Ellicott City resident D. Edwards was late.
The telecommunications company employee, who works a tech support night shift, tried to make it to Howard County District Court by 10 a.m. - her appointed time in traffic court - but Wednesday morning's icy streets slowed her.
She figured that arriving 20 minutes late wouldn't make much of a difference - the last time she was in traffic court, she sat for more than two hours.
Not here. Not today. By 10:15 a.m., Judge Neil Edward Axel had disposed of the 10 a.m. docket - thanks to a lot of no-shows - and Edwards was standing at the clerk's counter, asking for a new court date for her traffic cases.
Even by Howard County's traffic court standards, the session proceeded quickly. But under a pilot scheduling system for minor traffic matters, in place since the summer, the longest someone accused of speeding or running a stop sign might wait these days is one hour.
That's because the county now schedules six sessions daily where it used to schedule two - one each in the morning and afternoon. Instead of up to 100 names per docket, each contains about 35. Instead of lasting as long as three hours, the sessions last less than one.
Other Maryland counties have expressed interest in making similar changes in their traffic court schedules, court officials said. At least three have made changes or plan to do so. Others plan to use the program that created Howard's new schedule to squeeze additional sessions for other types of cases, such as domestic violence, into their days.
The packed courtroom
It's a far cry from the old days in Howard County's District Court, when alleged violators, police officers and attorneys would pack the parking lot and cram into a single courtroom to wait their turn before a judge.
"I blocked out the whole morning from the office," Howard Shore, a project engineer from Olney, said Wednesday. By 10:10 a.m., 10 minutes after the first case was called, he was finished. Axel found him not guilty of speeding because the officer failed to show for court. "It's great," Shore said.
The idea for the shorter sessions arose from a national conference Chief District Judge Martha F. Rasin attended in Phoenix, Ariz., some time ago. Although Rasin and other Maryland officials knew they were at the forefront in several court initiatives, they learned that other court systems schedule cases differently.
"Someone turned around and said, `You still do a cattle-call docket in your courts?' " she said.
When she returned, Rasin asked for a guinea pig to test the multiple sessions, and Howard County's administrative judge, James N. Vaughan, and administrative clerk, Nancy Mueller, volunteered.
The change required a new computer program - the old system allowed a maximum of three traffic sessions a day - and has obvious benefits, Mueller said. With fewer people scheduled for court at one time, a shortage of parking spaces would be less likely, and the lines at the metal detector would be shorter.
Patricia Platt, the chief clerk for the District Court system, said she has heard that since the changes went into effect, "people weren't as angry" after a Howard traffic court session.
However, Vaughan and Mueller said, the public might not know that the schedule has been changed. Many people don't have a lot of experience with the courts, Vaughan said.
"They don't realize the difference until they go to another place," he said.
Carroll County, which is part of the same judicial district as Howard, is expected to start scheduling the shorter sessions in June, replacing the twice-daily dockets with four a day - 50 cases a session compared with the current 85, Mueller said.
Platt said court officials in District 3, which includes five shoreline counties, have asked about increasing the number of sessions they schedule.
That's not to say that all Maryland's cities and counties are going to make the change - or do things as Howard does, Rasin said. But the computer program, which allows them to schedule more sessions, provides flexibility for District Courts to handle "more cases and in different ways," she said. A court, for example, might decide to add a fourth docket to address domestic violence matters. Baltimore County's District Court has looked at that option, according to court officials there.
`Our petri dish'
The new system has not been free of glitches.
Some officers have complained when their cases have been spread among the three morning sessions instead of scheduled during one.
Court officials say they have worked to streamline that process.
Howard County Police Department spokeswoman Sherry Llewellyn said such problems were the result of "internal" scheduling issues but have been worked out. The new traffic court schedule has allowed officers an easier in and out of District Court, she said.
"We like the change," she said. "It's eliminated that waiting time."
Also, gaps between sessions are too short to be used effectively, court officials said. With the longer sessions, a judge would use time at the end to address other matters or emergency cases.
But that's the value of a pilot program, Rasin said. Howard is "our petri dish," she said.
