Court Efforts To Reduce Pretrial Delay - A National Inventory

• NCJ Number: 93239
• Author(s): P A Ebener
• Date Published: 1981
• Length: 137 pages
• Sponsoring Agency: Rand Corporation
• Sale Source: National Institute of Justice/; Rand Corporation
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: Rand Publications Series

Annotation

The Institute for Civil Justice undertook a project to generate a data base containing comparative data on the features of various approaches to expediting cases. The purpose was to provide courts with guidelines to follow in planning ad designing techniques to deal with their backlogs.

Abstract

The resultant inventory presents information on the number and distribution of State and local trial court procedures to reduce pretrial delay of civil cases describing how they operate and discussing the considerations underlying their design and implementation. Data was collected through telephone interviews with the State court administrative manager or his designee in all 50 States and 40 major metropolitan courts. Follow-up surveys through the mail verified data from 45 State and 33 metropolitan courts. Many court officials expressed frustration over constraints on their ability to introduce changes to expedite cases. Procedures currently in use range from informal efforts by individual judges to State laws mandating formal programs. Efforts to reduce delay fall into two categories: management efforts to streamline progress of cases through the system; and diversion efforts to reduce the number of cases by providing alternatives to litigation. Management strategies include such approaches as efficient resource management, expeditious pretrial processing, and setting of firm trial dates, while diversion procedures encompass judicial arbitration, mandatory medical malpractice screening, and settlement programs. The scope and variety of efforts to solve the problem of court congestion reflect a growing tendency among courts to assume responsibility for setting the pace of litigation. While the problems addressed by the courts share certain features, they also reflect individual differences in court structures, personnel, and caseload characteristics. Notes and tables accompany the text. Appendixes contain a list of the State court systems included in the inventory, the national court inventory, a list of the metropolitan court in the sample, samples of verification forms and letters, metropolitan court tables, and a bibliography. (Author summary modified.)