Delay reduction in the federal courts: Rule 50(b) and the Federal Speedy Trial Act of 1974

Journal of Quantitative Criminology, Vol. 3, No. 3, 1987

Delay Reduction in the Federal Courts: Rule 50(b) and the Federal Speedy Trial Act of 19741

Joel H. Garner 2

During the 1970s, 94 federal district courts implemented two major policy initiatives, Rule 50(b) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure and the Federal Speedy Trial Act, that were designed in Washington to combat delay in the processing of federal criminal cases. Both of these initiatives established a national priority of delay reduction in criminal cases, encouraged local district court planning for delay reduction; established reporting procedures for monitoring local compliance, and provided for the determination of quantitative goals for the time to disposition of criminal cases. Neither initiative mandated specific activities for delay reduction; this determination was left to the discretion of local federal district courts. This research examines the effectiveness of Rule 50(b) and the Speedy Trial Act by constructing a 150-month time series of three measures of case processing time. A multiple-intervention time-series model found that both of these initiatives contributed to the dramatic reduction in the time to disposition in federal criminal cases. These effects persisted after controls for changes in case characteristics and judicial resources were introduced.

KEY WORDS: court delay; federal courts; time series; speedy trial.

1. THE P R O B L E M OF D E L A Y

Delay in the processing of criminal charges has long been perceived as a serious national problem not easily controlled by executive, legislative, or judicial branches of government (Taft, 1908; President's Commission, 1967; American Bar Association, 1968; Church et al., 1978b). Delay under- mines the effectiveness of the criminal justice system by putting off the punishment of the guilty and the vindication of the innocent (Feeley, 1983).

i Points of view expressed in this research are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the official position of the U.S. Department of Justice.

2 National Institute of Justice, Washington, D.C. 20531.

229

0748-4518/87/0900-0229505.00/0 (~ 1987 Plenum Publishing Corporation

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Victims and witnesses, severely burdened by the repeated court appearances, lose interest or refuse to cooperate (Cannavale, 1976). Delay dilutes the strength of the prosecution and increases the cost of defense, especially when the defendant remains incarcerated prior to trial. When the defendants are released, they have more time to commit new crimes (U.S. Congress, ~q,~n ~*'~.~,., Committee on the Judiciary, 1971; National Bureau of Standards, 1970).

Court delay is a shorthand, derogatory term for what is perceived as excessive time between the initiation of criminal charges and the disposition of those charges. Some "delay" in the administration of justice is traditionally considered a virtue and denotes a deliberate, thoughtful consideration of the facts (Rehnquist, 1987). The pace of justice is often intermingled with or balanced against other important constitutional values such as the provision of effective counsel, the right to examine the evidence, and the preparation of an adequate defense. Delay can serve other purposes as well. It permits defense counsel to be paid before a verdict (Feeley, 1979). It also increases a defendant's willingness to accept a plea bargain and save the court the time and effort of a trial (Levin, 1977). Prosecutors can use delay as a means to bring pressure against a defendant having to prove the charges. Deferring a prosecution can be used to encourage a defendant to get a job, to enroll in drug rehabilitation treatment, or to make restitution to his victims (Baker and Sadd, 1981).

2. FEDERAL POLICY INITIATIVES

The focus of this research is the national campaign against delay in the processing of federal criminal cases. This campaign involved two competing policy initiatives, Rule 50(b) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Pro- cedure (406 U.S. 979) and the Federal Speedy Trial Act of 1974 (P.L. 93-619). The first of these initiatives is a rule issued by an administrative hierarchy; the other is a legislative imposition on a traditionally independent and geographically scattered bureaucracy. Both called for existence planning and research activity by local district courts, both set a priority on the disposition of criminal cases over civil cases, and both provided for the determination of highly detailed, quantitative goals for the maximum time to disposition in criminal cases.

Rule 50(b) was promulgated by the federal judiciary under the guidance of Chief Justice Warren Burger. The Federal Speedy Trial Act was supported by liberal Democrats in Congress and opposed by the federal judiciary, the U.S. Department of Justice, and conservative Republicans in Congress (Congressional Quarterly, 1980). Rule 50(b) allowed great discretion to each federal district court in the setting of time standards for the disposition

Delay Reduction in the Federal Courts 231

of criminal cases; the Speedy Trial Act mandated a single, national standard for all courts.

2.1. The History of Rule 50(b)

In July, 1972, the Judicial Conference of the United States adopted Rule 50(b) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. This rule went into effect in October 1972 and required the judges of each district court to prepare a plan by February 1973 for the prompt disposition of criminal cases. These plans were to include time limits for pretrial procedures, the trial itself, and sentencing. Special attention was to be given to defendants incarcerated prior to trial. Each district's plan was to be produced in 90 days and required the approval of the judicial council for its circuit.

This rule had several antecedents. In 1968 the American Bar Association adopted a 3-month standard for the disposition of criminal cases (American Bar Association, 1968). In January 1971, the Federal Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit adopted a rule calling for planning and research on delay. Starting in 1970, both houses of the U.S. Congress held hearings on legislation addressing speedy trial rights, and in April 1972, a Senate Judiciary subcommittee adopted a bill sponsored by Senator Ervin of North Carolina, but no further action was taken on this legislation during the 92nd Congress (see Table I).

The Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts (AOUSC) sent each district court a statistical description of the district's time to disposition based on data from July 1971 to June 1972 and a "model" Rule 50(b) plan. Many courts adopted this model plan with few revisions; others set their current averages as the standard for future case processing (Cohn, 1974),

Although "continuing study" of a district ceurt 's time to disposition was contemplated by this Rule, plans generated during the winter of 1972- 1973 were the only ones produced under this Rule. These plans addressed actions to be taken beginning in July 1973 at the start of the federal judicial system's fiscal year.

2.2. The Federal Speedy Trial Act

In 1974, the Senate and the House of Representatives adopted legislation that preempted the Rule 50(b) planning process. In July 1976 the Rule was amended to reflect this fact and no additional plans were produced under Rule 50(b).

The Speedy Trial Act established the priority of criminal cases over civil cases and set strict time limits for the processing of federal criminal cases. Beginning in July 1976, a schedule of progressively more restrictive time-to-trial standards was established which required that by July 1, 1979, all federal criminal cases be disposed of in no more than 100 days from

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Table I. Chronology of Rule 50(b) and the Speedy Trial Act

Year Month Event

1968 February 1969 January 1970 May 1 9 7 1 January 1972 April

June July September October

1973 January- February

February April

Rule 50(b) begins July

1974 July August September December

1 9 7 5 January Speedy Trial Act begins

July 1976 February

April July July July September

1977 January July September

1978 March July July September

1979 May July August September

1980 February Sanctions policy begins

July September

1 9 8 1 January October

ABA standards adopted Nixon inaugurated Senate hearings on Ervin Bill Second Circuit rules adopted First Notice of Rule 50(b) Barker v Wingo decision Supreme Court adopts Rule 50(b) Rule 50(b) model plan issued Rule 50(b) clears congressional review Plans prepared in districts

Plans submitted to circuits Senate hearings on Ervin Bill

50(b) plans submitted to AOUSC Senate adopts Speedy Trial Act (STA) Nixon resigns House hearings Congressional adoption Presidential approval

First month of speedy trial planning Speedy trial model plan issued STA plans submitted to circuits STA plans submitted to AOUSC Rule 50(b) revised Year 1 of STA standards AOUSC issues first STA report Carter inaugurated Year 2 of STA standards Second STA report issued Second STA plan submitted to circuits Second STA plan submitted to AOUSC Year 3 of STA standards Third STA report issued Senate hearings House hearings Adoption of 1979 amendments to STA Fourth STA report issued Fifth STA report issued

Final standards with sanctions Sixth STA report issued Regan inaugurated STA except in AOUSC annual report


the date of arrest. Congress put teeth into the law by establishing a penaltym dismissal of the charges--for failure to meet the time-to-trial standards (Steinberg, 1977).

The Act softened these fixed standards somewhat by establishing numerous periods of "excludable" time and granting authority to the judiciary to waive the standards when necessary to meet the "ends of justice." In addition, the judiciary was given the discretion to dismiss a case "without prejudice," which would permit the prosecution to indict the same defendant again for the same charges.

Since the AOUSC had the responsibility for compiling the speedy trial plans from all 94 federal district courts, it distributed a model speedy trial plan to all the district courts. Like its Rule 50(b) counterpart, this "model" was also adopted by some courts with few changes (Mann, 1980; Misner, 1977, 1979, 1981).

In 1979, the Congress affirmed the basic policy adopted in 1974. The Act set 30 days as the standard from arrest to indictment. From indictment to the initiation of a trial or a disposition (a guilty plea, or a dismissal), the act set a standard of 70 days. The 1979 amendments postponed the effective date of the dismissal sanction 1 year, to July 1980, and clarified various excludable time provisions (U.S. Congress, House Committee on the Judiciary, 1979).

Although the Speedy Trial Act standards were stricter than the Rule 50(b) standards, the dominant theme of the development of the Speedy Trial Act was a "liberalization of the definition of delay," primarily through the expansion of the excludable time provisions (Partridge, 1980, p. 34). Confronted with considerable uncertainty in 1979 about the possibility of massive dismissal of cases, the Congress was faced with the option of lengthening the standards or liberalizing the excludable time provisions. They chose the latter, creating a "quite flexible restraint" (Partridge, 1980, p. 34; see also Misner, 1981).

3. PREVIOUS RESEARCH

The previous research on the implementation of Rule 50(b) and the Speedy Trial Act portrays the federal campaign against court delay as a disjointed sequence of court rulings, congressional policy promulgations, and local court planning. These researchers critically assessed the internal logic and unclear provisions of both court delay initiatives. Cohn (1974) reviewed the plans adopted by federal district courts in response to Rule 50(b) and determined that their variability and lax standards precluded the possibility of reducing case processing time in criminal cases. Cohn (1974, p. 221) argued that

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district plan arraignment time limits (for 20 urban courts) are strongly correlated with actual time periods for processing, and thus provide no basis for shortening current norms (parenthetical information and italics added).

A five-page legal analysis from the American Law Division of the Congressional Research Service concluded that the "broad discretion inher- ent" in Rule 50(b) makes it "little more than a formalization of the balancing method set out in Barker vs Wingo" (Ronhovde, 1974, p. 1094). Misner (1981) was sufficiently disillusioned by the variability in interpreting and using the excludable time provisions of the Speedy Trial Act in the Ninth Circuit that he concludes that no evaluation of the Act is possible.

Only Mann (1980) and Ames et al. (1980) were the least bit positive about the prospects of these efforts. Mann argued that the local courts were responsive to the mandates of the Act and did adopt a number of innovations such as improved case tracking, pretrial diversion programs, case screening, coordination with the FBI and other investigative agencies, and chages in handling of pretrial motions. Ames et al. (1980) reported similar innovations in a study of the use of the excludable time provisions by the local courts. Mann sees a crucial difference between the Speedy Trial Act and Rule 50(b). Under the Speedy Trial Act, he sees

[a] soul searching for methods of compliance has stimulated innovation because no one told the members of the district courts how to comply with the new standard; they were told only that they had to do so or cases would be dismissed.

Mann concludes that the major impact of the law would not be derived from the research and planning activities but from the "forced adaptation of criminal justice personnel to stringent new standards" (Mann, 1980, p. 95).

Although there is no research reporting time to disposition before or after Rule 50(b), Ames et al. (1980) and Bridges (1982) present evidence on criminal case processing time before and after the adoption of the Speedy Trial Act. Ames and her colleagues examined the number of violations of the Speedy Trial Act standards in 18 districts and found that 93% of the cases in 1980 were in "compliance" with the Act's standards. For their study, however, a speedy trial violation did not occur when the total elapsed time exceeded 100 days /f one or more of the Speedy Trial Act's 18 excludable time provisions were utilized. Thus, the level of compliance

�9 reported could have been achieved by excluding certain periods of time between the initiation and the termination of a case. It is not possible to tell from the data presented by Ames~et aL (1980) whether actual case processing times changed at all.

After noting that the federal courts handled slightly fewer but appar- ently more complex cases between 1971 and 1981, Bridges (1982) found relatively stable values for the annual median time to disposition of federal criminal cases terminated in the years from 1971 to 1981. On the basis of


this information, Bridges, 1982, p. 71) concluded that the "time required to process most criminal cases changed little following passage of the Act." He attributes the federal courts' high level of compliance with the provisions of the Speedy Trial Act to the increased use of the excludable time provisions reported by Ames et al. Curiously, Bridges presents, without comment, graphics showing that the 90th percentile for processing time o f federal criminal cases dropped steadily from 469 days in 1971 to 289 days in 1981, a 38% reduction. Thus, Bridges' conclusion seems to rest on his choice of the median as his sole measure of case processing time.

While the published evaluations of the federal efforts find little evidence of success, a study of a strikingly similar set of policy initiatives in Ohio suggested that administrative rulemaking followed by speedy trial legislation can reduce court delay. Grau and Sheskin (1982) analyzed a representative sample of 2267 individual criminal cases filed in three Ohio cities in 1967, 1969, 1972, 1974, and 1977. They found dramatic effects in three cities for the rules promulgated in 1971 under the newly unified courts of Ohio. After the new rules were implemented, case disposition time dropped in Columbus and Youngstown but now in Cincinnati. They found that Ohio's 1973 speedy trial act had even stronger effects on case processing time than the Ohio rules. Even recalcitrant Cincinnati exhibited less court delay.

Grau and Sheskin's regression analysis explained 18% of the variance in individual cases, and their model included variables for case type, case complexity, number of motions, type of counsel, disposition type, and custody status, as well as the new rules and the speedy trial legislation.

Research on both Rule 50(b) and the Federal Speedy Trial Act has found that these initiatives were implemented in such a way as to preclude any impact on case processing time and that the actual case processing time at the federal level has remained stable from 1971 to 1981. At the state and local level, a study of court rules and speedy trial legislation reported strong and consistent effects for both policies. Thus, despite the extensive attention to these two initiatives, the crucial question remains unresolved: What is the effect of Rule 50(b) and the Speedy Trial Act on the actual case processing time in the federal courts?

4. DESIGN OF THIS RESEARCH

This research examined the effectiveness of Rule 50(b) and the Speedy Trial Act by constructing 150-month time series for the mean, median, and ninetieth percentile of processing time in federal criminal cases. Each monthly cohort was composed of all criminal cases filed during that month. Three policy interventions were hypothesized based on the chronology of events outlined in Table I. Statistical tests, with controls for case and court

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characteristics, were employed to evaluate the contribution of these three interventions on case processing time.

4.1. The Data

The Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts collects data on every case terminated in federal district courts including information on the type of crime alleged, the type of disposition, the type of attorney, and the federal judicial circuit (AOUSC, 1970-1986). Data on individual level cases, recently made available in machine-readable form (Federal Judicial Center, 1986), were sorted by year and month of filing. Processing time for individual cases was calculated using as the start date the month and year a defendant had charges filed against him. Data on the day of arrest are not available throughout this time period.

The end date used for determining "time to disposition" was the month and year charges were dismissed, the defendant was found innocent, or, if found guilty, the defendant was sentenced. For each of the 150 monthly cohorts of cases filed between January 1970 and June 1982, three measures of case processing time were computed- - the mean, the median, and the ninetieth percentile.

4.2. Design Considerations

This research design resulted from a compromise among theoretical, research design, and practical considerations. Although raw data on individual cases were available, I selected a cohort of cases filed in each calendar month to become the unit of analysis because the data on time to disposition did not include the day a case was started or finished. In these data, cases filed and disposed on the same day could not be distinguished from cases filed on the first and the last of the same calendar month. Similarly, cases that were filed the last day of one month and disposed of the next day would appear to take as long as cases filed the beginning of the first month and settled some 60 days later.

A preferred design would be similar to the one used by Grau and Sheskin (1982), in which samples of individual cases drawn are drawn before and after the interventions using daily, not monthly, measures of time to disposition. However, because of the large number of cases filed per month in the federal system, the monthly averages used in this research approximate closely the montly averages that can be computed using individual-level data that include information on the day of the initiation and closure of a federal criminal case. In addition, since this research was focused on determining the future effect of policy interventions, monthly


cohorts of cases filed were desired. Cohorts of cases terminated reflect a great variety of past behavior and their use, although popular in research on court delay, might prevent the detection of the effects of the new policies on newly filed cases.

A review of the implementation chronology of Rule 50(b) and the Speedy Trial Act (see Table I) suggested that the campaign against delay in the processing of criminal cases could have as many as three distinct policy interventions. The first intervention was the implementation of Rule 50(b). Publicly announced as early as September 1972 and officially promulgated in October 1972, the Rule 50(b) planning process was con- densed into a few months in early 1973. The plans described local efforts that were to begin by July 1973, and that date was set as the time it is most reasonable to expect reductions in case processing time to begin as a result of Rule 50(b).

The second intervention was the enactment of the Speedy Trial Act of 1974. Although the initial sthndards of 180 days took effect in July 1976, the planning and reporting requirements of the Act started in July 1975 and this research uses this earlier date as the intervention point for the Speedy Trial Act.

A third policy intervention effect was hypothesized to stem from the imposition of the sanction of dismissal, originally scheduled for July 1979. The 1979 amendments delayed the use of the dismissal sanction 1 year, to July of 1980, and that date was used as the intervention point for the dismissal sanction policy.

4.3. Mean, Median, and Ninetieth Percentile

The availability of three different measures helps to clarify the kinds of effects one would expect in a monthly time series if policies such as Rule 50(b) and the Speedy Trial Act were, in fact, affecting case processing times. The use of the median has been justified by researchers and by the administrative agencies on the basis that it is less responsive to extreme or unrepresentative cases. This is true, and it is exactly for this reason that the median alone is not appropriate or at least not the best measure for evaluating the effectiveness of the federal speedy trial initiatives. Standards for the maximum time a case should take, whether they are established administratively or imposed by a legislature, do not focus attention on every case but extremely long cases. I f successful, these initiatives would directly affect those cases that are outliers and the median, by definition, is not sensitive to changes in the outliers of a distribution. Differences between the median and the mean are admittedly elementary; unfortunately, the significance of these elemental points does not appear to have been fully

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appreciated by the previous research on court delay (Bridges, 1982; Church et al., 1978a; Feeley, 1983).

5. RESEARCH FINDINGS

The monthly median, mean, and ninetieth percentile of processing time for criminal cases filed from January 1970 to June 1982 are displayed in Fig. 1. They reveal reductions in the mean and the ninetieth percentile that run counter to all previously published assessments of Rule 50(b) and the Federal Speedy Trial Act. At the beginning of this time series, the mean time to disposition was about 7 months; at the end it was below 3 months. Ninetieth percentile of cases started this series at 16 months and finished at almost half that. Due to the data restrictions mentioned earlier, the median was restricted to whole months and only takes on the values of 4, 3, and 2 months during this time series. Still, the plot of these values displayed in Fig. 1 trends downward over this period.

Table II displays and compares the pre- and post intervention averages for Rule 50(b), the Speedy Trial Act, and the sanctions policy. The preintervention period was characterized by a relatively high time to disposition times and each subsequent period generated less court delay. Although by the time the sanctions policy came into effect there was considerably less

2O

18

u~ 16 - r I-. Z 14 O

12 g,.

o ,.,. 10 I l l

8

6 z

R U L E S P E E D Y

-- " :.I.

70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 YEAR A N D M O N T H OF FILING

. . . . . . . . . . . . M E A N - - - - ~ M E D I A N 9 0 T H P E R C E N T I L E

Fig. 1. Federal criminal case processing time, January 1970 to June 1982.

S A N C T I O N S

P O L I C Y

.__L_____L_ 81 82

Delay Reduction in the Federal Courts

Table lI. Average Case Processing Time: Pre- and Postinterventions

239

Measures

Time period 90th (months) Mean Median percentile

Preintervention 1/70 thru 6/73 (42) 7.02 3.41 15.58

Rule 50(b) 7/73 thru 6/75 (24) 5.30 3.00 11.54

Speedy Trial Act 7/75 thru 6/80 (60) 4.02 2.55 8.58

Sanctions policy 7/80 thru 6/82 (24) 3.22 2.54 6.88

court delay to reduce, this period also produced lower case processing times, according to all three measures employed here.

At first glance a statistical test of the effect of these interventions seems trivial. The reductions in case processing time are substantial and consistent across three measures. Figure 1 and Table II certainly portray a heretofore unexpected trend in case processing time in the federal courts, but the attribution of reductions in that trend to the policy interventions promulgated in Washington, D.C., is not yet established.

The analysis of these data required, however, that a series of issues be addressed and resolved. The first problem is the traditional difficulty of serial correlation in time-series data. An existing technical solution (the Cochrane-Orcut t method) was used to handle this difficulty. The second difficulty surrounded the construction of an appropriate policy intervention model. Multiple variables were designed to capture the initiation and the continuation of each hypothesized policy intervention. The last analytical issue stemmed from the need to test for the competing influence of other changes in federal criminal courts on case processing time. This was accom- plished by excluding certain cases (i.e., selective service cases) from the time-to-disposition series and retesting the persistence of the policy intervention variables.

5,1. Testing the Basic Pol icy Model

The effects of Rule 50(b) and the Speedy Trial Act are tested by a linear regression analysis of the 150-month time series from January 1970 to June 1982. Maximum-likelihood regression procedures complemented by the Cochrane-Orcut t correction for serial correlation provide the test procedure. In order to assess the effect of an existing trend, we have

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employed a simple monthly counter from 1 to 150 for this series. Following the approach to time series taken by McCrone and Hardy (1978) and Lewis-Beck and Alford (1980), we have constructed a policy intervention model with two measures for each policy initiative. The first is a simple dichotomous variable equal to 0 for each month before a policy intervention and 1 for each month after its introduction. The second measure also takes on the value of 0 prior to the policy intervention but then increases by 1 for each subsequent month. This formulation decomposes each policy intervention into an intercept or short-term effect and a slope or long-term effect. The null hypotheses of this analysis are than the coefficients for each policy intervention variable are equal to 0. Each individual measure is tested with a t statistic; however, since each intervention is represented by two variables, a joint F test of their combined contribution is also used (Pindyck and Rubinfeld, 1981).

Table III reports the results of testing that model with each measure of case processing time. The second column reports the results of regressing the 150-month time series of monthly mean time to disposition against the basic policy model; the third column the median; and the fourth column, the ninetieth percentile. The statistical model employed in this analysis cannot disentangle the real-life interaction of these policy initiatives, and therefore, the traditional assumptions about the independent nature of the policy variables are not valid. Because of this multicollinearity among the policy initiative measures, the relative sizes of the regression coefficients were not meaningful and it would be inappropriate to judge the relative merits of the contribution of these policy initiatives on the basis of these coefficients.

Every regression in this time-series analysis suffered from extensive autocorrelation as measured by the Durbin-Watson statistic. Following the Cochrane-Orcutt procedure (Pindyck and Rubinfeld, 1981), each variable in the model has been transformed by computing an autocorrelation coefficient, multiplying the previous value of each variable by the autocorrelation coefficient, and subtracting this product from the current value of the original data.

The transformed regression model is

[ Y, - p Y,_,] = Bo(1 - p ) + B , ( X , , - p X l , - l ) + B 2 ( X 2 , - pX2,-,) +" �9 �9

where/9 is a measure of autocorrelation of the residuals in the untransformed model.

The effect of the policy intervention is tested in two ways. First, each variable in the model is tested (e.g., B2 = 0) using a two-sided t test. Second, a joint F test (e.g., B2= 0 and B3 = 0) is used to assess the increase in the model's explanatory power caused by the inclusion of the policy variables.


Table IlL Basic Policy Model

Independent variable

Regression coefficient (t statistic) [joint F]

Mean Median 90th percentile

Bo, constant B1, time trend

Rule 50(b) Ba, intercept

B3, slope

Speedy Trial Act B4, intercept

Bs, slope

Sanctions policy B6, intercept

B7, slope

Cochrane-Orcutt's p Variance explained (R 2) Durbin-Watson statistic

(for corrected model)

7.51 3.4 16.6 -0.024 0.001 -0.04

(-3.39)** (-0.170) (-2.57)**

-0.918 -0.470 -1.72 (-3.58)** (-1.69) (-2.35)** -0.002 -0.002 -0.06

(-0.117) (-0,128) (-1.21) [7.69]** [ 1.86] [5.63]**

-06.58 -0.742 -1.01 (-2.76)** (-2.89) (-1.49)

0.018 0.012 0,086 (1.11) (0.74) (1.94) [7.91 ]** [8.04]** [6.34]**

-0.040 -0.127 -0.219 (-0.161) (-0.477) (-0.311) -0.035 -0.031 -0,082

(-2.13)** (1.87) (-1.83) [3.53]* [3.72]* [2.10]

0.48 0.28 0.36 0.95 0.51 0.92

1.83 1.99 1.94

* P<0.05 ** P <0.01

In Table I I I , each term of the bas ic po l i cy mode l is l is ted with its regress ion coefficient, t statist ic, and jo in t F test. The r epo r t ed R : and D u r b i n - W a t s o n stat is t ic are f rom the t r a n s f o r m e d model . The r epor t ed p is the es t imated serial cor re la t ion used to t r ans fo rm the or ig inal observa t ions .

The f indings for this bas ic po l icy m o d e l d i sp l ayed in Table I I I vary d e p e n d i n g on the use o f the mean , med ian , or n inet ie th percent i le as the d e p e n d e n t measure . F o r the mean , the f indings are s t rong and consis tent . In a d d i t i o n to the t ime t r end var iable , all three po l i cy in te rvent ions are found to have con t r ibu ted to the reduc t ion in case process ing t ime. Each ind iv idua l var iable is in the hypo thes i zed negat ive d i rec t ion except the Speedy Trial Act s lope var iable , which is smal l (0.018) and not s ta t is t ical ly

242 Garner

significant at the 0.05 level. The joint contribution of both Speedy Trial Act variables, however, is significant at the 0.01 level.

For the median, the effects of the interventions are also in the hypothesized direction except the Speedy Trial Act slope variable. Neither the time trend nor either of the variables representing the effects of Rule 50(b) is statistically significant. The median measure does indicate an effect during the Speedy Trial Act period and following the introduction of the sanction policy in July 1980. Individually, the sanction policy variables are not statistically significant, but there joint contribution is significant at the 0.05 level. The use of the median, then, does not seem to capture the same effects observed in the mean.

The ninetieth percentile reflects a slightly different picture. As with the mean and median, the case processing time is reduced by all policy variables except the Speedy Trial Act slope variable. Individually and in combination, the variables representing the sanctions policy, although negative, do not approach statistical significance.

5.2. Testing for Rival Hypotheses

From the results of testing the basic policy model, it appeared that each of the hypothesized interventions had an independent influence on the reduction of case processing time. However, there were other changes in the federal criminal justice system between 1970 and 1982, in addition to Rule 50(b) and the Speedy Trial Act, that warrant consideration as alternative explanations for the changes in time to disposition shown in Fig. 1.

For instance, selective service cases traditionally involve a high number of fugitive defendants and, on average, result in a lengthy case processing time. Between 1970 and 1978 the number of Selective service cases dropped to zero. To control for this change in the nature of cases handled by the federal courts, Bridges (1982) simply excluded these cases from his analysis entirely. The approach here was to control from criminal charge by compar- ing the time series with and without selective service cases. The basic policy model was first tested on all cases and then tested using various subsets of cases. The first subset analysis involves testing the basic policy model by computing the mean for each month using all cases except those where the charge filed is a violation of the selective service laws. Thus, the subset analysis reported in the second column in Table I l l is comparable to that reported in Table II except that the dependent measure, mean time to disposition, was generated not from the full complement of cases but from a subset of cases that excluded selective service cases. The logic of this procedure is that if, in fact, the reductions observed were due to changes


in the number of selective service cases, then the effects of the basic policy model should evaporate when selective service cases are removed from the analysis.

The regression analysis performed on all cases was performed on these subsets. Changes in the direction or the absence of statistical significance in the coefficients of the policy variables is the basis for determining that the effects of the national model do not hold for a particular subset of cases. Thus, if the subset analysis for all cases except selective service did not find policy effects where the analysis for all cases did, this would be interpreted as meaning that the policy effect reported in Table II was dependent on the presence of those cases. The absence of an effect in this subset analysis would mean that the effect could be attributed to changes in the nature of the cases, not the nature of the policies. Where the proportion of cases with the subset characteristic did not change, differences between effects in the analysis of all cases and effects in a subset of cases were interpreted as an indication of which types of cases were affected by the policy and which were not.

This form of analysis is admittedly awkward. I f the available data included the day a case started and ended, the preferred analysis would be the use of individual-level data in a combined cross-sectional and time-series analysis. Lacking the detailed data on the day of the start and finish of a case, this somewhat clumsy procedure was chosen.

5.3. Rival Hypotheses

This form of analysis was used to test a number of competing hypotheses. The hypotheses tested were selected on a combination of theoretical and practical grounds. First, the "pol icy" and the "control" variables employed by the previous research (Church et al., 1978b; Garner, 1986) were reviewed. Several considerations were not relevant to the federal courts during the time period of this research. For instance, all federal district courts use an individual calendaring system and the "omnibus hearing" approach was used in a few federal courts for only a few months in the late 1960s and the early 1970s (Nimmer, 1975).

Other considerations raised by the previous literature either were not testable with the existing data or were not easily incorporated into the aggregate time-series analysis employed here. Although bail status is the single most consistent predictor of time to disposition (Garner, 1986), these data were not part of the available AOUSC data. Data did exist for case complexity in the form of the number of defendants but this data element simply lists the order of codefendants (first, second, etc.) and not the number of codefendants. Age, race, and sex information was collected by the U.S.

244 Garner

Probation Service only for defendants who pied or were found guilty. These considerations, then, are confounded with disposition type.

Information was readily available on four characteristics--crime type, disposition type, attorney type, and geographic location--and these were incorporated into the basic policy model as control variables. In addition to selective service cases, Bridges (1982) argued that changes in the willingness of the Justice Department to prosecute bank robbery and drug cases shifted the proportion of these crime types in the caseload of the federal district courts. The type of disposition and the type of attorney are regularly found to be significant considerations in case disposition times. Although the evidence is not totally consistent, tried cases tend to take longer than those dismissed or pied. Similarly, cases with private attorneys have more often than not be found to take longer than cases with a public defender or no attorney. Delay varies by court and by jurisdiction. To assess whether or not different areas of the country were responded to these policy initiatives differently, the Second and Ninth Circuits were chosen to represent diverse courts and regions. The Second Circuit included New York, Connecticut, and Vermont; the Ninth Circuit covered a somewhat larger area--California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Arizona, Alaska, and Hawaii.

5.4. Findings

Table IV reports the findings of the basic policy model for the various subsets of cases. The first column, for instance, reports the regression coefficients, t tests, and joint F test for the mean for all cases except selective service. The sizes of the regression coefficients for all three policies are reduced slightly but they remain statistically significant. Thus, the presence of selective service cases lengthened the case processing time, but the effectiveness of these policy initiatives persists when these cases are totally removed from consideration.

Similar findings and interpretations are presented by all the subset analyses, except for the subset without cases that have private attorneys (column 7). In the subset analysis, all three policy interventions reduce the case processing time, but the sanction policy is not statistically significant. This finding suggests that the July 1980 dismissal sanction was more effective in affecting private counsel cases than cases handled by public defenders. However, since the proportion of federal criminal cases handled by private attorneys has remained stable over this 12-year span (AOUSC, 1970-1986), the observed reduction in case processing time for all cases cannot be attributed to changes in attorney type over time. Moreover, the sanctions policy reduced the processing time of cases with private attorneys, which

Tab

le I

V.

Con

trol

s fo

r C

ase

Cha

ract

eris

tics

: M

ean

Tim

e to

Dis

posi

tion

Reg

ress

ion

coef

fici

ent (

t st

atis

tic)

, S

elec

tive

ser

vice

cas

es e

xclu

ded

from

ana

lysi

s

Ind

epen

den

t S

elec

tive

B

ank

Dru

g P

riva

te

Sec

ond

Nin

th

vari

able

se

rvic

e ro

bber

y ch

arge

s T

ried

D

ism

isse

d at

torn

ey

circ

uit

circ

uit

ga

.

.o

Con

stan

t 6.

41

7.55

7.

38

7.45

5.

09

7.32

7.

39

7.61

T

ime

tren

d 0.

003

-0.0

23

-0.0

26

--0,

250

-0.0

03

-0.0

29

-0.0

37

-0.0

23

(-0,

581)

(-

3.28

)**

(-3.

66)*

* (-

3.41

)88

(-0.

671)

(-

3.52

)**

(-5

.91

)**

(-

3.5

8)*

*

Rul

e 50

(b)

Inte

rcep

t -0

.756

-0

.950

-1

.10

-0

.882

-0

.413

-0

,748

-0

.590

-0

.899

(-

3.0

9)*

*

(-3.

62)*

* (-

4.32

)**

(-3

.30

)**

(-

2.4

0)*

*

(-2

.57

)**

(-

2.4

9)*

*

(-3

.66

)**

S

lope

-0

.202

-0

.000

-0

.002

-0

.009

-0

.015

-0

.002

-0

.010

-0

.006

(-

0.12

4)

(-0.

014)

(-

0.10

8)

(-0.

491)

(-

1.3

1)

(-0.

098)

(-

0.67

3)

(-0.

411)

Jo

int

F 8.

44**

7.

68**

9.

59**

7.

34**

5.

94**

3.

90*

3A8"

8.

90**

S

peed

y T

rial

Act

In

terc

ept

0.64

0 -0

.712

-0

.690

-0

.632

-0

.454

-0

.626

-0

.586

-0

.807

(-

2.9

2)*

*

(-2.

90)*

(

2.89

)*

(2.5

5)**

(-

2.8

5)*

(-

2.30

)*

(-2

.68

)**

(-

3.6

6)*

*

Slo

pe

0.01

5 0.

016

0.02

2 0.

025

0.01

6 0.

019

0.02

2 0.

022

(1.0

4)

(0.9

65)

( 1.3

8)

(1.4

9)

(1.4

9)

(1.0

3)

(1.5

3)

(1.5

0)

Join

t F

8.32

**

8.10

"*

9.59

**

8.54

**

10.1

"*

5.65

**

9.54

**

14.4

"*

San

tion

s po

licy

In

terc

ept

-0.0

12

-0.0

56

-0.0

77

0.07

3 -0

.070

-0

.001

-0

.092

0.

007

(-0.

051)

(-

0.22

1)

(-0.

312)

(0

.282

) (-

0.42

1)

(-0.

002)

(-

0.40

3)

(0.0

32)

Slo

pe

-0.0

36

-0.0

36

-0.0

35

-0.0

42

-0.0

32

-0.0

26

-0.0

39

-0.0

37

(-2

.41

)**

(-

2.11

)**

(2.1

2)**

(-

2.5

1)*

*

(-3

.00

)**

(-

1.3

8)

(- 2

.66

)'?

(-2.

45)*

* Jo

int

F 4.

42*

3.61

" 3.

86*

4.09

**

5.70

**

1.30

6.

30**

4.

47**

p

0.41

0.

47

0.46

0.

44

0.41

0.

51

0.39

0,

35

R z

0,93

0.

95

0.96

0.

95

0.91

0.

95

0.94

0.

95

DW

1.

89

1.84

1.

84

1.87

1.

87

1.90

1.

91

1.92

r .?

* P

<0

.05

**

P<

0.0

1

u~

246 Garner

traditionally take longer than cases handled by public defenders. Thus, this finding suggests that the sanctions policy was less effective with the public defender cases because they were already processed relatively quickly by the federal courts.

The primary finding from this subset analysis is that the effectiveness of the policy initiatives held up when controls were introduced from crime type, disposition type, type of attorney, and geographic variation. Rule 50(b) and the Speedy Trial Act were designed to reduce the case processing time for all crime types, in all regions of the country, regardless of the mode of disposition or the type of attorney representing the defendant. These results are strong evidence that these designs were met.

5.5. Controls for Caseload and Judicial Resources

Two alternative explanations for the reduction in case processing time in the federal district courts remain unexamined. The first consideration was that the number of criminal cases filed in the criminal courts changed over this 12-year period. The second possibility was that changes in the number of available judges permitted the more expeditious processing of cases. These rival hypotheses were tested by adding two variables to the basic policy model, the number of cases filed each month and the number of available judges. The number of cases dropped and then rose over this period and the number of judges was very stable until 1979, when there was a steady increase through 1982. The number of available judges, however, is available only in annual statistics and this number is used for each month of that fiscal year.

Table V reports the results of including these two variables into the basic policy model for the mean. Neither the caseload nor the judicial resource variable contributed to the explanation of case processing time. The coefficients of the policy variables are only ~slightly reduced; however, for the sanctions policy variables this reduction is sufficient to lower the value of the F statistic below the 0.05 level. While the addition of these resource variables to the model does dampen the contribution of the sanctions policy intervention variables, the coefficients of the resource variables run counter to expectations. Although both coefficients are very small and neither is statistically significant, increases in the number of cases filed are associated with decreases in the case processing time; increases in judgeships are associated with increases in the case processing time. Reductions in case processing time cannot be attributed to these considerations.

The results found by introducing resource variables into the model suggest at least two interpretations. First, the crudely measured resource variables, especially the number of judges, introduce error into the model.


Table V. Policy Model with Resource Variables

Independent Regression coefficient variable ( t statistic)

B0, constant 6.90 B1, time trend -0.024

(-3.43)** Rule 50(b)

B2, intercept -0.927 (-3.56)**

B3, slope -0.001 (-0.053)

Joint F 7.63**

Speedy Trial Act B4, intercept -0.612

(-2.49)** Bs, slope 0.012

(0.657) Joint F 4.53**

Sanctions policy B6, intercept -0.012

(-0.043) BT, slope -0.031

(-1.76)** Joint F 2.12"

Resource variables Bs, caseload -0.00002

(-0.321) B9, judges 0.00006

(0.210) p = 0.47 R 2 =0.95 DW = 1.83

* P <0.05 ** P < 0.01

Second, the small effect of changes in resources might be sufficient to limit

the role of the sanct ion policy. Future research might examine more closely the role of resources, but the basic results obta ined in this research are that

changes in judicia l workload or resources do not appear to be serious rivals

to the delay reduct ion effects of either Rule 50(b) or the Speedy Trial Act.

6. C O N C L U S I O N S

The campaign against delay in the processing time of cr iminal cases in federal courts established a nat ional priority for cr iminal over civil cases,

248 Garner

established reporting procedures for monitoring local compliance, encouraged research and planning efforts at the district court level, and provided for the determination of highly detailed, quantitative goals for the maximum processing time for individual cases.

Three distinct policy initiatives have been identified: the July 1973 Rule 50(b) research and planning initiative of the Judicial Conference of the United States, the July 1975 start of the Speedy Trial Act of 1974, and the July 1980 implementation of the 100-day standard and the sanction of dismissal. These policies were found to be distinct but complementary efforts toward the same goal.

A 150-month time series revealed reductions in three measures of case processing time. The mean and the ninetieth percentile were reduced dramatically over this period, but even the less sensitive median was reduced somewhat. A multiintervention time-series analysis found that each of the policy initiatives had a significant effect on the reduction of each case processing time measure.

When controls for different types of cases were introduced, all three policy initiatives continued to make a significant contribution to explaining the reduction in the mean case processing time. Although certain data limitations restrict the precision of this analysis and it is clear from previous research that many criminal cases use the excludable time provisions to meet the standards of the Speedy Trial Act, reductions in the actual case processing time are strongly associated with the policy interventions associated with the national campaign against court delay.

These results bolster the findings of Grau and Sheskin (1982) and the speculation of Mann (1980) that administrative rule making by the courts and legislatively set time-to-disposition standards can be effective policies for reducing court delay. In contrast, Cohn's (1974) and Ronhovde's (1974) determinations that Rule 50(b) activities could not plausibly influence disposition times and Misner's (1981) assessment that Speedy Trial Act planning had not been properly implemented are not supported.

Bridges' (1982) findings warrant further discussion. Unlike the other research on these initiatives, he examined data on case processing time in the federal courts. He based his judgment about the effectiveness of the Speedy Trial Act on the stability of a 10-year annual time series of the median case processing time. However, the method employed in the research reported here is preferable to Bridges' method in several respects. First, where he relied on the median (which is insensitive to extreme values), we used theee separate measures of case processing time. Second, Bridges, analysis was limited to annual data on cases terminated. Our research generated monthly data on cases filed. Third, Bridges relied on personal judgment to assess an effect. Our research uses statistical tests to determine


the existence of an effect and considered rival hypothesis in a multivariate framework.

These strengths and the confirmatory findings of Grau and Sheskin (1982) argue that the weight of the available evidence supports the argument that the policy approach used in Ohio and in the federal system--court planning followed by fixed standards--works to reduce delay.

REFERENCES

Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts (1970-1986). Annual Report of the Director, Govern- ment Printing Office, Washington, D.C.

American Bar Association (1968). Speedy Trial Standards, Institute for Judicial Administration, New York.

Ames, N. L., Carlson, K. E., Hammett, T. M., and Kennington, G. (1980). The Processing of Federal Criminal Cases Under the Federal Speedy Trial Act of 1974 (as Amended 1979), Abt Associates, Cambridge, Mass.

Baker, S. H., and Sadd, S. (1981). Diversion of Felony Arrests: An Experiment in Pretrial Diversion, Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C.

Bridges, G. S. (1982). The Speedy Trial Act of 1974: Effects on delays in federal criminal litigation. J. Crim. Law CriminoL 73: 50-73.

Cannavale, F. J., Jr. (1976). Witness Cooperation, Lexington Books, Lexington, Mass. Church, T. W., Jr., Lee, J.-L. Q., Tan, T., Carlson, A., and McConnel, V. (1978a). Justice

Delayed: The Pace of Litigation in Urban Trial Courts, National Center for State Courts, Williamsburg, Va.

Church, T. W., Jr., Lee, J.-~ Q., Tan, T., Carlson, A., and McConnell, V. (1978b). Pretrial Delay: A Review and Bibliography, National Center for State Courts, Williamsburg, Va.

Cohn, A. (1974). Rule 50(b): Response of the district courts. Hearings before the Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights on S. 754. U.S. Congress, Senate, 93rd Congress, 1st Session.

Congressional Quarterly (1980). The Supreme Court and Individual Rights, CQ Press, Washing- ton, D.C.

Federal Judicial Center (1986). Federal Court Cases, 1970-1984: Integrated Data Bases, Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research, Ann Arbor; Mich.

Feeley, M. (1979). The Process is the Punishment: Handling Cases in the Lower Criminal Courts, Russel! Sage, New York.

Feeley, M. (1983). Court Reform on Trial, Basic Books, New York. Fort, B., Hoel, B. J., Simonitsch, J. M., and Heenan, P. (1978). Speedy Trial: Selected

Bibliolgraphy and Comparative Analysis of State Speedy Trial Provisions, Midwest Research Institute, Kansas City, Mo.

Frase, R. S. (1976). The Speedy Trial Act of 1974. Univ. Chicago Law Rev. 43: 667-723. Garner, J. H. (1986). Rule 50( b ) and the Federal Speedy Trial Act of1974: A Multiple Intervention,

Time-Series Analysis, Doctoral dissertation, George Washington University, Washington, D.C.

Grau, C. W., and Sheskin, A. (1982). Ruling Out Delay: The Impact of Ohio's Rules of Superintendence on the Administration of Justice, U.S. Government Printing Office, Wash- ington D.C.

Levin, M. A. (1977). Urban Polities and the Criminal Courts, University of Chicago Press, Chicago.

250 Garner

Lewis-Beck, M. S., and Alford, J. R. (1980). Can government regulate safety: The coal mine example. Am. Polit. Sci. Rev. 44: 745-756.

Mann, K. (1980). The speedy trial planning process. Harvard J. Legis. 17: 54-97. McCrone, D. J., and Hardy, R. J. (1978). Civil rights policies and the achievement of racial

economic equality, 1948-1975. Am. J. Polit. Sci. 22: 1-17. Misner, R. L. (1977). District court compliance with the speedy trial Act of 1974: The ninth

circuit experience. Ariz. State Law J. 1972. Misner, R. L. (1979). Delay, documentation, and the Speedy Trial Act. J. Crim. Law Criminol.

72: 214-234. Misner, R. L. (1981). The 1979 amendments to the Speedy Trial Act: Death of the planning

process. Hastings Law. J. 32: 635-657. National Bureau of Standards (1970). Compilation and Use of Criminal Court Data in Relation

_to Pretrial Release of Defendents: Pilot Study, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washing- ton, D.C.

Nimmer, R. T. (1975). Proseeutorial Disclosure and Judicial Reform--The Omnibus Hearing in Two Courts, American Bar Foundation, Chicago, I11.

Partridge, A. J. (1980). Legislative History of Title I of the Speedy Trial Act of 1974, Federal Judicial Center, Washington, D.C.

Pindyck, R. S. and Rubinfeld, D. L. (1981). Econometric Models and Economic Forecasts, McGraw-Hill, New York.

President's Commission on Law Enforcement and the Administrations of Justice (1967). Task Force Report: The Courts, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C.

Rehnquist, W. (1987). Remarks before the Conference on the State of the Judiciary, Charlottes- ville, Va., Apr. 12.

Ronhovde, K. M. (1974). The Right to a Speedy Trial and U.S. District Court Plans Under Fed. R. Cp. P. 50(b). Speedy Trial Act of 1974, Serial 42. Memorandum cited by U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on the Judiciary, 93rd Congress, 2nd Session, pp. 1090-1094.

Steinberg, M. I. (1977). Dismissal with and without prejudice under the Speedy Trial Act: A proposed interpretation, 3. Crim. Law Criminol. 60: 1-14.

Taft, W. H. (1908). The delays of the law, Yale Law J. 18: 1-14. U.S. Congress, House Committee on the Judiciary (1979). Speedy Trial Amendments of 1979.

Report to accompany S. 961, 96th Congress, 1st Session. U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on the Judiciary (1971). Speedy Trial Hearings before the

Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights on S. 395, 93rd Congress, 1st Session.

Documents

Delay reduction in the federal courts: Rule 50(b) and the Federal Speedy Trial Act of 1974