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Court Unification in Kansas - Program Audit Report

NCJ Number
73724
Date Published
1979
Length
109 pages
Annotation
The audit addresses three areas of the court system affected by unification: system financing; processing times for district court and appellate court cases; and management of system resources, such as judges, nonjudicial employees, and court facilities.
Abstract
The primary financial effect of court system unification has been a major shift in funding from the counties to the State. Unification appears to have had little effect at the district court level on reducing the time needed to process cases. Cases exceeding the 6-month standard dropped only slightly, from 3,712 to 3,285 and the average time needed to process district court cases in all 29 judicial districts was 6.8 months. Through interviews with attorneys and court personnel and surveys of judges and attorneys, the auditors found that most trial delays in Kansas are caused by attorneys. Both the lack of documentation and the courts' failure to actively control and monitor court cases in comparison with the speedy trial standard have resulted in the release of some criminal defendants without determination of guilt or innocence. Since the creation of the Court of Appeals, the appellate process has become more accessible to litigants throughout the State and total processing times for appealed cases have declined; however, they do not meet the 6-month processing standard. The audit also found that the management of the judicial system's resources has not significantly changed or improved since unification. Caseloads are not equal due to distribution of judges throughout the State, the underuse of magistrate judges, and reassignments within and across judicial districts. Wide variations exist in the number of cases per nonjudicial employee and in the number of employees per judge. Finally, the review of eight sample judicial districts found a sufficient number of available courtrooms, although interviewed court personnel were concerned over the lack or the condition of support space facilities. County governments do not contribute to the improvement of these conditions and the audit recommends that the Supreme Court intervene. Although the Court is not responsible for providing court facilities, it is responsible for ensuring adequate space and local financial support. Tabular data and related materials are appended. (Author abstract modified).

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