Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: You welcome to this installment of the Know the news podcast. I am your host, Chris Swindle, metro editor for the Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette. In this week's podcast, we look at how courts in the region have dealt with the backlog of cases caused by the Covid-19 pandemic and how far they've come in clearing that backlog. This is in advance of a story on the topic by staff writer Ron Wood that will published in the Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazettes edition this Sunday, February 4.
Today on know the news, I'm joined by staff writer Ron Wood, who is writing a story that will publish this weekend regarding the backlog of court cases caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. We also have with us Washington County Circuit Judge Mark Lindsay, who serves as the administrative judge for the fourth judicial district, and Washington county prosecuting attorney Matt Durrett. Thank you all for joining us today. I'd like to start with Judge Lindsay and just ask if you can explain to our listeners how the pandemic created a backlog of cases in the first place.
[00:01:07] Speaker B: Well, it was mostly in the criminal division because our other judges who hear civil cases, they did not have the restriction that we had. In a criminal case, a trial has to be in person. You cannot do it over Zoom.
And I felt that even a revocation hearing where someone's been put on probation or a suspended sentence, and the state alleges they've violated their conditions, I took the position that that was just like a trial because the person's at risk of being put into the penitentiary system if they are revoked. So for over a year, we could not have trials.
And I was working from home for a good bit of that time because there really wasn't anything I could do. Everything I could do was over Zoom, and I would take anywhere from zero to probably five or six was the most of any day pleas where a plea bargain has been worked out.
But if a person is innocent and they want a trial, they're not going to plead just to get it over with. On the other hand, if a person is guilty and they want to put it off, if you can't give them a trial date, they have no reason to plead guilty.
So while our business slowed down dramatically, arrest didn't, crime didn't slow down.
And so as a result of just being shut off for about, what, about 13 or 14 months? Matt? Yes, a backlog built up.
[00:03:18] Speaker A: Once the criminal trials were allowed to be held in person again, there were some CDC rules that you all had to follow.
Can you tell us a bit about the impact that those rules had on your ability to hold trials. Know, some courts might have felt differently than others. I know there was talk in the story that Ron's working on about construction that had to be done in your.
[00:03:39] Speaker B: Courtroom, specifically the best we could come up with because there was a space problem, and I was told there was a plexiglass shortage where some of the courtrooms I had seen had plexiglass glass between the jurors, and they were spaced out as well.
So the best thing we could come up with was to take the jury box, which was two tiers, so it would hold 14 if we had two alternates, and they had to make it one tier. So we had to have construction people come in and make it flat. And we put the lawyers and in the state's case, sometimes staff people, and then the defendant and his lawyer, or lawyers where the jury used to sit.
And we spaced the jury out in the well, and some had to be put behind the bar, which separates where the lawyers used to sit from the viewing section. And there's a pretty good bit of space before we start with our seating. So that's what we had to do. And it just took some time to get that done. But as soon as it got done, we started having jury trials again and revocation hearings. You don't have to have a jury for a revocation hearing.
And I have to say this to my amazement, when we did start back when I would call in a panel of jurors to choose the twelve and any alternates, 35 most of the time. Sometimes if it's a more publicized case, we'd call 55 or 60. But my point is, I had better attendance after we opened back up than I did before COVID hit, which has always kind of amazed me.
[00:05:49] Speaker A: Maybe people were just dying to get.
[00:05:52] Speaker B: Out of the house. Could be cabin fever.
[00:05:58] Speaker A: We're going to take a quick break, and then we're going to come back with some questions for prosecuting attorney Matt Durrett and reporter Ron Wood. Stay with us.
[00:06:05] Speaker C: If you're enjoying this podcast, consider a newspaper subscription to the northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette or the River Valley Democrat Gazette. We have a special offer for our podcast listeners, so visit nwanline.com slash nwapodcast to get started. You can also click the subscribe button on our websites, nwanline.com and rivervalleydemocratgazette.com. Or call us at 479-684-5509 and be sure to say that you're a podcast listener. Now back to the show.
[00:06:36] Speaker A: Mr. Durrett, in speaking with Ron, you said that most of the actual cases from the period most heavily impacted by the pandemic restrictions have filtered through at this point, but the effect of the backlog is still being felt. As far as trying to get ahead, can you speak a little bit to that?
[00:06:53] Speaker D: Sure, I guess we're over two and a half years removed from the lifting of the restrictions. And so once we got to the point where we could start trying cases again, we were getting things moving. And so most of the cases that were still on the books back then have filtered themselves through. They've gotten trials, we've entered pleas. There's been some sort of resolution to it.
But you can imagine the issue that's going to be is that you can start having trials again, and you're trying cases that are two years old. And the ones that have been arrested in the interim, they're still sitting there because you're trying to get the oldest ones first. And so you've got a limited number of times when you can try cases, because cases will take two, three, four days, sometimes a week. And so you can't have 365 trials in a year or 200. And however many working days there are in a year, you can't have that many trials in a year. It's just not feasible.
So when you have a limited number of cases that you can try on a limited number of dates, you're not going to be able to get caught up immediately. And some of the older cases, I've still got some murder cases that happened back during COVID very few of them, but it's just one or two of them. And those are the ones that traditionally take a couple of years to resolve to get a trial to some sort of resolution on it. So for the most part, with the exception of a couple of those cases like that, we have gotten through, the ones that were pushed back were put on hold, but we're taking care of those, and we're not able to get to the ones that happened after the fact. So if that makes sense, that everything comes to a halt. And the best way I could analogy I could use is that the faucet was still going full blast, but the drain was stopped, and so nothing's coming out, and they keep piling up. And so when we were able to get going again, which I believe was in May of 2021, we're starting on all the ones that happened starting back in March of 2020 and actually before that, because that's when we would have been trying cases that happened six months before, a year before. So we're now looking back to cases in 2019 that we were starting to try in 2021.
I wouldn't say we're two years behind because the pace is picking up. We're trying a lot more cases. We're getting cases resolved. And so we're not going to be perpetually two years behind. But that's where we started off. When we got going again. When things got moving again, we were about two years behind. We were trying cases in 2021 that happened in 2019. And so now we're focusing on 2022 and 2023.
So we've gotten some accomplished. We're making headway, but there's still the residual effect of being shut down for 14 months where you couldn't do anything.
[00:10:48] Speaker A: Are there any specific strategies that you've taken, either one of you, to try and help move that along? Is there anything that you can do any differently than what you might have done before this kink in the system kind of occurred?
[00:11:03] Speaker D: It's really focusing on trying cases because that is really the impetus that moves the system along, is the ability to try cases. Because when it's a date certain that forces both sides to either, hey, you're going to have to come to an agreement or we're going to have to try the case. You have to make a decision at that point when it's just a hypothetical and you know you're not going to have to try the case. Then lots of times it's hard to get the sides to come together on agreement on anything. But when you have the certainty of a trial date coming up and a defendant knows that he or she is going to have to have to face a jury of their peers, and state knows for a fact that we're going to have to have all our witnesses there and put on all the evidence that we have, it makes it to the point that you've got to decide, is the defendant going to accept the offer that the state made, or is the state going to accept a counteroffer? Are we just going to try the case?
That's kind of the big impetus that has gotten things going.
And so I think that's the big thing we're still focusing on. There are certain cases, types of cases we have to focus on by court rules, such as cases in which there is a victim under the age of 14. Those are supposed to take priority. We have to look at the older cases. So we're focusing on just any cases that have been lingering around and trying to get those mean, I think in, you know, this jurisdiction also covers Madison county. So in both counties, the prosecutor's office, I think, works well with defense attorneys. There's, I think, a mutual respect there in terms of we respect the work that the other side does, and so it's easy to work together. That doesn't mean that we're always going to come to some sort of agreement or that it's going to be easier to resolve. But in a way, cases are easier to resolve when you can have conversations in a respectful manner with your counterpart on the other side. So we're just focusing on the cases that we're trying to prioritize cases and try to get those specific cases done and just kind of get everything cranked back up as much as it can be.
[00:13:55] Speaker A: Would anybody want to wager a guess as to how long the impact of the backlog will be felt based on how quickly things are moving along?
[00:14:06] Speaker B: At this point, I wouldn't.
Now, I will say this. What would help is, of course, I see the prosecutors, and I see mostly public defenders. We'll have private attorneys come in, but I see mostly public defenders, and they all work, but they are all vastly overworked and they have too many cases.
And so one of the things that I suggested when we came back from COVID is, okay, if I'm not having a trial or revocation hearings, we're going to have two sessions every day for pleas and status hearings. And what didn't occur to me, and it probably should have, is if the prosecutors and public defenders are in court all day, they don't have any time to work their case files, and they have to have that.
And so the only solution to getting them able to do more is for there to be more public defenders and more prosecutors right now. In other words, if someone were to say, well, right now, I handle 75% of the criminal cases in Washington county, and Joanna Taylor handles 25%. I handle 100% in Madison county. But if someone were to suggest, well, why don't you just get another judge? Well, then the prosecutors and public defenders are going to have to go to three courts instead of two.
And so it just makes the burden on them even higher. But just in number of cases, not necessarily defendants, because many defendants have multiple cases where they have over 200 apiece.
[00:16:15] Speaker D: I'd say between 253 hundred. Okay, that'd be my guess.
[00:16:21] Speaker B: And the public defenders are at least that bad.
And I've put it this way. I practiced law for 21 years before I became a full time judge, and I was able to support my family and put three kids through college, and I never had 250 cases.
One lawyer. That's just too much work. And I provided Ron with a study that the Rand corporation did. It's a long study, isn't it? It is, but it gives some best practices, I think, for public defenders specifically. So I'm sure he'll have something to say about that in his article.
[00:17:07] Speaker D: I'm in the same frame of mind as Judge Lindsay in that I wouldn't want to hazard a guess, because things remain the same.
We didn't have something else pop up. I mean, that's the unknown, as no one anticipated that we were going to be shut down for 14 months. But if we didn't have that to worry about, you could get a lot of cases tried and a lot of cases resolved. If you had five or six judges hearing criminal cases, you could hear two to three times the number of trials. But the issue with that is how thin can you spread the public defender's office? How thin can you spread the prosecutor's office?
That's the big problem, is that the more judges you have, then it's the fewer number of lawyers who are handling each court.
The best way to resolve it is with more judges here in criminal cases. But the resources of the public defender's office and prosecutor's office, we're not set up for that.
[00:18:40] Speaker B: The quality of representation would go down if you had more judges, but not more prosecutors and public defenders. And I mean representation of the state as well as the defendant.
[00:18:57] Speaker A: Sure.
Turning to you, Ron, we started talking about checking in on this about two weeks ago, because during the pandemic, we had seen a lot of articles where folks were saying that the backlog that was being created at the time was going to take years to clear. And it seems that time has borne that out. Did you learn anything new or surprising in the process of researching, reporting, and writing this story?
[00:19:23] Speaker E: Unfortunately, not really. I talk to these guys on a regular basis, so I was pretty well aware of what most of the problems were. I think the extent of the number of cases that are being handled by prosecutors and public defenders. That caught me a little by surprise. I knew it was a high number.
I was not aware it was quite that high.
[00:19:52] Speaker A: Well, I'd like to thank you all for joining me today for this. Appreciate you sharing your expertise on this topic, and I'm sure listeners will as well. Thank you very much.
[00:20:02] Speaker D: Thanks for having me.
[00:20:02] Speaker A: Thank you.
[00:20:03] Speaker E: Thank you.
[00:20:05] Speaker A: In other news coming this weekend, Doug Thompson will preview two republican primary races for seats in the Arkansas House of Representatives Stacey Ryburn will tell us about the city of Fayetteville applying for almost $5 million in federal grants for transportation projects. Lydia Fletcher shares information about the various multifamily housing developments being constructed through the region. In the river valley, Thomas Cicente looks into a failed proposal regarding the former Cedars Country Club golf course. Monica Brick will provide an update on the Fort Smith School District's master building plan and will share the story of area students who won their regional competition for the 2024 National Science bowl. In sports, Henry Apple will write from the state indoor track meet in Fayetteville, Paul Boyd will cover the class six a dual state wrestling tournament in Rogers and Rick fires will cover a basketball contest between Ozark Catholic and the new school in the River Valley, Kevin Taylor writes about the efforts of the Alma girls basketball coaching staff and Harold McElvane previews the University of Arkansas at Fort Smith baseball season in what's Up, Becca Martin Brown previews an indian youth festival planned in Bentonville, as well as a performance of you're a good man, Charlie Brown at the Fort Smith Little Theater. Monica Hooper keeps us updated on concerts coming up in the region and writes about the upcoming WOwza Ball in Fayetteville. All of this and more will be available to our subscribers on our tablet and smartphone apps and at our websites nwanline.com and rivervalleydemocratgazette.com. I really appreciate you listening to this point and want to thank you for your support of local journalism. Know the news is a weekly podcast brought to you by the newsrooms of the Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette and the River Valley Democrat Gazette. Again, I'm Chris Swindle, your podcast host this week. Have a great weekend and till next Friday. So long.
