{"id":4895,"date":"2023-08-12T12:00:07","date_gmt":"2023-08-12T12:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=4895"},"modified":"2023-08-12T12:11:55","modified_gmt":"2023-08-12T12:11:55","slug":"formidable-milwaukee-court-backlogs-remain-almost-60-higher-part-8","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=4895","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Formidable\u2019 Milwaukee Court Backlogs Remain Almost 60% Higher [PART 8]"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post originally appeared at https:\/\/www.wisconsinrightnow.com\/milwaukee-court-backlogs-felonies\/<\/a><\/p>\n

PART EIGHT IN A 10-PART SERIES. Read parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7. Milwaukee County\u2019s criminal justice system has broken down at almost all levels. Although some of this can be attributed to the pandemic, all of it can not. Local officials\u2019 questionable policy decisions and their failure to develop strategies to restore effectiveness also play a role, and it\u2019s imperiling public safety.
\n<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

PROBLEM #8: Milwaukee court backlogs have not been resolved. Felony case backlogs remain severe in the Milwaukee County court system. In December 2022, there were 5,056 pending cases, 59.8% higher than before the pandemic. They \u201chad yet to be meaningfully reduced as of the end of last year.\u201d The felony backlog remains \u201cformidable.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"milwaukee<\/p>\n

To gauge backlogs in the court system, disposition data (how long it takes to resolve a case) are important. Backlogs are created when dispositions plunge and the number of cases filed and opened remains largely consistent.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The median age of pending cases increased significantly during the pandemic and has not fully recovered. In mid-2018, the median age of pending felony cases was a low of 123 days in June and the median age of misdemeanor cases reached a low of 79.5 days in May. Both increased at the onset of the pandemic. By December 2020, the median age for both felonies and misdemeanors had almost tripled.
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

Since that time, \u201cboth have fallen but remain significantly above their pre-pandemic lows: in December 2022, at 218 days, the median age of pending felony cases was 77.2% above the pre-pandemic low, and the median age of pending misdemeanor cases was similarly 76.1% above its low point.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

The amount of time it took to dispose of a misdemeanor case in 2022 is still higher than before the pandemic \u2013 186 days. Felony cases are taking longer to dispose of \u2013 289 days, up from 150-200 in 2018-2020.<\/strong><\/p>\n

As for the number of cases pending (another measure of backlog), misdemeanor cases have returned to pre-pandemic levels.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Backlogs lead to more cases being dismissed as witnesses can\u2019t be located anymore and defendants don\u2019t plead guilty because they know the longer the case pends, the more likely it might be dismissed.<\/p>\n

\"milwaukee<\/p>\n

THE SERIES:\u00a0 <\/strong>We have taken the lead in exploring the problems in Milwaukee County\u2019s Criminal Justice system, breaking stories on Milwaukee police staffing declines<\/a> (which started years ago), the DA\u2019s high non-prosecution rate and new reliance on summonses<\/a>, the ACLU Collins Agreement\u2019s deleterious effect on proactive policing<\/a>, new jail and police policies restricting bookings<\/a> and arrests, and the massive court backlogs<\/a>, which leave defendants on the streets longer to re-offend and which provoke constitutional concerns<\/a>. Milwaukee is at a crisis point, with record homicide numbers and a severe reckless driving crisis.
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

Now, a new August 2023 report<\/a> from the Wisconsin Policy Forum has examined Milwaukee County\u2019s Criminal Justice System in great detail, providing fresh data from 2018 (before the pandemic) to 2022. The quote and data in the opening section come from this report. We are excerpting some of the key statistical findings in a 10-part series to further understanding of the problem. You can\u2019t formulate solutions if you don\u2019t understand the problem\u2019s scope. The few news articles that emerged only superficially skimmed over the report\u2019s findings. <\/em><\/p>\n

Although the report deals with the context of the pandemic, it also makes it clear that, in many respects, trends imperiling public safety started before it or have continued, even escalating in some cases, in 2022, after its height. In other words, you can\u2019t blame everything on the pandemic. The report also indicates that, in a number of ways, problems that escalated during the pandemic have not been resolved by officials even as late as 2022.
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

In each article, which we will run over the next 10 days at 7 a.m. every day, we will outline the problems and present the research, keeping rhetoric out of the way. After that, we will run a wrap-up article suggesting solutions. What happens in the state\u2019s largest county has an effect throughout Wisconsin. The WPF report was commissioned by the Milwaukee-based Argosy Foundation and the Milwaukee Community Justice Council (CJC). In this series, we hope to get past simplistic rhetoric (\u201cit\u2019s the state Legislature\u2019s fault!\u201d or \u201cwho cares what happens in Milwaukee!\u201d) and focus on data.
\n<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

PROBLEM #8<\/h2>\n

The report found: \u201cSizable backlogs in cases pending before the courts understandably emerged during the peak months of the pandemic and have now largely been erased for misdemeanors. However, the felony backlog had budged only slightly by the end of 2022 despite decreases in felony arrests and charges and increases in felony dismissals.\u201d<\/p>\n

The report noted that the DA\u2019s office had cited that \u201cbecause cases are taking much longer to resolve, there is a much higher likelihood of dismissal, as there is a greater chance that witnesses cannot be located and that other factors will transpire that will impede the ability of prosecutors to support charges or that will cause complainants to settle or drop their cases (DA office officials say this may be particularly the case for domestic violence-related cases). Similarly, they suggested that defense attorneys are now more inclined to urge clients not to plead guilty knowing that the case will linger and the odds of dismissal will rise as it does so.\u201d<\/p>\n

The report noted:\u00a0 \u201cJustice system officials have cited staffing shortages in positions ranging from court reporters to district attorneys to public defenders as a primary cause of sustained backlogs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Furthermore, \u201can explosion in evidence from video cameras, cell phones, and computers\u201d takes more time for cases to be investigated, defended and prosecuted, the report says. They also said that, since the pandemic, the courts have seen an \u201cincreased number of individuals in the system who suffer from behavioral health disorders.\u201d Competency examinations rose 32%.<\/p>\n

Backlogs <\/strong><\/p>\n

    \n
  • \u201cIn mid-2018, the median age of pending felony cases reached a low of 123 days in June and the median age of misdemeanor cases reached a low of 79.5 days in May. However, both began to increase significantly at the onset of the pandemic.\u201d<\/li>\n
  • \u201cBy December 2020, the median age of pending misdemeanor cases had peaked, more than tripling to 266 days; while by February 2021, the median age of pending felony cases had done the same, more than doubling to 270 days.\u201d<\/li>\n
  • \u201cSince that time, both have fallen but remain significantly above their pre-pandemic lows: in December 2022, at 218 days, the median age of pending felony cases was 77.2% above the pre-pandemic low, and the median age of pending misdemeanor cases was similarly 76.1% above its low point.\u201d<\/li>\n
  • \u201cThese data indicate that while disposition numbers are now close to pre-pandemic levels, the two years in which the pandemic reduced the number of dispositions has caused cases to linger far longer than prior to the pandemic.\u201d<\/li>\n
  • \u201cAnother metric that sheds light on that point is the average amount of time it takes to dispose of a case (this differs from the age of pending cases in that it measures disposition time from start to finish as opposed to average time of cases pending at a specific point in time). The median age of a misdemeanor case at disposition ranged from about 120 to 150 days prior to the pandemic but started rising significantly at the pandemic\u2019s height, hitting a peak of 306 days in July 2021. As of December 2022, that number had fallen back to 186 days, however.\u201d<\/li>\n
  • \u201cFelony cases tell a different story. The median age of a felony case at disposition from January 2018 until the beginning of the pandemic generally ranged from 150 to 200 days. As with misdemeanor cases, the median age began rising in early 2020, but it did not peak until August 2022 when it hit 331 days, and it has been above 250 days in every month since the start of 2021. In fact, the median age of a disposed felony case in December 2022 (289 days) was higher than in any month from the start of 2018 until February 2021.\u201d<\/li>\n
  • \u201cPrior to the pandemic, 1,900 to 2,400 misdemeanor cases were pending in any given month; that rose to a peak of 3,566 by November 2021. Since that time, the misdemeanor pending caseload has returned to pre-pandemic levels, as the number of pending misdemeanor cases in December 2022 (2,424) was very similar to the number of cases when the pandemic commenced.\u201d<\/li>\n
  • \u201cHere, felony cases again tell a different story. The number of pending felony cases
    \ngenerally ranged from 3,100 to 3,800 in 2018 and 2019 and then rose slowly for
    \nnearly two years starting at the beginning of the pandemic, peaking at 5,405 in January
    \n2022. Since that time, they have started to drop, but the 5,056 pending cases in December 2022 were just 6.5% lower than the pending case peak and 59.8% higher than the pre-pandemic low of 3,163 cases.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    Case filings are down<\/strong><\/p>\n

    \"milwaukee<\/p>\n

    \u201cCase filings reflect all criminal complaints submitted by the district attorney to the Circuit Court. Sometimes \u2013 but not often \u2013 cases may be dismissed prior to being opened,\u201d the report says.<\/p>\n

    The report found:<\/p>\n

      \n
    • \u201cThe data show that total case filings were down significantly in 2020 \u2013 more than 12,300 cases were filed in both 2018 and 2019 before a decline to just 8,447 in 2020. While case filings rose in 2021 to 11,314, they again dropped to 9,484 in 2022.\u201d<\/li>\n
    • \u201cFelony case filings have recovered the most of any individual category, as shown in Figure 13 \u2013 the 4,907 felony cases filed in 2022 were just 6.1% below the 5,226 filed in 2019, and 14.4% above the number filed in 2020. Misdemeanor filings fell from 2019 to 2020, rebounded in 2021, but dropped again in 2022 to 22.4% below 2019 levels.\u201d<\/li>\n
    • \u201cMore than three-fifths of all months from January 2018 to February 2020 saw at least 400 misdemeanor cases filed; since the beginning of the pandemic, however, there have been just three months in which at least that many cases were filed.\u201d<\/li>\n
    • \u201cFor both felonies and misdemeanors, the drop in case filings in 2022 appears to be linked, at least in part, to the far fewer numbers of arrests and charges discussed in earlier sections.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      This post originally appeared at https:\/\/www.wisconsinrightnow.com\/milwaukee-court-backlogs-felonies\/ PART EIGHT IN A 10-PART SERIES. Read parts 1,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":4897,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4895","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wi-right-now"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4895","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4895"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4895\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4901,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4895\/revisions\/4901"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4897"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}