DA: Backlog of cases whittled to 135,000

Baytown Sun

Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg sat down with The Baytown Sun to talk about criminal justice issues. Rising violent crime, a revolving door bail system, the backlog of cases and upcoming trials of Baytown law enforcement personnel were all included.

Revolving door

Like many residents, Ogg blames much of the recent spike in violent crime on judges who release suspects with a history of violence on low or no bail.

She said in 2019 the county entered into a settlement agreement from a lawsuit claiming the county required excessive bail for non-violent misdemeanor offenses. At the same time, there was a big turnover in elected judges.

“That this notion was only supposed to affect misdemeanors is true — that’s the paper version, but that’s not the reality,” Ogg said.

The system of setting bail changed.

“I don’t know if it made sense or why they did it, but what it did was, they changed it for all defendants. All accused came through a different process than they used to,” she said. “While the settlement only affected misdemeanors on paper, by changing the process it affected all offenders, and that’s when you saw the release of repeat violent offenders start.”

According to one chart, there were 9,825 offenders charged with new crimes while on bond in 2018. By 2021 that more than doubled to 22,610.

Through legislative changes and public pressure, Ogg said she expects a decrease in 2022 to about 20,488 — still more than double 2018 number.

Possibly more dramatic is another chart that reports that in 2018, there were 2,609 people charged with new crimes who were already out on bond for two or more charges. By 2021, that increased to 10,428. Of those, 141 had at least eight bonds at the time of the new charge.

A consequence of the tightening is that jail population is increasing again, though Ogg said the county has a large unused jail that could be repaired and put back into service if commissioners chose to.

Of the people in the county jail awaiting trial who have not yet been convicted, she said most — 5,011 out of 8,878 — pretrial detainees are being tried for violent offenses. There are no pre-trial detainees whose only charge is for marijuana possession, she said.

Backlog

Ogg said the backlog of cases, which include misdemeanors, felonies, juvenile cases and both active and inactive cases, reached a high of 152,000. In a year, that was whittled to 135,000.

She said some non-violent cases were dropped through pre-trial diversion, in which a defendant is able to get the charges dropped by completing substance abuse treatment, taking classes, paying restitution or other methods. In others, some charges were dropped where persons were charged with multiple offenses in a single incident.

Ogg said she will not accept a request from Commissioners Court to dismiss up to 30,000 misdemeanor cases without any review. “This is a violation of our duty and it would be very unfair to the crime victims in those cases, and the police officers who arrested those individuals to fail to hold anyone accountable in an effort to reduce our numbers.”

The DA said several issues have contributed to the backlog. First, she said, Harris County simply has fewer prosecutors per capita than other large urban counties. She estimated it would take 100 more prosecutors to adequately staff the office.

The physical office space has been another issue after the Criminal Justice Center was heavily dam-aged in Hurricane Harvey, forcing her staff to be scattered over 11 buildings across the county. As repairs continue and some staff can return, she said the office is down to five buildings and will soon be in three.

COVID, of course, created issues both for her staff and also a slowdown in the courts.

Baytown officers

Baytown police officer Juan Delacruz, charged in the 2019 shooting death of Pamela Turner, is set to appear in court Wednesday for a pre-trial conference.

“That’s been two years,” she said. “I think what I want to do is assure the community that with the backlog created by the challenges of Harvey and COVID, justice is requiring a lot of patience, but we’ll get there.

“The fact that the officer was indicted and charged is a significant change from the way prior district attorneys’ administrations handled these officer-involve shootings. It’s a significant movement in our goal of holding everyone equal under the law.

“Whether the officer is found guilty is a fact question that’s going to be answered by the community, and I think that when people have a chance to participate in their justice system as jurors—they may be from Baytown; they may not be from Baytown—but it gives people a feeling of hope that they can be part of a system that works, a system of laws and courts that result in accountability,” Ogg said.

She said the change is not anti-police. “We know 99% of the officers out there are doing their best. Juries are forgiving many mistakes that law enforcement officers make, because mistakes aren’t criminal. So whether the facts in the two pending cases that we have are criminal or not is going to come down to a decision by twelve regular people sitting on a trial jury who will listen to the evi-dence and hopefully decide fairly.”

The other case involves two police officers and a jailer who are charged with injuring Kedric Craw-ford while he was being questioned. Those defendants, Shane Dunlap, Samuel Serrett and Teddy Sims, have their next court appearance Sept. 27.