U.S. Judges in S.D. Handle the Most Cases : Courts: Drug, immigration disputes help push number of cases filed per judge to three times the national average.

San Diego’s federal judges have the heaviest criminal caseload of any federal court in the United States, according to statistics just released in Washington.

Providing statistical support for the often-repeated cry from the San Diego bench that the court is being overwhelmed by drug and immigration cases, a federal judicial management office disclosed that during fiscal 1991, the 145 criminal cases filed per judge in San Diego was three times the national average.

Time spent on the criminal load created two significant ripples on the civil docket, the statistics showed. It quickened the pace of settlements before a trial but delayed the time it took to get a case to a trial. In essence, more disputes are settling quicker in part because it takes longer to actually get a day in court, judges and lawyers said.

The San Diego court traditionally has been loaded with criminal cases linked to the U.S.-Mexico border, but never before this overloaded. And the dubious distinction of this year’s climb to No. 1 has wrought an insidious change on the quality of justice at the court, judges and lawyers said.

That change is a foreboding one for the federal courts nationwide, which traditionally have been a quiet haven where judges have the mandate and the time to take on weighty economic issues and the great debates of civil rights and constitutional law, judges and lawyers said.

With a substantial rise this past year in new felonies, the San Diego court largely has turned into a “police court” where the judges are under constant pressure to keep the cases moving as fast as possible, said Judith Keep, chief judge of the San Diego court.

The result is a “certain assembly-line justice to keep on top of it,” Keep said, adding that the “cases aren’t getting the attention they deserve.”

“The federal courts, as one person eloquently put it, have historically set the morality for the country as well as the economic climate. And we are not having the chance to do that at all,” she said. “We’re just trying to keep abreast of criminal cases.”

Year after year, the San Diego court has always struggled to keep pace with the criminal workload. In fiscal 1990, for instance, its judges had the nation’s seventh highest per-judge criminal load, according to the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts.

The San Diego court--which hears cases from the nation’s sixth-largest city, from the length of California’s border with Mexico and from the rest of San Diego and Imperial counties--has eight full-time judgeships. One of those eight was just created in December, 1990.

In fiscal 1991, which ended June 30, that smallish bench encountered a significant rise in new felonies filed, fueling the rise to No. 1.

According to statistics released by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, the U.S. Attorney’s office in San Diego filed 1,123 indictments in fiscal 1991. That marked a 24% rise from the 907 indictments filed in fiscal 1990. Indictments detail felony charges, meaning those that can lead to a year or more in prison.

The Administrative Office added to the total 36 cases that were transferred to San Diego after indictments originally were issued elsewhere, swelling the figure slightly, to 1,159.

Dividing 1,159 indictments by eight judges yielded the 145 felonies per judge. It’s that figure that far and away leads the nation, the Administrative Office said.

The No. 2 court, in Asheville, N.C., with three judgeships, took on only 385 new cases, or 128 felonies per judge, the Administrative Office said. The third-ranked court, serving the Virgin Islands, has two judgeships, both of which are vacant, and 253 filings, or 126 felonies awaiting each new judge.

The national average, the Administrative Office said, was 52 felonies per judge.

Federal courts in other big cities across the nation--cities widely reputed to have more serious crime problems than San Diego--had significantly lower per-judge rates than the San Diego court. But those other big-city courts have many more judges.

In Los Angeles, with 27 judgeships, the court took in a total of 1,122 new indictments and transferred cases--less than the San Diego total of 1,159.

At 27 judges, that equaled 42 cases per judge, 56th in the country, the Administrative Office said. There are 94 federal district courts.

The federal court in Miami, ranked eighth in the nation, at 98 felonies per judge. Houston ranked ninth, with 96 felonies per judge.

Manhattan, which has 28 judgeships, ranked 77th. Chicago was 82nd. Philadelphia was 92nd.

Though No. 1 in the country, the San Diego figure actually is misleading. The real rate per judge is even higher.

Allocated eight judgeships, the San Diego court operated from Jan. 1 through May 31, 1991, with only five full-time judges. At five judges, 1,160 felonies meant a whopping 193 cases per judge. That’s nearly five times more than the rate for Los Angeles judges.

In addition, many of the indictments were brought against multiple defendants, on the average 1.6 per case, meaning they were more complex and generally took more time and work to resolve, the Administrative Office said.

Keep said that the statistics bring into sharp focus the need for a fully staffed bench.

The judicial vacancy created last December has always been open. The other vacancies came about when Judge William Enright took senior, or part-time, status last year upon reaching 65, and Judge J. Lawrence Irving resigned last Dec. 31 to protest rigid new criminal sentencing rules.

On May 31, San Diego lawyer Marilyn Huff was sworn in as the sixth judge on the bench. The other two vacancies--Irving’s and the new spot--remain vacant. Four senior judges, those over age 65, sit part-time, but they are not nearly enough, Keep said.

San Diego lawyer Jim McIntyre and Vista Superior Court Judge Irma Gonzalez have been recommended by U.S. Sen. John Seymour (R-Calif.) to fill the two open slots. But it could be months before either is formally nominated by President Bush for U.S. Senate confirmation.

“It’s frustrating that the vacancies are unfilled,” Keep said. “I realize a lot of political machinations are going on between the senator and President. But if they are really going to declare a war on crime, it is unconscionable to let the vacancies sit as long as they have.”

In San Diego, the war on crime is primarily a war on drugs and illegal immigrants, the statistics indicate.

Of the 1,123 indictments filed by San Diego prosecutors, 25%, or 285, were immigration cases, typically alien smuggling, the Administrative Office said.

An additional 24%, 272, were marijuana cases. And 21%, 230, were narcotics busts, the Administrative Office said. In all, immigration and drug cases totaled 70% of the load.

The remaining 30% were embezzlement, weapons, escape, burglary, forgery, fraud, assault, robbery or other kinds of cases, the Administrative Office said.

U.S. Attorney William Braniff, who has continued the historical pattern of making so-called “border busts” a San Diego prosecutorial priority, said that priority was eminently reasonable.

“The problem is you’ve got to deal with what’s happening,” Braniff said. “The alternative is to do nothing in these areas.”

Braniff’s office has grown by about a dozen lawyers over the past year or so, to a total of 90 attorneys. In fiscal 1991, his office brought 25% more immigration indictments than the year before, 75% more marijuana indictments and 7% more narcotics indictments, the statistics showed.

Keep commended Braniff for trying to keep things manageable. “Bill has been very fair,” Keep said. “He’s tried. But he’s getting all this pressure from Washington,” referring to the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, D.C.

Braniff said he wouldn’t call it “pressure.” There are “certain national goals and we are trying to do our part to fulfill those goals,” he said.

Civil lawyers have goals, too--if they can ever get into a courtroom. But because of speedy trial guarantees in criminal cases, civil cases get pushed onto what Keep called the “back burner.”

In fiscal 1991, the median time it took to get to a trial in the San Diego court was 21 months, the statistics indicated, a three-month jump in one year alone from the 18-month median in fiscal 1990.

Under a plan adopted last month, the court will take each judge out of the draw for new criminal cases for two months each year, providing that judge with time to try civil cases. The plan, which begins about the turn of the year, has a ways to go.

“I haven’t tried a civil case since August, 1989,” Judge John S. Rhoades said last week.

Leading civil lawyer Tony Sinclitico, the managing partner of the San Diego office of California’s largest law firm, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, said that from the bar’s perspective, the criminal load unquestionably has made things tougher on the civil docket.

“If you’ve got a civil trial date, extraordinary effort goes into preparing for that date, and you’ve got no guarantee you’re going to go to trial on that date,” Sinclitico said.

As the felony rate was climbing 24% in fiscal 1991, the rate of civil filings was down 3%, from 1,923 to 1,861, the statistics showed.

And though it took longer in fiscal 1991 to get to a trial, cases that settled without a trial did so faster, the statistics indicated. Most civil cases--court clerk William Luddy said 90% or more--settle before a trial.

The median time from filing to disposition, whether by trial or a settlement, fell in fiscal 1991 from 12 to 10 months.

The judges are too busy to take on the sensitive job of actively trying long before a trial to settle a civil suit, lawyers and the judges said. So the court’s five magistrates do it, when they’re not otherwise busy setting bail in felony cases or presiding over the trials of the thousands of less-serious misdemeanor criminal cases.

“I’m glad we’re busy,” said Brewster, who has been on the court since 1984. “I didn’t take the job to retire. Although to be honest with you, I’d rather be trying civil cases.”