Judicial district still dealing with COVID effects
The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel
By SAM KLOMHAUS Sam.Klomhaus@gjsentinel.com
"COVID wreaked havoc on the criminal justice system in a lot of different ways, and on some of the ones that are more start on the dashboard, we actually put a line on the middle of the graph showing when the COVID shutdown happened, and you can see a direct spike in there in some of the numbers, or a dip in some of the numbers," Rubinstein said.
The time to resolve a case, number of hearings to resolve a case and time between hearings all shot up during COVID and haven't come back down, Rubinstein said.
"Throughout the pandemic, necessary limitations on jury trials, in-person proceedings, court closures, modified arrest standards, and changes in law enforcement staffing all contributed to a slower rate of case resolution," a statement on the dashboard read.
According to the dashboard, the time to resolve a felony case increased from an average of 220 days before COVID-19 to 310 days in the first quarter of 2023.
Similarly, the time to dismiss a felony case rose from an average of 174 days before COVID-19 to 339 days in early 2023. The average number of hearings rose from 9.3 to 11.86.
"One of the things we noticed is the time to disposition of a case has gone up, massively ramped up around COVID and never really went back down," Rubinstein said. "I don't know that that's something that's on us, it might be the defense bar, it might be the judges, it might be the fact that we're on WebEx and it's just hard to get cases resolved."
Things appear to be slowly returning to normal, though.
Attorneys are working on clearing out a backlog in cases, Rubinstein said, with the DA's office having cleared about 150 more cases than it opened in 2022.
Rubinstein also said since his office noticed the uptick in time to resolve cases he has been working on bringing those numbers down, having line prosecutors be more bullish speeding up court proceedings. His office is already seeing some results, with the average time to resolve a felony dropping to 260 days during the second quarter of 2023, the average time to dismiss a felony dropping to 204 days, and the average number of hearings dropping to 11.34.
"There's no question that during COVID when we were all WebEx that people are sitting in their living room in a t-shirt and shorts on their couch appearing on video for court, that person's probably not taking it as seriously as the person who's sitting in court with the four room full of people in suits and the judge right there in front of them in a robe," Rubinstein said.
"I think just getting back to normal is going to force cases to start getting resolved a little faster."
