Bexar County DA Joe Gonzales reports backlog cases decrease with help from 45 attorneys working overtime.
BEXAR COUNTY, Texas — Bexar County District Attorney Joe Gonzales states the backlog of cases has now decreased, despite several challenges preventing the backlog from being completed overall.
For over a year, a group of 45 attorneys have been voluntarily working overtime to process the backlogged cases.
“When we addressed, back in December, we identified the backlog based on the date of the offense,” Gonzales said. “We’ve now determined, that the a more accurate way to identify a backlog is from the date that the case is filed.”
In December, there were 7,000 cases. Previously, the DA’s office had two criteria for what they considered a backlogged case. Someone gets arrested and bonded out, and the case is six months or older and cases that are filed where someone isn’t arrested, but law enforcement filed a case, and it’s older than a year, is considered a backlogged case.
The number has now decreased to 5,249 cases, though the DA’s office could not provide how many cases had been eliminated due to the new criteria, or how many cases they had processed since December.
Gonzales cited the new court database, Odyssey and the backlog of cases at the crime lab as part of the problem.
“We’re continuing to learn to to work with Odyssey,” he said. “I think we’ve overcome some of the challenges. We’re working out the glitches, although we still have some, but it’s getting better.”
On Tuesday, Bexar County Commissioners approved to contract out some of the backlogged cases at the Bexar County Crime Lab to hopefully make a difference.
“We’ve been staffing up,” said Orin Dym, director of the Bexar County Crime Lab. “We’ve got more people on the bench. We’re at a point now where we’re really starting to roll. We’re keeping up with what’s coming in, but we have this static state, if you will, of backlogged cases. We need a little extra help to get rid of that backlog. You don’t want to bring in ten more analysts to get rid of the backlog, because you’re already achieving a steady state. You have what you need to operate. We have this short term one time problem now of extra cases. So that’s where you reach out to a contract laboratory to provide that assistance where you need that.”
However, the district attorney believes that there’s a fundamental issue with a lack of staffing that will prevent them from completing all the backlogged cases.
The DA’s office is short 29 lawyers.
“We’re going to continue to see a backlog so long as we can’t keep these lawyers employed here because we don’t pay them enough,” Gonzales said. “And that’s the point that I was trying to make, that’s the the alarm that I’m trying to sound, that if we don’t do something about offering our lawyers better pay, they’re going to continue to leave.”