Backlog in Court Is No Longer Criminal : Justice: A streamlined management system is getting criminal cases settled more promptly.

Deluged by drug buys, glutted with gang busts, assaulted by the most violent and cruel felonies, the San Diego Superior Court is not only getting cases to trial on time--it’s cutting sharply into a huge backlog of waiting trials.

No more moratoriums on civil cases, like the one just two years ago this week. No more waits for an open courtroom and a judge. With more judges and a more efficient management system, the court guarantees that a case will go to trial as scheduled.

Under Judge Jesus Rodriguez, who supervises the criminal courtrooms, there has been a broad shift in the management of criminal cases. The key has been guaranteeing that cases can go to trial in a specified period.

Faced with the certainty of trial, more cases are ending in plea bargains, enough so that Rodriguez has appointed an additional judge to seal those deals.

The court has also emphasized programs to move repeat offenders and relatively simple crimes, such as run-of-the-mill dope deals, through the system faster still.

Rodriguez’s management strategies, at work for a year, resemble the concept tried first in San Diego civil cases--that a case should be managed through the system by judges, not by lawyers.

Similar to the even more structured “fast-track” system that the court first tried on civil cases--with such success that fast-track since has spread to every county courthouse in California--the San Diego court has cut the number of pending criminal cases from 3,000 to 1,400, a drop of 53%.

It was only two years ago that Judge Michael I. Greer, then-presiding judge of the San Diego court, took the unprecedented step of halting all civil trials for three weeks to take care of the pressing criminal load--those 3,000 cases.

Last year, with Rodriguez’s system not even fully in place until well into the spring, the court’s criminal judges not only handled every case that came their way--they also completed 59 civil trials.

“In the last year, before (Rodriguez) took over, our criminal justice system was in bad shape,” said Jim Pippin, a deputy district attorney and supervisor of the district attorney’s felony prosecutions.

“What Greer did, he did out of necessity,” Pippin said. “We were in trouble. And, without compromising the integrity of the system, Rodriguez has been able to make it work.”

Rodriguez, 39, was the first Latino appointed to the San Diego bench by former Gov. George Deukmejian, is the youngest-ever supervising judge of the San Diego criminal courts and the first Latino in the post.

Rodriguez also is the first judge in the recent history of the San Diego Superior Court to stay on as supervising criminal judge for longer than a year.

“It would have been easy for me to come in here, do my year, get out and say, ‘Whew, I’m out.’ But no, I volunteered to stay for several more months,” until new courtrooms now under construction in the South Bay open, and he can work closer to his Chula Vista home.

The supervising judge’s job traditionally involves sending criminal cases to various judges for trials. When Rodriguez took over Jan. 30, 1990, appointed by the current presiding judge, Judith McConnell, he decided it had to involve something more.

“My philosophy when I came in here was, first of all, we’re going to change our way of doing business,” he said.

There’s ample precedent in the San Diego court for doing just that.

In 1987, the San Diego court began experimenting with the fast-track system, which speedily pushes civil cases to trial by fixing dates that lawyers must meet or risk sanctions.

Before fast-track, it typically took 52 months to dispose of 90% of the court’s civil cases--through a trial, settlement or dismissal. Now the court disposes of nearly 95% of its civil filings within 24 months, and fast-track has become a statewide fixture.

Rodriguez’s plans were to call upon the same sort of management ethic and reputation for innovation that fast-track had turned into a near-religion among the court’s passionately converted judges. The difference is that his system is not as formalized as fast-track--for instance, it does not involve formal deadlines for lawyers.

It did, however, require lawyers to change their attitudes about when they were going to go to trial.

All criminal cases are on a 60-day time line mandated by state law. Either a case goes out to trial on or before the 60th day it is in Superior Court, or, unless a defendant waives his rights to a speedy trial, it must be dismissed.

On Feb. 10, 1989, Greer had to call the moratorium on civil cases because he had scores of “zero-day” cases lined up, those that had reached the 60th day. Felony filings had jumped from 6,740 in 1987 to 9,382 in 1988, a 39% jump in one year, fueled primarily by drug-related cases, according to court statistics.

The filing rate has remained fairly constant since then. In 1989, it was 8,939 and, in 1990, 9,086 filings, court statistics indicate.

But just over a month into 1989, the 1988 crush caught up to Greer--and the court. Criminal cases near the end of the 60-day limit take priority over civil cases, so he called a temporary halt to civil suits.

The court’s system always has been to call a case for a trial 10 days before Day 60--on the 50th day. Greer’s problem was that there were no courtrooms available on the 50th day and no prospect of enough courts opening up before the 60th day.

When the crisis eased, the problem turned out to be that lawyers had become used to the delay. Attorneys would wrangle three or five or 10 continuances, hoping that the other side would lose interest or that a witness would disappear or that a better plea bargain could be cut.

No more, Rodriguez decided. He made it a rule that, when a case came before him, it was going to be sent out that day to a trial judge. On Day 50.

“Attorneys had to learn the hard way,” he said. “And a few of them were surprised. And a few of them thought maybe I was bluffing.”

But there hasn’t been a zero-day case since last May 29, he said.

“It took a little adjusting at first for some of the trial attorneys,” said Steven Carroll, chief trial deputy at the Public Defender’s Office. “They got so used to not going out the first day they appeared.”

The secret to the system actually is not trials, but plea bargains. About 95% of the felonies filed in the San Diego Superior Court settle short of a trial, according to court figures.

And being told that a trial is imminent is most often the impetus for a deal.

“If, every time you appear in court, you’re put off to another final day, the (accused offender) doesn’t see the day of reckoning, he doesn’t see that this is his last chance to settle it short of being convicted, if that’s what’s going to happen,” Carroll said.

“He’s allowed to put off the final decision as to whether he wishes to plead guilty,” Carroll said.

“But when there’s a judge available, that’s the moment of truth--and the decision is made.”

Richard J. Neely, assistant district attorney, said Rodriguez “put into play what we found to be the reality of criminal trials. That is, if you’ve got an open (courtroom) and (the case) is going to go to trial, reality sets in--settlements, bargains, whatever you want to call it, cases will be resolved.”

Because lawyers have spread the word that the case will now be sent out for trial on Day 50, attorneys apparently have developed over the past few months the motivation to settle cases even earlier, Rodriguez said.

His trial calendar, the list of cases ready to go that day, has shrunk to about 18 a day, he said. It averaged 35 a day when he took over, he said.

To make the system work, Rodriguez must have open courtrooms. That takes enough judges, or more efficient routing, or both.

When Greer called a halt to civil trials, there were 53 judges on the Superior Court, 14 of whom were assigned to criminal courtrooms at the downtown county courthouse. The moratorium, which critics called a political stunt, ended when seven new judges were appointed to vacancies on the bench.

Now there are 11 more judges, for a total of 71, 18 of whom sit in downtown criminal courtrooms--so Rodriguez has four more judges now than then. Municipal Court judges also have been able to pitch in on occasion, giving Rodriguez two to four more judges.

But Rodriguez made one critical routing change. He took one courtroom out of the trial rotation, figuring it was more important to have two judges, not just one, handling settlement talks at a mandatory pretrial readiness conference.

It’s common at that conference for lawyers to detail the strengths and weaknesses of a case to the judge, knowing that judge will not be the trial judge and can impartially view the case with no worry about ruling on it.

The settlement rate in the readiness courtrooms, down to 88% in 1989, immediately jumped to 91% with two judges. Any figure over 90% offsets the loss of a trial court and reduces the workload on more than just those two judges, the court’s staff has figured out.

Judges Thomas Whelan, who handled La Jolla socialite Elisabeth Anne (Betty) Broderick’s first murder trial, and Frederic Link, another long-time specialist in criminal law, now handle the two settlement posts.

Rodriguez also took away lawyers’ ability to “judge shop” in seeking settlements. No longer can a lawyer get one deal from the readiness judge, then get sent out to trial and get a different, seemingly better, bargain from the trial judge.

If an accused offender wants to plead guilty, it’s back to the original judge. That eliminates the option of delaying the case by going back in the draw, being sent out to yet another judge and obtaining offer after offer, Rodriguez said.

Though that was the rule even before he took over, Rodriguez said he let it be known that he considered it a strict policy.

There are other changes, too. A software program is being written to enable court clerks--for the first time--to track each case by computer, said Michael M. Roddy, the court’s assistant executive officer.

Some lower-level felonies are being set for trial not at 50 days but weeks beforehand, figuring that they just aren’t that complex and should be ready to go--or to settle--earlier, Rodriguez said.

In addition, a so-called “Drug Court” has proven tremendously efficient. Begun in November, 1989, and kicked into high gear under Rodriguez’s watch, it is not a separate court but rather a program that identifies felons accused of new drug-related crimes.

Instead of being charged with the new drug crime, the district attorney simply seeks to revoke probation from a prior offense. These cases are being disposed of in an average of 40 days from arrest, and 88% of the cases result in a state prison sentence, court figures reveal.

There is, of course, caution amid all these good reports. The whole system could come crashing down again, as it did two years ago, if the felony filing rate suddenly jumped again, or if the court becomes burdened with high-stakes murder cases, said Roddy, the court staffer.

Currently, according to the district attorney’s statistics, there are eight murder trials and two attempted murder trials going on. On deck are two more murder trials. “This is a big city--10 murder trials,” Pippin said. “People ought to realize that.”

Still, Pippin said, the court “is functioning better than it has in memory.”