NCJ Number
118303
Date Published
1989
Length
40 pages
Annotation
The 1988 annual report for the Court of Common Pleas in Allegheny County, Pa., is submitted, with court activities outlined in statistical and narrative form.
Abstract
The Court's Family Division focused on the use of credit bureaus to help find absent parents, enforcement activities, child support, family support, and juvenile court expansion. The Court's Orphans Division heard 298 adoption petitions, 25 voluntary relinquishment petitions, 125 petitions to confirm consent, 105 involuntary termination petitions, and 2 petitions to confirm consent in conjunction with involuntary termination. Cases filed in the Court's Criminal Division totaled 13,880; court processing of these cases involved 352 jury trials, 7,088 pleas, and 1,586 nonjury dispositions. Bail agency investigators presented 2,605 bail appeal cases to Criminal Division judges in 1988, and there was a 17.5 percent increase in the number of bail forfeitures from 1987 to 1988. Adult probation officers in the county averaged more than 300 cases per officer in 1988, almost double the number of cases in 1983. The Court's Civil Division was productive in 1988, as it achieved an increase in the number of cases that were disposed and it reduced the amount of time involved in case disposition. The number of cases disposed totaled 8,737, exceeding the 1987 total of 8,488. County district justices disposed of 212,223 cases, of which 131,903 involved traffic violations. There were another 40,520 summary violations of the Crimes Code, 27,099 civil cases, and 12,701 criminal cases handled by county district justices. Tables and photographs.