LONGVIEW — Cowlitz County courts are still reeling from a backlog of court cases from the pandemic, so officials hired national consultants who recommend changes to make processes more efficient.
Cowlitz County Superior Court Judge Thad Scudder said he came up with the idea of an evaluation after watching a video on how courts in Flagstaff were updating their case flow management after the pandemic.
“It looked to me like they had the same problems we had,” he said. “And I think the problems we have (include) not being able to guarantee trial dates, which is a big one.”
He said during the pandemic it was difficult to resolve cases when hearings were canceled, and the courts have yet to catch up.
Cowlitz County Superior Court is still not filing as many cases as before the pandemic, according to data from Washington Courts. In 2019, 5,733 cases were filed in Cowlitz County and 5,334 resolved, but in 2023, 4,553 cases were filed and 4,099 were resolved.
So Scudder secured a grant, which paid for consultants from the National Center for State Courts to interview judges, prosecuting attorneys and staff, public defense office staff, court clerks, defense attorneys, probation staff, and jail staff.
The study recommends a new case flow plan, more training, better collaboration between the court and the clerks’ office, and updating the website.
However, having a plan is not enough, Scudder added. Without judicial support, it’s likely to fail, no matter how well thought out the strategy.
“We have five elected people here. We try to work as a unit, try to, but we’re independently elected,” he said. “We have different philosophies about it.”
He said there is also an idea that lawyers should dictate the pace of the litigation, mainly because they are the ones who know the case the most, and they should be afforded that latitude.
“Maybe (that) worked in normal times, but I don’t know if that works now with the numbers we have,” he said.
Why the delay?
One reason behind the delays in court proceedings is the admission process into the therapeutic courts, which consist of an adult drug court and a mental health court, the study found.
According to the report, it takes about four to five weeks for a defendant, from the time of the arrest to the opt-in court appearance, which could take about five minutes, as the objective is for the court to enroll the defendant into the therapeutic court track formally.
Attorneys commonly refer their clients to therapeutic courts, regardless of eligibility, causing delays in the referral process. Some defense attorneys are still unclear about the admission criteria, which has been made worse by the 2021 Blake decision and subsequent state law which reduced drug possession to a misdemeanor. The decision has resulted in a relaxation of the admission criteria to accommodate more participants and restore the program’s capacity. The report recommends reviewing the case status, have judicial assistants review the docket in advance, and streamline the admissions and screening process into therapeutic court.
The report states that in Cowlitz County, the lack of a formal, written policy for granting continuances has resulted in a system where individual judges make decisions based on their own criteria.
Both defense attorneys and prosecutors frequently obtain continuances, creating an inconsistent approach to case management. According to the report, there has been a 63 percent increase in continuances since 2018, and the report recommends the court create a written continuance policy for all court hearings.
As described in the report, the proposed policy should mandate that requests be made in writing, with a clear deadline for filing the motion before the court session.
