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 Longer hours, promptness and better schedules top suggestions for improving the courts By Jon Schmitz Judges, attorneys, jurors and others who deal with Allegheny County courts offer a variety of suggestions for improving the system. Among them: Judges should work longer hours. ''You have three-week trials that could be two weeks. You're asking people to put their lives on hold. The attorneys want to get the cases moving, too,'' said an attorney who asked not to be identified because he practices in front of the judges. ''A few more hours wouldn't kill them.'' One attorney said the judicial leadership -President Judge Robert E. Dauer and the administrative judges -need to be more forceful in demanding a strong work ethic. ''There has to be a message sent to them. They are public servants. They hold positions of honor,'' the attorney said. Judges should be prepared to serve temporary duty in other divisions to help ease backlogs. Judge Jeffrey A. Manning, a criminal court judge, for years has volunteered to hear civil cases. But few other judges work outside their divisions, even when glaring needs -such as those evident in the juvenile court system, where there are only three full-time judges -arise. Jurors should be better informed about the reasons for delays. Sometimes jurors are kept waiting for good reasons, such as last-minute settlements or plea negotiations that may ultimately save everyone's time. ''We could probably do a better job of telling jurors and witnesses why the delays are occurring,'' said Barry Simpson, president of the Allegheny County Bar Association. More prosecutors and public defenders should be hired. Some judges said it was pointless to arrive to work on time because attorneys, scrambling to handle several cases in several courtrooms, were never ready to begin on time. A class-action lawsuit accusing Allegheny County of underfunding and understaffing the public defender's office is expected to go to trial before Common Pleas Judge Robert P. Horgos next month. Scheduling procedures that book multiple cases at the same time should be changed. While many judges said it would be impractical to spread the caseload out, some attorneys told the Post-Gazette the current system is a prescription for delays. ''It's a poor system. It's clearly for the convenience of the judge. He'll come out when he damned well pleases and take the cases in whatever order he wants,'' said one attorney. He said the system breeds suspicions of favoritism because certain attorneys seem to get heard first. Judge James H. McLean, newly appointed as administrative judge of the Civil Division, said he customarily scheduled cases at intervals rather than all at once. If parties to a case were late, they got moved back behind those who were punctual, he said. If a judge schedules cases for a certain hour, he should be there, McLean said. ''If you told people to be here at 9:30 and you come strolling in at 10, that offends me.'' Procedures for police witnesses should be changed. The City of Pittsburgh this year hopes to institute changes that will cut down on the time police spend waiting at the courthouse. Needless delays increase the city's personnel costs, because most police are on overtime when they are testifying. Court appearances also remove on-duty officers from their regular assignments, reducing the police presence on the streets. Kathleen Kraus, city public safety director, said court time costs have been cut by nearly $500,000 a year in the City Court system. The city wants to extend cost-saving measures to the Common Pleas Court system, she said. ''Because we have little control over the process, this will be a challenging effort,'' Kraus told City Council in a December memo. Some of the reforms include better coordination of
officers' schedules; ensuring that police-requested
postponements are necessary; and ensuring that
appearances by multiple officers in the same case are
necessary.
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