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Wednesday, July 19, 2006
Ind. Courts - Marion Superior Court Judge's vacation becomes an issue
Vic Ryckaertand Will Higgins report today in the Indianapolis Star:
A Marion County judge went on vacation this month and shut down his busy court for two weeks.
The break in Superior Court Judge Bill Young's court has drawn criticism from city leaders, who say slowing progress on hundreds of cases was a mistake as the county entered its worst jail crisis in years."The court had no activity for two weeks," said City Controller Robert Clifford. "It's like a retailer closing in December. It's the busiest time of the year."
Just last month, the county freed almost 600 inmates because of crowding -- the second highest mass jail release in the past six years. The Marion County Jail has been near a mandatory population cap of 1,135 repeatedly as inmates wait for their cases to move through the justice system.
Young said the shutdown was designed to help lawyers in his court catch up on paperwork and settle a host of cases through plea agreements. He said that in the long run, it might help ease crowding at the jail.
Judges have the option of having commissioners, magistrates or other judges fill in during an absence.
Young oversees the major felony drug court, one of the county's busiest, with 1,251 pending cases. Defendants in Young's court include accused cocaine dealers, methamphetamine manufacturers and people suspected of serious drug use.
"I've got lawyers with 150 cases apiece who barely have time to look at their cases," said Young, reached in Indianapolis where he was attending a meeting Tuesday. "I'm just seeing if I can make a dent in my caseload by giving the lawyers some breathing room." * * *
Young's court, records show, has 354 defendants with pending cases sitting in the Marion County Jail. No other criminal court even comes close.
The drug court, records show, has an additional 316 defendants whose cases have been closed sitting in jail, but it's unclear whether those inmates are awaiting sentencing or being held on charges in another court.
"The fact is I need more prosecutors, I need more public defenders," Young said. "You can have a hearing every day, but if the lawyers have done no work on it, we get nowhere." * * *
The jail has been under the scrutiny of a federal judge since the Indiana Civil Liberties Union brought a suit over poor conditions at the jail in the 1970s. Ken Falk, the legal director of the organization now called the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana, said Young's vacation underscored the continuing problems with the system.
"If something as insignificant as a judge going on vacation can create significant problems with capacity," he said, "that illustrates to me we haven't addressed the underlying problem of, 'Do we have enough capacity?' "
Young went on vacation for a month in Brown County, volunteering at a summer camp. For two weeks, fill-in judges and commissioners or magistrates presided over the court.
An acting judge could have overseen the court, but for the first two weeks of July, the court shut down completely.
Several lawyers and one of his magistrates also were heading out of town during that time, which included the Fourth of July holiday, Young said. He sat down with supervising prosecutors and public defenders, and Young said they agreed that closing the court would benefit the system more than bringing in an acting judge.
"We planned this for a month and a half," Young said, adding that officials should be able to assess the payoff next month. "I think we need to sit down in August and look at what dispositions we had."
Posted by Marcia Oddi on July 19, 2006 06:14 AM
Posted to Indiana Courts