Backlog

Baltimore court officials say they have reversed the trend that crippled the city's justice system: the ever-escalating backlog of criminal cases.Statistics released yesterday show that the number of defendants awaiting trial was slashed by 17 percent -- to 4,527 -- through the first six months of this year. In the same time period last year, that backlog had increased about 14 percent."An incredible number of people demonstrated that individually they would do whatever was necessary to attack the backlog of cases," Circuit Judge David B. Mitchell, chief of the city's criminal docket, said in a written statement.

I walked away from Aunt Hattie's Place the other day convinced that the answer to Baltimore's mess lies behind its doors. We wouldn't have a backlog of criminal cases without a backlog of criminals. And we wouldn't have a backlog of criminals if children, particularly boys born into poverty, were protected from abuse, neglect, violence and ignorance.``I have been a judge for more than 26 years and have unfortunately observed that in so many cases the defendants that appear today as youthful violent offenders were yesterday's abused and neglected children,'' says Judge Paul E. Alpert, retired from the bench but specially assigned to Baltimore Circuit Court.

State health officials are about to substantially increase their nursing home inspection staff after a federal audit report strongly criticized Maryland for long delays in responding to complaints of poor care from patients, their families and health care workers.Carol Benner, director of licensing and certification in the state Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, said that 10 inspectors will be added immediately to the staff of 35. Eight inspectors and two supervisors will be added this year.

Baltimore's administrative judge told state legislators yesterday that the courts have solved the crisis in the city's justice system that led to chronic trial delays and the release of several criminal suspects.In the past nine months, the criminal case backlog has been slashed, trial delays have been reduced and, for the first time in six years, judges and prosecutors are closing more cases than are being filed, Judge Ellen M. Heller, the city's new administrative judge, told lawmakers.

Threatened with budget cuts if Baltimore's court crisis is not fixed quickly, criminal justice leaders decided yesterday to staff a courtroom in the city jail with two judges while paving the way for reforms to clear a backlog of pending criminal cases.Prosecutors and judges pledged to phase in reforms that included switching the authority to charge criminal suspects from police to prosecutors, and placing judges at the city jail to hear criminal cases beginning as early as next week.The decisions were made as lawmakers in Annapolis threatened to withhold $18 million from criminal justice agencies unless immediate changes are made by prosecutors, police, public defenders and judges.

Environmental Elements Corp., a Baltimore-based firm that designs and builds air pollution control systems, yesterday reported net income of $351,000, or 5 cents per diluted share, for its third quarter that ended Dec. 31.For the corresponding period a year earlier, Environmental Elements posted a loss of $145,000, or 2 cents per share.Environmental Elements Chairman and Chief Executive Officer E. H. "Ted" Verdery said the company has been controlling costs and is finally seeing growth in its order backlog -- a key measure of a manufacturing company's health.

Environmental Elements Corp. announced first-quarter net income yesterday of $221,000, up 6.8 percent from the $207,000 reported for the first quarter of 1998. Earnings per diluted share remained unchanged at 3 cents in the three months that ended June 30.The Baltimore-based provider of air pollution control systems said it had revenue in the quarter of $11.8 million, down 40 percent from $16.5 million posted for the corresponding period a year ago.Ted Verdery, chairman and chief executive officer, said although revenue declined, "the work we are doing has a higher premium for the customer and earns a higher profit."

The Ryland Group Inc., on the heels of announcing plans to relocate its corporate headquarters to Southern California from Columbia, said yesterday that its third-quarter earnings and home sales shattered previous high-water marks.The homebuilder's net income of $18.1 million, or $1.21 per share, nearly doubled its results from the comparable quarter that ended Sept. 30 a year ago. The company's homebuilding pretax earnings of $35.4 million rose 41 percent compared with the third quarter of 1998.

Caught in a "crisis situation," the Anne Arundel County School Board struggled last night to make up for a $9 million budget shortfall that could mean eliminating elementary summer school, reducing the number of guidance counselors and resource teachers and slashing $1 million from school maintenance projects."

Charles R. Bauer got a $50 ticket for having a torn license nearly two years ago. Franklin D. Price was charged with driving through a red light 18 months ago. Just this week, both got their chance to fight the tickets in Baltimore traffic court.That's because thousands of people were ahead of them.A huge backlog of minor traffic cases in Baltimore's District Court has meant that some people seeking to challenge their tickets have to wait about 18 months to get into court. The wait has frustrated defendants and court officials alike.

Besides voting on the presidential and congressional races on Tuesday, Anne Arundel County voters will decide on two county-specific ballot questions - and for the first time - a retention vote on two county school board members. The board members are Tricia L. Johnson, who is currently serving her second five-year term as an at-large member, and Teresa Milio Birge, who joined the board in July, representing District 32. The vote comes after lawmakers revamped the school board appointment process, which was previously decided by gubernatorial appointment.

Government backlogs are far too familiar to Americans. Many disabled Americans must wait years to receive benefits from the Social Security Administration. Piles of unanalyzed DNA evidence are delaying justice nationwide. And hundreds of thousands of legal immigrants are stuck in line for citizenship because of a backlog of "name checks" at the FBI. But one backlog might top them all. About 730,000 inventors are waiting for patents - the right to a 20-year monopoly on the production and sale of their inventions.

Our passports expire in March. Does the passport backlog also affect renewals? Yes, renewals are also affected by the backlog, so you should apply soon (go to travel.state.gov and click on "Passports" to find the appropriate form). Many countries require that a passport be valid for at least six months beyond a person's travel dates, and often the only way to find out which ones have this rule is by calling their embassy or consulate. How long will you have to wait to get your passport renewed?

As part of an effort to shrink the backlog of unserved warrants, Anne Arundel County sheriff's deputies arrested 11 people and served 16 warrants over the weekend during a sweep of Glen Burnie. The backlog stood at 11,234 at the end of June, down nearly 800 from the start of the year. Sheriff Ronald S. Bateman said he is picking away at old warrants, some of which are more than two decades old, and recently worked out plans to erase about 400 warrants because the people sought are dead.

Authorities have ordered nearly 1,600 Baltimore residents who are on parole or probation to have genetic samples collected as part of what state police say is a plan to reduce the state's DNA database backlog. Similar notices will be sent out in the coming weeks and months. More than 6,000 city residents under the supervision of the Division of Parole and Probation never had DNA collected, said spokeswoman Elizabeth Bartholomew. Statewide, the number is more than 14,000. Bartholomew said some of those offenders might have been released years ago. The parole and probation division sent the initial orders for Baltimore residents by mail June 6, directing them to report to the 5th Regiment Armory on June 30. State police spokesman Gregory M. Shipley said he was confident that all 1,591 samples could be taken efficiently in the same day. Lab workers, crime scene technicians and police officers will set up an assembly line and take samples by quickly swabbing the inside of the donors' mouths, Shipley said.

Hundreds of thousands of Americans who are disabled and can't work often wait two to three years to receive benefits from the Social Security Administration. Americans teetering on the edge of financial ruin as they enter the disability system can only hope that the Woodlawn-based agency approves their claims on the first go-around. Those whose claims are denied twice face a virtual abyss. Once they appeal the denials, it takes applicants more than 500 days on average to get a final decision from an administrative law judge, who arbitrates disputes between the agency and those seeking aid. And the majority of people who appeal to these judges win, said Richard Warsinskey, president of the agency's managerial association.

Technicians, analysts and other staffers from the Baltimore Police Department's crime lab were honored yesterday for their efforts in achieving international accreditation for one of the department's busiest divisions. Police officials said the honor from the American Society of Crime Lab Directors/Laboratory Accreditation Board was a major milestone for a crucial part of the department's crimefighting efforts. More than 350 crime labs across the world have received the accreditation, officials said.

Former Anne Arundel County parks director Dennis Callahan questioned yesterday the leadership of Sheriff George F. Johnson IV, pointing to a backlog of thousands of warrants in the sheriff's office as proof that his fellow Democrat is ill-qualified to be county executive. In the sharpest broadside yet among the seven county executive candidates seeking to succeed Democrat Janet S. Owens, Callahan sought to gain ground on Johnson, the perceived front-runner for the party nomination. Callahan noted statistics from a recent article in The Examiner, which reported that the sheriff's office had failed to serve more than 11,000 warrants.

The weekly telephone calls to Honduras are the toughest of all. They only seem to widen the gulf between Ana Andino and her mother, Ana Enriquez, in Baltimore and the rest of the family back home waiting to join them. Although mother and daughter have followed all the legal steps to ensure that Enriquez's four other children join them as legal immigrants, like hundreds of thousands of families stuck in the nation's labyrinthine immigration system, they must wait. Immigrant families can be separated for years - and in extreme cases, decades - because of a huge backlog of cases and a complexity of rules that give priority to some family members, while leaving others behind.

The Baltimore engineering company recruited Raj Patel from Ontario, Canada. In the hope that he would stay for good, the firm applied for a green card from the federal immigration service to ensure that Patel would be able to live and work permanently in the United States. Patel seized the opportunity, expecting to become a legal permanent resident within a year. Two years later, he is among an estimated 350,000 skilled professionals forced to live in limbo as their applications meander through a huge backlog of immigration cases, a wait that can take a decade.