Grand Jury Urges a Start to Speeding Up Court Cases in County

Justice comes too slowly in Orange County courtrooms, in both criminal and civil cases, a grand jury report said Monday.

Based on a survey of judges and lawyers, the outgoing 1985-86 grand jury recommended that working groups be created at both county and state levels to consider ways to streamline the administration of justice.

“We hope this will get something started,” said Leonard L. Lahtinen, foreman pro tem.

The grand jury mainly recommended further study of the issue. The outgoing grand jury is expected to release more reports on other issues today, as the 1986-87 panel takes office.

Judges and lawyers who responded to the courtroom survey recommended such changes as combining Magistrate and Superior courts, funding the public defender’s office at levels comparable to those of the district attorney, and abolition of most preliminary hearings in criminal cases.

Commenting on the limited recommendations, Lahtinen said the grand jury was “pragmatic enough to recognize the limits of its authority and expertise.”

The report noted that solutions to many perceived problems can come only at the state level. But action on the county level could help, jurors said.

“Some (problems) can be addressed on the local level through coordinated effort by the local judicial community. The establishment of a working group . . . to address organization, policy and procedure revisions would be beneficial,” the report continued.

“To the extent this is possible, Orange County can control its own destiny,” the report concluded.

The report did conclude that Superior Court judges had made “impressive” progress in cutting down the backlog of civil cases.

In 1979, an average of 38 months was required for a civil case to reach trial once the parties were ready. The grand jurors reported that that wait has been cut to 13 months as of last December for old cases, and nine months for newly filed cases.

The success is due to the use of mandatory settlement conferences, arbitration, the use of Municipal Court judges to hear Superior Court matters, the use of temporary judges and tougher standards for granting delays.

Foreman Gerald M. Charlton said that compared to the rest of California, Orange County courts are “better than some, and worse than some.” Charlton emphasized that county judges ‘have made considerable progress in addressing this problem (delay).’

Despite that progress, grand jurors pointed out that American Bar Assn. standards call for 90% of all civil cases to be concluded within 12 months of filing.

The report pointed to these additional factors confronting the courts:

- Trials are increasing in length, on the average, requiring more judges to handle the same number of cases.

- New criminal cases increased 36% in the first four months of this year, and 16% last year.

- Civil cases involving personal injuries increased 21% in 1984 and 12% in 1985, and the trend toward more litigation is continuing.

- The State Judicial Council has stated that 71 Superior Court judges will be needed in Orange County next year, compared to 62 at present.

Charlton said that of those surveyed, about 25% of judges, private lawyers, prosecutors and public defenders responded. He stressed that grand jurors were not trying to find things to criticize about the court system, although several judges thought that would be the case.

“Several judges were concerned that we were into a ‘let’s attack the court’ time. But that’s not what we were into,” Charlton said.