STEPS HELP COUNTY CUT FELONY CASE BACKLOG

Cooperation, Use Of Alternative Programs Whittle Down Files

The cooperation of several agencies and increased use of alternative
programs have whittled down dusty stacks of felony case files waiting for
grand jury action in Madison County, prosecutors say.

Some of the more than 1,000 cases had been pending for grand jury action
for years, said Assistant District Attorney Rebekah Callahan. Recently,
grand jurors heard evidence in drug cases as much as 3 years old.

Every two months, a grand jury report called on the Alabama Department of
Forensic Sciences to help with the problem. The grand jury reports also
pleaded for police officers and other witnesses to show up to testify.

No-shows by witnesses and the inability of the Department of Forensic
Sciences to return toxicology reports on drug seizures and DNA evidence
promptly clogged up the court system, said District Attorney Tim Morgan.

"We don't normally present drug cases to the grand jury without toxicology
reports," he said. "In many cases people were sitting in jail waiting for
grand jury action."

Prosecutors do present cases to grand juries involving rape and murder
without final toxicology reports.

About a year ago, Callahan and retired prosecutor James Chadbourne began
adding up to 100 extra cases on grand jury dockets. They also asked Police
Department supervisors to make sure officers were present, and on time, for
grand jury sessions.

Each grand jury serves a term of two months and meets for two, five-day
sessions to consider felony cases.

The grand jury also tours and evaluates the conditions at the county jail
and the county's juvenile detention facility.

A grand jury normally considers about 250 cases. Boosting grand juries'
load to 350 cases a month paid off with record numbers of indictments.

In June, the grand jury returned a record 347 indictments. For four
consecutive months after that, grand juries returned more than 300
indictments a month.

Whether they knew it or not, recent grand juries were working extra hard,
Callahan said.

"The jurors were great considering they had fewer breaks and had to
consider the large number of cases," she said.

Prosecutors also got a break in early 2003 when the Department of Forensic
Sciences received extra money to hire clerical help.

In nearly 1,500 cases on the shelves, toxicology tests had been conducted,
but there was no clerical staff to prepare the reports, said Roger
Morrison, director of the forensic office in Huntsville.

"The pay for state clerical staff is so poor that it is hard to keep anyone
in those positions," he said. "We hired a temporary service to help."

For about five months, police officers have been devoting special effort to
attending grand jury sessions, said Huntsville police Capt. Andy Jackson,
commander of the city's north precinct.

"A lot of times officers were not appearing at grand jury sessions because
they were not sure whether their presence was required," he said.

Officers scheduled to appear in Circuit Court cases are not required to
attend all court sessions, but they assume they are on call to testify at
some point when their cases are on dockets, Jackson said.

But officers are required to attend sessions of District Court and the
grand jury, he said.

"We explained, especially to the younger officers, which appearances are
required," he said.

Supervisors and the officers were notified about grand jury sessions. As
needed, the prosecutors also rescheduled officers who work on the second
and third shifts, and who had off days scheduled during the week of grand
jury hearings, he said.

But efforts to trim pending cases have reaped no significant reductions in
inmates at the Huntsville-Madison County Jail, said Sheriff Blake Dorning.

"We would like to see the jail population at about 550," he said. "Usually
we average about 670 prisoners a day." The jail population was 669 on
Wednesday, Dorning said.

The county's three jails hold a maximum of 800 prisoners, Dorning said. The
prisoner population peaked one day in August at 774.

"I do think the flow of prisoners through the jail has increased," he said.
"Although you have prisoners going out, you also have new ones coming in."

Pending drug cases used to be stuffed into four drawers of a filing cabinet
and overflowed into boxes in the office of Marilyn Frick, the grand jury
secretary.

"We were running out of space and something had to give," she said.

Now that filing cabinet is just about empty, and the pending drug cases fit
loosely in two drawers.

Diversion programs and charging more defendants through a process called an
information have also reduced the backlog, Morgan said. Under an
information process, defendants agree to plead guilty to a felony charge in
lieu of a grand jury investigation.

The district attorney's office offers diversion programs for drug and sex
offenders. Once accepted in these programs, the defendants must complete
the conditions of treatment and other requirements in exchange for their
charges being dropped.

Now, felony cases are presented to the grand jury within 90 days after
defendants' initial appearance in District Court, Callahan said.

"There are some exceptions," she said. "Big drug or white-collar cases take
longer."