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Alaska’s Supreme Court has put new restrictions on how long criminal cases can be delayed, some of the efforts to reduce time, which many criminal defendants have been waiting for clashes in court in the state.
Court orderThe entry into force on May 12, forcing state judges to allow no more than 270 days of new criminal delay filed in 2022. The court data shows that about 800 active cases fall into this category, making each more than 800 days and counts.
Follows the transition to reduce delay Investigation PROPUBLICA AND ANCHORAGE DAILY NEWS who found that some cases have taken as a long decade reach a jury potentially violating the rights of victims and defendants.
The time of resolving the most serious cases of Alaska crime, such as murder and sexual attack, almost three times in the last decades. The defenders of the rights of the victims have long complained that the delays of the judges, especially in the anchridge, where about half of the cases affected by the Supreme Court. Some cases have been going on for so long that victims or witnesses died meanwhile.
In addition to limiting the duration of delay, the Supreme Court ruling Supreme Court states that the judges should explain why they allowed any delay request.
“This is a positive step in court to be able to work with lawyers to move cases,” said state senator Matt Klaman, D-Anchorage, chairman of the judicial committee who held hearing on pre-trial delays in February.
Alaska Rebecord Court’s press -secretary said that the new Supreme Court ruling, issued on March 12, decides “the most urgent concern”.
The time it takes to close the oldest cases is “extremely long,” she said, “and we need to solve them.
The ruling of the Supreme Court states that the judges in cases up to 2023 should allow only 90 days of new delay at the request of protection, 90 days for prosecutors and 90 days for “other periods of delay in good cause”.
Koford said that an example of why the case could be delayed for a good cause would be if the witness is temporarily unavailable. Extra effort is made to reduce the time that is required to get to the trial, she said.
“We do not view it as a decision; this is part of the decision,” Koford said.
Alaska’s criminal rules are granted the accused the right to court within 120 days after the crime. Victims of crimes are entitled to a “timely disposal” of their case within the framework of the State Constitution.
The 120-day term is rarely performed. One case of sexual attack Dedicated Daily News and PROPUBLICA were submitted in 2014 and stuck more than 70 times. This case has now been established for the trial on April 1.
Several high -ranking state officials talked about the need for delay, as the information organizations emphasized the issue in January.
Susan M. Karni told the state legislators On February 12, the judicial system worked to stop the delay, noting the recent news. Later, this month, the Senate Bodies Committee held a hearing focused on pre -trial delays when the Court General Nancy Mid told the legislators that recently allocated cases in the news were unacceptable, but the criminal cases were outstanding.
“The time it takes to solve the case is definitely longer than 20 years ago. None of this is happy,” Mid testified.
The new order signed by Karni and the other Supreme Court of Alaska said that the judicial order of 2023 led to a “decline” in what the court characterized as “constant backlogs”. In the present order, the court said that “it is intended to facilitate further reduction of time to the disposal of these senior criminal cases without excessive delay.”
The order also affects the delay caused if the lawyers do not provide evidence of the confrontation in a timely manner. It states that the judges should consider sanctions, including the deviation of the allegations if the prosecutor’s office does not provide evidence or forbidden the missing evidence in court.
