Study Finds North Dakota Courts Lead in Effective Management of Felony Cases Monday, November 4, 2024
The National Center for State Courts has released the results of a multi-year study of criminal case management in North Dakota ( link to executive summary and link to full report ). The study found that, adjusted for population, North Dakota’s 55 judges carry the highest criminal caseload in the nation. The study also found that North Dakota courts are among the timeliest in the nation, with an average felony disposition rate of 190 days from filing to disposition.
The study identified North Dakota’s systemic approach to caseflow management as key to its success. This includes setting expectations and time standards, using data-driven management to establish judge rotations and schedules, building flexibility and redundancy into the calendaring system, and real-time monitoring and verification of the system.
The tools that support caseflow management include using real-time performance monitoring through the use of dashboards to track documents ready for review, decision due dates, the age of cases, and pending court hearings; in-program alerts to identify missing data or other data entry errors; and automated information sharing with the Department of Correction and Rehabilitation, the North Dakota State Hospital, and the Commission on Legal Counsel for Indigents to alert them to incoming requests for services. Presiding judges monitor their district performance through regular monthly under advisement and time to disposition reports and the chief justice manages the overall management of cases through quarterly reports submitted by the presiding judges.
The study found some statewide issues that contribute to delay in case processing. These included timeliness of getting reports from the state hospital related to number of requests, lack of staff, and confusion about the differences between competency (fitness to proceed) evaluations and evaluations to determine criminal responsibility; delays in getting reports from the state lab related to staffing shortages and issues with communication about reports; and delays in public defender appointments related to incomplete or late applications, attorney conflicts of interest and the unequal implementation of pre-trial services.
The study suggested two further areas of study. Offenses that include sexual assault or familial violence make-up 67% of felony violent offense cases. The study found that there is a significant delay in the discovery process of these cases compared to other types of violent offenses. Finally, in comparing judicial districts, the study found that the rate of pre-trial bench warrants varied from 19% to 29% of felony cases but researchers were not able to determine the reasons behind the disparity based on the available data.
The use of time to disposition standards (link to AR 12) and caseflow management practices (link to policy 507) have been vital to ensuring fair and timely court processes since they were first implemented in 1995 under the leadership of Chief Justice Gerald VandeWalle. The North Dakota Court System is grateful to former Judge Alan Schmalenberger, former Judge Frank Racek, former judge Gail Hagerty and former Justice Dale Sandstrom for their early adoption of the principles of effective case management and their many years of leading innovation in this area.
Judge Frank Racek, who served as a consultant on this project, was a pioneer in crafting and then proving the viability of the systemic method of case management now used extensively in North Dakota. He pointed out that there is no universal process that a court can adopt that will ensure timely case processing. Instead, it takes a commitment to evaluate caseload based on the number of events required for each type of hearing, the historical probability of an event occurring as scheduled, courtroom availability and functionality, state’s attorney and public defender availability, and a myriad of other details that are specific to each locality. He credits the success of the system used in the East Central Judicial District to the willingness of former Cass County state’s attorney Birch Burdick and indigent defense counsel Monte Mertz to try new approaches.
The court system is also grateful to Judge Robin Schmidt, Assistant State Court Administrator Scott Johnson and Unit Court Administrator Kelly Hutton for their leadership and staffing of the Caseflow Management Committee and to Judge Brad Cruff for his leadership of the Mental Health Workgroup, and Travis Finck, Executive Director of Indigent Defense and Sara Behrens, staff attorney for the state court administrator’s office for their work on the subcommittee on criminal responsibility and fitness to proceed. The dashboards and real-time edit functions were written by former and current members of the judicial branch IT Department, and we especially recognize Jeff Stillwell for his leadership in this area.
This project was supported by Grant No. 15PBJA-21-GG-04272-JRIX, through the Reducing Crime by Improving Justice System Performance program, awarded by the Bureau of Justice Assistance. The Bureau of Justice Assistance is a division of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Justice Programs.