COUNTY'S DRUG TRIAL PROCESS STREAMLINED

Court Cases Will Be Assigned To Just 4 Judges

A radical realignment in how judges handle drug cases begins Monday at
the King County Courthouse.

Supporters say the new system promises to cut down on expensive court
hearings, get defendants adjudicated faster, save on jail costs and
better utilize the time of judges, prosecutors and public defenders.

Drug cases will be assigned to just four judges, instead of the
present system in which they're randomly scattered among the 12 or so
judges at the courthouse who handle a general criminal calendar.

Each of the four judges will have several prosecutors and public
defenders permanently assigned to his or her courtroom.

When a person appears for arraignment under the new system,
prosecutors will have already investigated the defendant's criminal
history and the facts of the case and will have a plea offer ready.
Defenders also will be familiar with the cases and any plea deals and
will be ready to advise their clients.

And that means a drug defendant can either take the deal and plead
guilty at arraignment -- something that virtually never happens now --
or opt to go to trial. In the latter instance, the case will
immediately be assigned to one of the judges on the new drug calendar,
who will handle it from there.

"The big philosophy here is to treat the cases in bulk," said Judge
William Downing, one of the four on the new drug calendar. "As soon as
one is finished, another one is going to start.

"It will without question work and increase the efficiency of those
type of cases."

The goal is to make the most economical use of resources, while
protecting the rights of defendants, says the leader behind the
change, Chief Criminal Judge Michael Spearman.

Drug-related cases in recent years have made up 30 percent to 40
percent of the caseload in Superior Court, Spearman said.

For some time now, he's considered ways to better move them through
the system.

Although they know up to 95 percent of defendants in drug-related
cases eventually plead guilty, he said the current system is riddled
with redundant hearings -- from arraignments at which virtually all
defendants plead not guilty to case-setting hearings at which a trial
date is set, to the trials themselves, which are often continued.

The end result is it can take months before a case goes to trial or a
plea bargain is struck, leaving many defendants languishing in the
overcrowded jail at taxpayer expense.

Better the cases be resolved promptly, and the person sent to a
less-crowded state prison if that's the outcome of the case, Spearman
said.

The jail "is a horrible place to be," he said. "There's no need for
them to sit in a holding pattern there."

Spearman has tapped four experienced judges for the new calendar. In
addition to Downing, a former prosecutor, they are Sharon Armstrong,
Ronald Kessler and Jeffrey Ramsdell.

Although they start Monday, they don't expect the program to be fully
operational until the first of the year, Spearman said.

Mark Larson, chief criminal deputy for Prosecutor Norm Maleng, helped
map out the new system for drug cases.

"It's pretty radical," Larson said. "It's a fast-track approach. . . .
This brings a greater degree of control over case flow and trial
management, a greater predictability."

Because the same group of prosecutors and defenders will work
full-time out of a given courtroom, trials can be managed much more
efficiently, he said. For example, if a case scheduled for trial
unexpectedly ends in a plea, another case waiting in the wings can
immediately be started, he said.

Ramsdell said the system will reduce chances that a case will be
delayed because of scheduling conflicts between prosecutor and
defender. With both sides permanently assigned to his courtroom,
trials will get underway much more predictably, he said.

"I can say, 'I know you will be available Monday -- you can't be
anywhere else,'" Ramsdell said of the attorneys. "We'll all be in this
together."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
P-I reporter Elaine Porterfield can be reached at 206-467-5942 or
elaineporterfield@seattle-pi.com