

they have been filed with the lower 

cou~t by the police. Arrests dropped 

for prosecution are sent back to the 

lower court for dismissal. In 

jurisdictions where screening occurs 

prior to court filing, such cases could 

be dropped before court charges are 

filed and therefore would not show up 

in court caseloads. 

In both New Orleans and Portland 

the median time to dispose both cases 

filed and cases indic ted is abou t 2 

months, well under the average for the 

12 jurisdictions. Both of these jurisdictions have long-standing policies to 

prevent court delay. In New Orleans 

the district attorney stresse!': moving 

cases rapidly and for a n,lmber of years 

has had an office policy of moving filed 

cases from arraignment to trial in 60 

days. The prosecutor's office preven ts 

unnecessary delays by reviewing the 

oldest cases on the docket each week. 

In Portland the district attorney's 

office requires that plea offers be made 

and communicated to defense attorneys 

shortly after screening to encourage an 

eftrly decision as to whether a case will 

be pled or go to trial. Also, when the 

• court backlog reaches 500 cases, two 

additional jiJdges are assigned to worl< 

full-time on criminal cases. 

r 

Source of data 

The data in this report are derived 

from the Bureau of Justice Statistics 

series "Prosecution of Felony Arrests." 

Detailed jurisdictional data on caseprocessing time will be presented in the 

forthcoming report by Barbara Boland 

with Ronald Sones, The Prosecution of 

Felony Arrests, 1981, NCJ-101380. 

The prosecution series collects a 

variety of felony disposi tion statistics 

extracted from both computerized case 

tracking systems in prosecutors' offices 

as well as manual data systems. Previous publica tions from this series 

include: 

o Kathleen B. Brosi, A Cross-City 

Comparison of Felony Case Processing, 

U.S Department of Justice, Washington, 

D.C., 1979. 

e Barbara Boland et al., The Prosecution of Felonv Arrests. 1979, Bureau 

of Justice Statistics, NCJ-86482, 

Washington, D.C., 1983. 

o Barbara Boland and Brian Forst, 

The Prevalence of Guilty Pleas, Bureau 

of Justice S ta tistics Special Report, 

NCJ-96018, December 1984. 

o Barbara Boland and Elizabeth Brady, 

The Prosecution of Felony Arrests, 

1980, Bureau of Justice Statistics, 

NCJ-97684, Washington, D.C., 1985. 

3 

Bureau of Justice Statistics 

Special Report.:; are prepared principally by BJS staff under the 

direction of Joseph M. Bessette, 

deputy director for data analysis. 

This report was written by Barbara 

Boland of Abt Associates, Inc., 

and was edited by Mr. Bessette. 

Carla K. Gaskins is program 

manager for the "Prosecution of 

Felony Arrests" series, from which 

this report was derived. Marilyn 

Marbrook, t:lublica tions unit chief, 

administered report production, 

assisted by jl,Ellie J. Baldea and 

Joyce M. Stanford. 

August 1986, NCJ-I01985