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A new Harris County felony court has finished its first few days in an expansion local officials hope will start to address a longtime backlog in criminal cases.
Wednesday, Sept. 1 was the first day for the 482nd Judicial District Court at Harris County Criminal Courts at Law in the county's justice center on Franklin Street in Houston to hear cases in Harris County, the third largest county in the nation.
"In our efforts to cut the criminal court backlog, we lobbied the legislature for a new court, the first in decades," Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo said in a Twitter post the same day. "Thanks to our Harris County delegation, that new court becomes official today, with Commissioners Court funding committed."
The 482nd district court is the first felony court to open in Houston since the 1980s and follows decades of tremendous population growth but no new criminal district judges, the Houston Chronicle reported the same day.
The new court spent its first few days with judges, prosecutors, administrators and defense attorneys after a huge backlog of 98,000 docketed cases have been waiting since near the end of July, more than half of them felonies. On its first day alone, the new court had 2,442 active cases, 111 cases from each existing court’s docket, the Houston Chronicle reported citing information from felony court Administrative Judge Kelli Johnson.
Before the new court, existing felony judges at the justice center were averaging almost 2,400 cases on each of their dockets by the end of July.
In June, Gov. Greg Abbott signed the new district court into law.
Johnson said in the Houston Chronicle news report that she's grateful that there's a new felony court taking on cases, but that more is needed. The court system has asked for two more visiting judges and staff, which would cost about $890,000.
"A little over 100 cases per court is not even going to make a dent," Johnson said. "Unfortunately, we needed a lot more district courts."