NCJ Number
227638
Date Published
July 2008
Length
273 pages
Annotation
This is the Federal Judicial Center's report on its study of the use of courtrooms in the U.S. district courts, conducted in response to a congressional subcommittee's request for an empirical study of the use of Federal courtrooms.
Abstract
The report features three main findings. First, the average number of hours of actual courtrooms use per day was 2.9 hours for active district judge courtrooms, 1.5 hours for senior district judge courtrooms, and 1.9 hours for magistrate judge courtrooms. Second, the average amount of time scheduled for the courtrooms per day was 2.7 hours for active district judge courtrooms, 1.1 hours for senior district judge courtrooms, and 1.5 hours for magistrate judge courtrooms. Third, the average hours of combined actual use and unused scheduled time per day was 4.1 hours for active district judge courtrooms, 2.0 hours for senior district judge courtrooms, and 2.6 hours for magistrate judge courtrooms. Additional principal findings are also presented in this report. One finding was that the number of hours of actual courtroom use was significantly higher on days when trial was held. Another finding was that judges routinely scheduled more time for their courtrooms than was actually used, in order to maximize use of the courtroom in the face of frequent scheduling cancellations and changes. Although events scheduled for courtrooms were often cancelled or rescheduled, on most days in most courthouses, some courtrooms were in use. The most common level of use was for 50-74 percent of the courtrooms in a courthouse to be in use or scheduled for use on the same day. Data were collected in 23 randomly selected districts and 3 case-study districts from January 15 to July 15, 2007, and were analyzed by courtroom type. Extensive tables and figures and 14 appendixes with supplementary data and information