County OKs plan to ease backlog of felony cases
Harris County commissioners on Tuesday unanimously agreed to temporarily add three new visiting judges in the felony courts to help eliminate the mounting backlog there — and usher the people deemed “most dangerous” out of the local system.
The judges will be hired, not elected, in response to a festering “emergency situation” in the felony district courts, where about 54,000 cases are pending, according to county data. The felony and misdemeanor courts combined have a backlog of more than 97,000 criminal cases, compared with 38,000 before Hurricane Harvey in 2017.
“Alleviating our unacceptable and dangerous case backlog in the criminal courts is the most impactful thing we can do right now to reduce and prevent crime in Harris County,” Hidalgo said. “Justice delayed is justice denied. Justice denied for the victims of crime and denied for those who are accused of violent crime, some of whom are inevitably innocent.”
Hidalgo and the four commissioners threw their support behind a $2.5 million proposal that includes adding the judges, and funding extra staffing and space for them, as well as nine more prosecutors and three district at
torney’s office investigators. All staffing will be temporary, however, and will last the six months the judges are on the bench. If they appear to be making a difference, their terms could be extended, Hidalgo said during a Tuesday morning news conference about the initiative.
The new jurists will have many of the same responsibilities as district court judges, who will pass them some of their longest pending and most serious cases, such as murder, aggravated assault and rape.
The backlog has most recently resulted in serious court delays for these defendants, some of whom commit new crimes while on bond, Houston Police Executive Assistant Chief Larry Satterwhite said. If the backlog was shorter, some of those people would have already been incarcerated or gotten help, he said.
“The problem is the criminal court backlog, and it has allowed, sadly, a lot of people who should not be on the streets to still be out there, people who are preying on the innocent,” Satterwhite said during the news conference.
The criminal case backlog skyrocketed after Harvey shut down the courthouse, stalling hearings, pleas, trials and other proceedings. For a time, judges doubled up in courtrooms, and cases mounted. The pandemic worsened the problem.
Among all cases pending in the court system, about 40,000 are past national standards for the times they should take to dispose, Hidalgo said. Almost 20,000 pending felony cases were over 360 days old, according to county data.
Local leaders like Police Chief Troy Finner have most recently pointed to the backlog being the driver for an increase in reoffenses by defendants out on bond. Others in law enforcement have instead pointed the finger at judges or at felony “bail reform” — efforts which have not occurred but aim to make bail more attainable for poor, felony defendants. Misdemeanor bail reform has occurred, but stakeholders largely agree that it had no real bearing on increasing crime.
A recent Houston Chronicle analysis found 221 cases between 2013 and 2020 in which a defendant was accused of murder while out on bond, mostly on nonviolent charges. As the number of such cases rose over the years, so did the length of time between bonding out and being charged with murder.
Precinct 2 Commissioner Adrian Garcia, who put the proposal on Tuesday’s agenda, referenced certain repeated releases of violent felony offenders out on bond during the news conference, and he called on judges to do their part in curbing the problem.
Judges are bound by constitutional standards that largely require setting attainable bonds for defendants, who are innocent until proven guilty. There is some latitude for repeat violent offenders.
“We want to make sure that they can defend decisions of putting repeat violent offenders on low bonds back on the streets,” said Garcia, a former sheriff. “That is one of the most frustrating and demoralizing issues that any law enforcement officer sees.”
Most of the commissioners agreed their support stemmed from their desire to reduce rising violent crime in Harris County, which has seen 250 homicides in Houston this year alone.
Several commissioners also drew comparisons to the 1980s, when crime rates were still higher than they are now. Hidalgo, however, said the new initiative is a departure from more regressive policies in the 80s that resulted in the overincarceration of Black and brown people.
Three similar dockets have been operating since January. Those visiting judges were referred 1,436 cases and disposed of 806 of them. About 70 percent of those cases were more than a year old, according to the proposal.
Precinct 3 Commissioner Tom Ramsey said the newest initiative for three more judges seems to be coming too late to prevent damage from the staggering backlog, but is still a necessary step.
“I think it’s important that we show bipartisan support in terms of dealing with our crime pandemic,” Ramsey said. “In many ways, (the courts are) dysfunctional and something has to be done.”
Dane Schiller, spokesman for the Harris County District Attorney’s Office, said that more prosecutors are vital to improving the backlog, which sits thousands of cases higher for them due to arrests that have not been made and post-conviction cases.
District Attorney Kim Ogg has, for years, said her staff is underwater with large caseloads, and the commissioners have denied several of her requests for more prosecutors as advocates argued that more prosecutors meant more prosecutions of lower-level crimes.
Garcia’s plan closely followed several others in Commissioner’s Court that were flagged to reduce the backlog, including a $17 million proposal approved last week for additional law enforcement and associate judges, who can handle some of the lower-level, administrative dealings in the courts. The commissioners court also approved a proposal to expand jury operations, which resumed at NRG Arena during the pandemic.
The Texas Legislature this year separately approved a new, permanent district court for Harris County, the first in decades despite a consistently rising population. That court should open Sept. 1, according to the legislation.
The three new visiting judges should be in place by the end of August, Hidalgo said.