Backlog

In the past month, Baltimore judges and lawyers have plowed through roughly 400 asbestos-injury cases that have languished for more than a decade - starting to clear out an enormous backlog, but spurring concerns of fairness from defense attorneys. Nearly 350 of the Circuit Court cases have been settled out of court. Thirty-five cases have been decided by juries. Other cases have been dismissed or postponed in the first major group of cases set for trial. A jury deciding 26 of the cases will resume deliberating Monday.

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.

Dozens of criminal case files crowd Roy Michael Jones' desk, shelves and 10th-floor windowsill at Baltimore police headquarters, awaiting his well-trained eye to inspect one of the most telling of human signatures. He studies fingerprint after fingerprint, but the stack of pending cases never seems to shrink. The crime lab where he works is 1,000 cases behind, worrying police officials who say that justice and the search for suspects can be dangerously delayed. The backlog stems from a shortage of examiners that officials say is troubling police departments nationwide.

WASHINGTON - Congress returns today to a backlog of major issues - including U.S. policy toward Iraq, homeland security and the federal budget - a pile of unfinished business so vast that many lawmakers are resigned to holding a lame-duck session after the November elections. The workload has two sources: partisan tensions that have slowed basic budget decisions and bipartisan determination to tackle such time-con suming initiatives as a department of homeland security. What's more, Congress immediately will be drawn into an escalating debate over whether to go to war with Iraq - an issue that has been catapulted to new prominence during the month Congress has been on summer recess.

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.

Anne Arundel County joined seven other Maryland jurisdictions yesterday that have agreed to collect genetic samples from convicted criminals for the state's DNA database - helping the state police whittle away at a backlog of unsampled convicts that had grown to an estimated 13,500. The partnership is part of an effort by Col. Thomas E. "Tim" Hutchins, state police superintendent, to sign up other law enforcement agencies to help collect the samples, which are then sent to the state police crime lab to be entered into the state's DNA database.

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.

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.

From leaking roofs to rutted asphalt, Anne Arundel County schools have amassed a maintenance backlog of $65 million, and the amount keeps getting larger.A school system plan for major maintenance projects shows that school facilities are deteriorating beyond the ability of the system to pay for and make repairs. Officials report schools where carpeting is threadbare, windows leak and paint is flaking.The maintenance backlog has grown from $35 million in the late 1980s as facilities have aged and deteriorated, and as makeshift repairs have been made to stave off major work.

A state-declared moratorium on planning approval for school construction means local districts might never see a dime in Maryland money to help pay for millions in renovations and new buildings over the next several years. Among the 29 projects denied planning approval this year, 13 were in Howard County, said Bruce Venter, the school system's chief business officer. The freeze was put into place late last month so the state could deal with a $260 million backlog of sanctioned projects awaiting funding.