Dallas County must hold judges accountable for case logjam

A few Dallas County commissioners are turning up the warmth on the native felony courtroom judiciary, threatening to dock judges’ pay in the event that they don’t work more durable to cut back rising case backlogs.

Whereas we will’t but endorse a pay minimize, we applaud Commissioner John Wiley Worth and his Republican colleague, J.J. Koch, for the bipartisan stress they’re placing on legal courtroom judges. They are saying they’re contemplating proposing a discount and even withholding of the county’s $18,000 complement to the judges’ state salaries till they make a much bigger dent within the variety of pending instances — which is almost 21,000 instances.

The commissioners’ issues come concurrently we’ve raised a few of our personal.

One misdemeanor decide who oversees the county’s particular DWI courtroom is herself serving a probation sentence for allegedly driving drunk. A felony courtroom decide is below investigation by the Texas Rangers. And a Dallas lawyer who will assume a misdemeanor courtroom bench in January owes the Texas Ethics Fee greater than $40,000 in delinquent fines for not handing over well timed marketing campaign finance experiences.

As we’ve famous earlier than, that is significantly condemnable conduct amongst these sworn and responsibility certain to uphold the regulation. And it’s even worse amid allegations of lax work habits.

The felony judges have pushed again towards the accusations, saying they’re working laborious to get rid of instances as rapidly as doable. And a few clearly run busier dockets than others. Nonetheless, state information on general courtroom exercise backs up issues that, on the entire, the felony courts are falling increasingly behind.

From January to June this 12 months, the variety of energetic and pending felony instances in Dallas County rose whereas these in different massive city areas within the state fell, in accordance with the Texas Workplace of Court docket Administration. Worth has stated he fears a federal “audit nightmare” of $3 million in COVID-19 reduction {dollars} given to the county if the judges can’t show they’ve used the funds to ease the logjam of instances.

Worth is correct {that a} rising backlog of legal instances is a big downside. It places stress on the jail system as inmates await hearings and trials. And the longer instances are pending, the extra stale the proof will get.

Dallas County Choose Clay Jenkins, who typically acts as peacekeeper amongst county officers, informed us he invited the judges to a hamburger feast in late Could to raised perceive their aspect of the story. His takeaway: Some judges “are working extraordinarily laborious and a few much less so.” Nonetheless, one of the simplest ways to enhance general efficiency is “to work collectively.” And he wouldn’t assist a minimize of their pay, he stated.

“Folks hardly ever carry out to their highest functionality when they’re threatened and disrespected,” Jenkins informed us.

Possibly. However the actuality in Dallas County is that some elected legal judges are having fun with the steadiness of their positions after being swept into workplace on in style get together tickets, however face little public scrutiny of their actions.

We applaud commissioners Worth and Koch for calling consideration to the case backlog difficulty, even when their most up-to-date risk of hitting judges of their wallets is heavy-handed and untimely.

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