Caseflow Management and Victims Rights Essay

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court administrators have to deal with is the high volume of cases in the court system. Caseflow management is therefore one of the more significant issues that has to be dealt with. There are a number of reasons for this. First, there is only a limited amount of time for courtrooms, for judges and for other court staff. This is the capacity of the court system. The problem is that the demand for this capacity is highly variable. The amount of crime in an area, arrest rates, the ability of prosecutors to close out cases prior to trial, and the length of time required in different cases all factor into the demand function. Given that demand can be difficult to estimate, court administrators often are forced to rely on ad hoc measures in order to optimize their caseflow management.

Some of the different caseflow management techniques that are available to court administrators are case-disposition time standards, early court intervention, control of case progress, use of differentiated case management, meaningful pretrial events, limiting of continuances, calendaring and docketing and the use of information systems in all of this (NCSC, 2016).

Steelman (2004) points out that there are many risks if court administrators do not apply proper caseflow management techniques. For example, the cost of access for the legal system is supposed to be affordable, but delays make it costlier for people to have access. The court itself will struggle to contain its costs when there is poor caseflow management. Furthermore, there are risk with respect to timeliness, in that some cases must be heard within a specific period of time. Poor caseflow management is a risk to the justice system.

It is natural to think that court administrators do not have any say in how many cases they are presented with. The cases are decided on the basis of events in the outside world, and court administrators simply need to deal with the cases that are presented to the court system. This is not entirely true, however. One of the most effective means by which court administrators can deal with high case volumes is early court intervention. As Steelman (2004) notes, "the court, not the case participants, should control the progress of cases." Early court control refers to having a system in place where the court can monitor the progress of the case. That is to say that the court checks up to see if the next scheduled event has occurred within reasonable time standards. This seems fairly basic, but was not always practiced. The court has it within its power to essentially use this monitoring to push cases through the court.

Differentiated case management reflects the reality that some types of cases require special treatment and attention from the court. The court administration can help with this by identifying such cases, and ensuring two things. The first is that the right resources are dedicated to those cases, and the second is that having resources dedicated to those types of cases does not disrupt the progress of other cases through the court system. By differentiating cases at a fairly early stage, the resources of the court can be used more efficiently.

Pretrial is another area where the court administration can influence the progress of cases, managing the high volume of cases. It is at this stage where court administration can ensure that pretrial activities flow at a reasonable pace, that standards are met and the court promotes the preparation of cases and pretrial events by lawyers, knowing that if the lawyers are working on the cases that the cases will be completed faster. As Steelman notes, "creating the expectation that events will occur as scheduled is critically important."

Having firm and credible trial dates is also important. If a trial date is set too early and the lawyers are unable to be prepared, this delays trials and wastes the court's time. Trial dates should be realistic, but they should also be firm.

All of these different techniques are essentially used by court administrators to improve the efficiency of the court system. The courts are a perishable asset, so that any time when the court or its resources are not being used to move trials along is lost time that can never be recovered. In terms of efficiency, the optimal is to use as much of the court's time as possible to process cases. By doing this, the court administrators can improve efficiency, which in turn means that the courts will be able to handle more cases.

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The use of software to manage court case volumes is becoming more common. Software allows the administrator of the court to use past data to estimate future demand. This allows the administrators to be flexible with how many resources they have, and when those resources are available. Using past data gives better information with which court administration can make its decisions. Furthermore, such software can help optimize scheduling. Scheduling software is used in a lot of industries to minimize downtime of equipment, and in this case that equipment is a court room and court staff.

All of these tactics are used to improve efficiency, to maximize the use of capacity and ultimately will help the court administration to move the maximum number of cases possible through the system, without having to enlarge the size of the system. Getting the most out of limited resources is a key skill for court administrators, especially the ones that have to deal with high case volumes in their courts.

Part B

The concept of victims' rights reflects the idea that victims of crime are entitled to certain rights within the legal system. The legal system has long concerned itself with the various rights that people accused of a crime have, but has only recently turned its attention to what rights the victims of crime have in the framework of the legal system. There are difficulties with the concept, however, in that there may be instances where the rights of the victim and the rights of the defendant are not especially compatible. However, at the heart of victims' rights lies the idea that victims, once excluded from the system and ultimately powerless, should have some rights and powers within the legal system (Yaroshefsky, 1989).

The major statute with respect to victims' rights is the 18 U.S. Code § 3771. This law outlines the following rights for the victims of crime. First, they have the right to be protected from the accused. Second, they have the right to reasonable, accurate and timely notice of court proceedings or parole proceedings. The victim has the right not to be excluded from such proceedings, and has the right to be heard at these proceedings. There are rights to legal counsel and to timely restitution, where restitution is awarded. The victim also has the right to be informed where there is a plea bargain.

Some other rights include the right not to an unreasonable delay, and the right to privacy. The latter two have significant impacts on court proceedings. First, court administrators are obligated to ensure that court cases proceed in a timely manner, so that there is no unreasonable delay in the victim getting justice. Privacy is a challenge for courts, when they are obligated to provide it. There are different steps that must be taken to ensure the privacy of the victim.

Additionally, the court has to have the contact information for the victim, yet keep this information private, and must have procedures in place whereby the victim is informed of the different proceedings. This creates extra work for court administrators, but now this work is required by law, so the courts must adhere to the need to gather this information can communicate it to the victim or their legal representative in a timely manner. As such, working knowledge of the law is essential, but also some understanding of how to implement the law. There are resource requirements for implementation that may or may not be available for court administrators.

There is further risk that some of these provisions might impact court proceedings. The need to inform victims, and their right to be heard, could slow down some proceedings. This is certainly true where victims' impact statements need to be read, for example. This is not to pass judgement on the idea of ensuring victims have a platform during proceedings, but just that it will take more time for this to happen. All told, however, victims have only a few rights, and it is not unreasonable that they have access to the court cases that concern crimes committed against them. If anything, they should have better access, such as when there are plea bargains, or for things like sentencing and parole hearings.

There are ways that these laws regarding victims' rights can be improved. For example, the current law holds that the victim has the right to be informed of plea bargain, but this does not need to occur before the….....

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