NCJ Number
143235
Date Published
1972
Length
386 pages
Annotation
This study, written for the layman as well as the legal specialist, discusses how case delay is an integral part of each stage of a criminal prosecution, up to the moment of the trial; recommendations for change are offered.
Abstract
The President's Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice, created by executive order in July 1965, recognized that an effective justice system must process criminal defendants within a reasonable time after the commission of a crime and an arrest. Toward this end, the commission developed a Model Timetable, which proposes two sets of maximum intervals permissible between specific steps in a criminal prosecution. The Model Timetable provides that an accused person should be brought to trial within 81 days of his arrest if he is free during this interval and within 71 days of arrest if the defendant is detained in jail. The study reported in this book compares this Model Timetable with the existing situation. Few cities provide statistics that lend themselves to comparison with the Commission recommendations, and little comprehensive information has been published. To supplement the existing data, the authors took a sampling of the cases in the Court of Common Pleas, the court of general jurisdiction in Cleveland, Ohio. The sample consisted of 1,616 persons charged with felonies. The primary finding from these statistics and from other available information indicates that on the average urban courts take almost three times longer to dispose of a criminal case than the President's Commission recommended. The authors discuss the role of delay in the charging process, bail, preliminary hearing, indictment, arraignment, discovery, and plea bargaining. They show how pretrial procedures now in use were originally instituted to meet the needs of an 18th Century agrarian society that no longer exists. The authors offer recommendations for change that would reduce court case delay, safeguard the rights of both the defendant and the community, and restore the original values of the American justice system. 260-item bibliography