Howard's Inefficient Management

Judges Demand Howard Try Cases Within a Year

©Fulton County Daily Report, December 15, 1998 Ben Schmitt Staff Reporter <tr align="left" valign="top"> <td height="369" width="512"> Fulton County's 17 Superior Court judges voted unanimously Monday to order the District Attorney's Office to try cases pending more than a year, show cause why they can't or risk the dismissal or dead-docketing of the cases. "Our system of justice requires the speedy resolution of criminal cases," says the draft of the order that was being circulated Monday for the judges' signatures after they voted. "Citizens of this community involved in the criminal justice system, whether as victims, witnesses or defendants are entitled to be free of the burden of pending litigation within a reasonable period of time," the draft says. The drafted order, which is to go into effect Jan. 1, says that when a case that has been pending for more than a year is called for trial, the state must be prepared to proceed or show good cause why not. If the prosecutor is either unprepared or unwilling to proceed without good cause, the case "shall be subject ... to immediate Dismissal for Want of Prosecution or placement on the Dead Docket," according to the judge's discretion. The order, which applies to all criminal cases still pending a year after indictment or accusation, also says the judge could instead decide to continue the case. Dead-docketed cases can be resurrected by motion without new evidence, whereas dismissed cases must be re-indicted to be brought back to trial. "There's nothing new in the standing order that the judges are not already doing or authorized to do under the law," Judge Wendy L. Shoob says, declining to comment further. Three other judges contacted by the Daily Report Monday declined to discuss the order, and Chief Judge Thelma Wyatt Cummings Moore did not return phone calls. By press time, District Attorney Paul L. Howard Jr. had not returned a call seeking his response to the judges' vote. The judges took the vote at a specially called meeting Monday, according to a judge who declined to be quoted for this article. The action appeared to be a show of support for Fulton Superior Court Judge Bensonetta Tipton Lane, who last week found a prosecutor in contempt of court for being unprepared to try a 2-year-old murder case (Daily Report, Dec. 10, 1998, and Dec. 11, 1998). In interviews last week, several judges expressed impatience with the caseloads carried by individual assistant district attorneys and the slowness with which cases were coming to trial, especially serious cases. Last week, Assistant District Attorney Myrlin D. Earle was held in contempt of court and ordered jailed by Lane because Earle was unprepared for a murder trial and refused either to dead-docket the case or to proceed to trial. The defendant, Antonio Evans, has been in jail for more than two years awaiting trial. Earle, who has declined interviews, had already resigned from the District Attorney's Office to take a job with the DeKalb County Solicitor when the argument with Lane ensued. According to transcripts of a Dec. 7 hearing before Lane, Earle said defense lawyers had sprung a new witness list on him and he had no time to interview witnesses. What's more, he said, a key witness, Quinton Berry, was incarcerated in the Leavenworth, Kan., federal penitentiary and was unavailable. It turned out that Spencer has been housed in the Federal Correctional Institution in Jesup since July 8. Ruling from the bench, Lane ordered Earle taken to a holding cell, but he was released after Howard moved for a supersedes bond. The next day, Lane filed a written contempt order calling Earle's statements about the witnesses' whereabouts "false and therefore contemptuous." Lane's actions prompted Judges Shoob, Melvin K. Westmoreland and Doris L. Downs to complain publicly about criminal cases moving too slowly through the courts. Shoob last week said 393 cases were pending in her court as of Oct. 31. Westmoreland last week said he had 643 pending criminal cases as of the same date, and Downs said 500 criminal cases were pending in her court. "The problem we're all having is that the oldest, most serious cases where defendants are in jail have to be a priority, and the DA won't release them or try them either," Shoob said last week. Howard said last week that defense lawyers seek continuances at least as often as prosecutors and said that the entire Fulton County criminal justice system needs revamping. He pointed to his proposal for an accelerated case-screening process, in which police information would go directly to his office after an arrest, as a solution to dispose of cases faster. [end] Ben Schmitt's e-mail address is <a href="mailto:[email protected]"> [email protected]</a> </td> </tr> </table> <hr> <table width="500" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" vspace="0" hspace="0"> <tr align="left"> <td> <div align="left">Paid for by the Committee to Elect John Turner</div> </td> </tr> </table> </body> </html>