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Court backlog down, but not out
Judge Kouros continues to whittle caseload
NWI Times
Feb 22, 2001
http://www.nwitimes.com/uncategorized/court-backlog-down-but-not-out/article_3450d490-46d4-5039-8617-84cce08c40e5.html
CROWN POINT -- A deadline to clear up the immense backlog in the courtroom of Lake Criminal Court Judge Joan Kouros has come and gone with much of the work done, but apparently a large amount of work still to be done.
Last Friday, the Indiana Supreme Court was assured by the four judges of Lake County's criminal division that Kouros had the situation under control and that all files checked out by Kouros would be returned to their rightful place in the clerk's office by the close of the business day Tuesday, the Supreme Court-imposed deadline.
As of 1:30 p.m. Wednesday, a check with the clerk's office showed 141 files still checked out to Kouros' room, although most of the files that once cluttered her bench, her chambers and the adjacent bailiff's room are gone.
On Jan. 22, the Indiana Supreme Court stepped in and ordered the senior judge of the Lake Criminal Court to clean up the "unreasonable backlog of cases" in Kouros' courtroom, to immediately attend to 39 cases where people apparently were improperly lodged in Lake County Jail because of court inaction and to develop an in-house plan to deal with the remaining backlog.
At the time, the clerk's office showed 354 case files checked out to Kouros, some dating back into 1998. In the intervening weeks, the judge worked nights and weekends to reduce the backlog, which often necessitated her listening to audiotapes made of the proceedings and making the proper entries.
Both magistrates from the criminal division were sent to Kouros' courtroom to hear in-court proceedings while the judge spent her day whittling down the backlog, and each day her bailiffs would appear in the clerk's office with armloads of the files, each in the green jacket that designates Kouros' court.
"We've seen so much green in the past couple weeks we should get St. Patrick's Day off," said one of the deputy clerks.
They won't get time off -- in fact, the deputy clerks will be working Saturday to deal with the glut of cases coming down from Kouros' court.
Last Friday, Criminal Court Judge Richard Maroc, the senior judge in the division, hand-delivered his court's response to the Supreme Court, which had set Feb. 20 as the deadline. The response was signed by all four criminal division judges.
In the response, Kouros "assures us that all except one file ... a death penalty charge which needs further work ... will be returned to the clerk prior to the close of the business day on February 20, 2001."
The response assured the Supreme Court "there has been almost full compliance by the presiding judge. Nearly all (files) are now completed by the judge ... and consigned to the clerk."
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Maroc said he was surprised by Friday's report from the clerk that 159 cases still remained out at that time, saying he and his colleagues "assumed it was much, much less than that."
But there is no argument that Kouros has made substantial headway in cutting through the tangled backlog and eventually will reduce it to its proper level if she maintains her current level of work.
What has troubled the Supreme Court is that once attention no longer is focused on her, Kouros will return to the pattern that has caused her to accumulate such a backlog.
One of the largest problems was an inability to delegate and to demand perfection at the cost of efficiency. In January, the judge began sending formal memos to the clerk's office demanding corrections on extremely minor inaccuracies that other judges would correct with a phone call. The amount of time spent finding the errors, dictating the memos and double-checking the corrections added to her time burden.
Once The Times asked to see the memos, she reportedly stopped issuing them.
"We are not here to micromanage how she conducts her court," Indiana Supreme Court Administrator Douglas Cressler said. "Nothing further is planned on our end, unless the judges up there request it. Maybe we'll check back in two weeks, and if it's not working, we will reintroduce ourselves into the process. We have certainly left the door open for that possibility."
In their memo to the Supreme Court, the judges welcomed future scrutiny and said Kouros has taken steps to ensure "the case backlog dilemma should not occur in the future."
Cressler said the Supreme Court's concern is less how Kouros manages her court than whether justice is being served.
It was a complaint that justice was not being served at all that led the Supreme Court to become involved in the matter. The Lake County Sheriff's Correctional Merit Board wrote the local judges, asking that some action be taken to alleviate overcrowding in the jail caused by orders not being entered and prisoners not being sent on to the Indiana Department of Correction.
Those cases were all corrected within days, Kouros said, and did not result in people who should have been released being kept in custody as the merit board had feared.
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