Report on courts in county shows performance, costs over 2015

A long awaited, hotly debated report on the county’s courts system is finally available online.

The Judicial Management Report has been over a year in the making, and breaks down the performance of the courts into six parts to show the resources it takes to make it all work: cost per disposition, jail bed days, clearance rates, disposition rates, time to disposition, and age of active cases pending.

The first two reflect a different perspective on how most people see the courts: roughly the cost per case to the county covers basic expenses from beginning to end, and how many days in jail each court requires.

“These types of reports are used so the public can be more informed about the judicial process,” said County Commissioner Vince Perez.

Perez has been a strong supporter of the Judicial Management Report since it was started by a vote in March of 2014. Released to the public Monday, it shows some of the trends by court and overall for the first three quarters of this year.

For example, in the 168th District Court under Judge Marcos Lizarraga, the cost per felony case he heard dropped overall from $1,283 down to $924 per case. But the felony courts overall saw an average increase over 2015 so far, going from $1,432 to $1,619 per case.

On jail bed days per quarter in County Criminal Court One under Judge Alma Trejo, misdemeanor jail bed days decreased slightly over 2015 from 1,060 in the first quarter to 1,018 in the third quarter. That matches the trend for all misdemeanor courts, seeing about a five percent drop from 11,148 to 10,637.

And Perez thinks that’s important to watch, because the costs there can really add up.

“When you blend the cost of the downtown jail and the annex,” Perez said, “it costs about $88 a day to incarcerate somebody.”

But while Perez argues that the report is a very useful tool, members of the judiciary have long contended it’s not an accurate representation of what’s actually going on.

“It is absolutely not apples to apples,” said Judge Ana Perez. “And case to case, it’s not.”

Judge Perez has been a vocal critic of the overall commission efforts on the report. She said Tuesday that she understands the commissioner’s intentions, but disagrees with how they’re going about it.

That’s one of the reasons why the judges in the county are working on their own study to come out next spring, focusing on the numbers they say matter most across the courts: clearance rates, time to disposition, and age of active pending cases.

Judge Perez does encourage people to look at what’s out there now, and question the conclusions.

“Attend commissioners court,” Judge Perez said. “They should write letters. They should do whatever they need to do to get answers, because that’s the whole reason why we publicize this information.”