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Panel Targets Police Time Spent Waiting in Court : LAPD: Reforms would put the equivalent of 234 officers on the streets, mayor’s task force says.

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TIMES STAFF WRITER

A countywide task force assembled by Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan unveiled a package of recommendations Monday designed to slice deeply into the time that police officers spend waiting to testify in court. The proposals are expected to save city taxpayers nearly $11 million a year.

The recommendations, which include trying to reach plea settlements earlier in the legal process and waiting until closer to trial start times to summon officers who are potential witnesses, would save enough police time to put the equivalent of 234 more officers on the streets, task force members estimated.

The findings of the Mayor’s Task Force on Court Overtime, headed by federal Judge Manuel L. Real and including defense attorneys, judges and representatives of the district attorney’s office, the city attorney’s office and the mayor, could help Riordan with his tough-to-keep campaign promise to vastly increase the number of police on the beat.

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And the task force itself represents Riordan’s favorite and most effective technique--putting together a panel of experts, including many members from outside City Hall, to tackle a complicated problem.

“You will be able to put many, many more officers on the street to protect and to serve,” Real told officials at a news conference to announce the task force’s findings.

The large amounts of time that police officers have been required to spend in court, waiting to testify in cases involving them, has long been a vexing problem. Officers typically spend days waiting at the courthouse, often only to wind up without testifying, justice system leaders acknowledged.

City residents end up footing the bills if the officers are at court on overtime and lose policing services if the officers are there during their regular working hours.

The task force, launched in May, 1994, found that the city spent nearly $5 million on court-related overtime during the 1993-94 budget year, and by April 15 of this fiscal year, had racked up $3.7 million in such costs.

The recommendations, some of which require further negotiations with court officials or employee unions, range from expanding time-saving pilot projects already in place in some parts of the county to buying special equipment to speed up chemical test results.

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‘This will make the city safer,” Riordan said in unveiling the findings and praising the cooperative efforts of all areas of the justice system. “This type of ingenuity and cooperation will help us work within the city’s budget constraints to meet the goals of Project Safety L.A.,” the Riordan-initiated plan to add nearly 3,000 officers to the LAPD over four years.

Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti called the package “truly a win-win-win proposition” because citizens would get more police service, taxpayers would save money and officers could spend more time fighting crime.

Officials cautioned that they are calling for earlier resolutions in cases resulting in plea bargains, not for more plea bargains per se.

Garcetti said 83% of criminal cases are settled between the time a trial date is set and when the trial actually begins.

City Atty. James K. Hahn said his office for several years has had an agreement with the Municipal Court, which handles preliminary hearings, that allows police officers to be summoned closer to a trial’s beginning instead of when a case is first called for trial. He said this system can be a model for similar rules in Superior Court.

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