Sentence Disparity, Judge Shopping and Trial Court Delay
| Author | Bronwyn Linc,Don Weatherburn |
| Date | 01 August 1996 |
| Published date | 01 August 1996 |
| DOI | 10.1177/000486589602900205 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Sentence Disparity, Judge Shopping
and Trial Court Delay·
Don Weatherburnt
and
Bronwyn
Lindt
Until recently, criminal matters finalised by way of atrial in the NSW District
Court have been the sUbject of substantial delays. In 1990-93, there was a
significant drop in the backlog
of
trial cases pending in the court but the
corresponding reduction in trial court delay has been less substantial than
might have been expected. The article draws on past research showing that
adjournments contribute significantly to trial court delay and considers the
question of whether the practice of Judge shopping' might in part be
responsible for the high rate
of
adjournments. Evidence is presented
showing that there are substantial disparities in the use
of
imprisonment by
District Court judges and that this appears to be adetermining factor in the
willingness of defendants to proceed to trial.
Introduction
For some years now the NSW District Criminal Court has been afflicted with
serious problems of delay. Since the assumption by the DPP of responsibility
for committal proceedings these problems have eased somewhat. In 1993, the
median delay between committal and finalisation of trial for matters where the
accused was on bail was less than 450 days (15 months).' In 1991 the median
delay for such cases was in excess of 575 days (19 months). Delays for cases
where the accused is held in custody on remand while awaiting trial have also
declined. In 1991 such cases took nearly 250 days (8.3 months) to finalise. In
1993, they took approximately 175 days (5.8 months). Thus delays for trial
cases where the accused is on bail have fallen by 22%, while delays where the
accused is held on remand have fallen by 30%.
These trends are encouraging but are less substantial than might have been
expected given the size of the decrease in unfinalised matters registered for
trial in the District Criminal Court. Figure 1 shows this trend.' At the
beginning of 1991 there were 4831 matters registered for trial awaiting
finalisation. By December 1993 this figure had fallen to 2514, a decrease of
approximately 48%. Changes in trial court delay naturally tend to lag behind
changes in the backlog of matters registered for trial (Weatherburn 1993). It
seems likely, however, that factors other than the backlog are contributing to
the problem of delay among trial matters in the District Criminal Court.
*Received: 9 December 1994; accepted in revised form: 15 December 1995.
tDirector, NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research, GPO Box 6, Sydney 2001.
:j: Deputy Director, NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research, GPO Box 6, Sydney 2001.
147
148 (1996) 29 The Australian and New Zealand Journal of Criminology
Figure 1: Backlog of matters registered for trial In the
District Criminal Court, NSW, 1991-1993
Number
of
matters
5000
-------------------------
4000
----------~--------------
3000
--------------------~
.........
~--
2000
-------------------------
1000
-------------------------
oI
It!
It"
"t
tI , , , , , !t , ! • t • ! , II , , ! ,
Jan
1991
May
Ssp
Jan
1992
May
Ssp
Jan
1993
May
Ssp
Dec
A notable feature of the distribution of trial court delay is that it has a
marked positive skew. In other words, although many matters ending in trial
are disposed of relatively quickly, a large number take quite a long time to
finalise. This can best be seen by examining the cumulative distribution of
time between committal and finalisation for trial caseswhere the accused is on
bail.
Figure 2 shows this distribution for cases finalised in the first nine months
of 1993. It reveals that, whileabout 40% of trial caseswhere the accused was
on bail were finalised within twelve months of committal, it took more than
four years to dispose of the remaining 60% of cases.
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