NCJ Number
76292
Date Published
1979
Length
72 pages
Annotation
Fourteen magistrates' courts in Great Britain were surveyed in a feasibility study to determine whether the 1975 James Committee recommendations for speedy resolution of contested cases had been implemented.
Abstract
An initial review of available British and American literature dealing with court delay and waiting times was conducted to help devise survey questions. To help gain an understanding of how procedures and caseloads vary, more than 80 practitioners and others involved with the operation of magistrates' courts were interviewed, courts of differing size and location were visited, and samples of case records were collected. Findings indicated that the recommendations of the James Committee have not been implemented or expressed in locally effective policies. None of the 14 courts visited had established standards or guidelines regarding the length of time that various types of cases should normally take, and none of them had any systematic means of determining how long cases actually take from inception to conclusion. Data indicate that only 15.3 percent of contested sample cases (24 out of 157) were being adjudicated in less than 6 weeks from the date of arrest of summons; waiting times in uncontested cases were often much longer. With respect to use of police bail, about two-thirds of all summons cases and a somewhat smaller proportion of arrest cases were adjudicated on the date of first appearance. Numerous factors affecting the length of waiting time in magistrates' court cases include the size and nature of a court's workload, court resources, the availability of defense services, and adjournment and recordkeeping practices. A program of further research on court waiting times is recommended. Two appendixes contain tables of data on time intervals in magistrates' court cases and describe study methodology. Thirty-four references are provided.