Superior Court Speedy Trial Policy

Unless the court record establishes that there is no basis for believing a defendant’s speedy trial rights may have been violated, where the defendant is not incarcerated, every misdemeanor case pending without disposition after 6 months from the date of entry and every felony case pending without disposition after 9 months from the date of an indictment shall be scheduled forthwith for a show cause hearing as to whether, under the principles of Barker v. Wingo, 407 U.S. 514, 92 S. Ct 2182, 33 L.Ed2d 101 (1972), the case should be dismissed for lack of a speedy trial.

Unless the court record establishes that there is no basis for believing a defendant’s speedy trial rights may have been violated, where the defendant is incarcerated, every case pending without disposition after 4 months from the date of entry or indictment shall be scheduled forthwith for a show cause hearing as to whether, under the principles of Barker v. Wingo, 407 U.S. 514, 92 S.Ct 2182, 33 L.Ed2d 101 (1972), the case should be dismissed for lack of a speedy trial.

When a defendant has filed a waiver of speedy trial rights, the case shall be rescheduled by the Clerk and the foregoing periods shall run from the date of such waiver.

Monitoring System for the Speedy Trial Policy

To implement the Superior Court policy on speedy trial, the Chief Justice of the Superior Court shall require the clerks to prepare and maintain a speedy trial report. In addition, the Chief Justice shall annually designate a justice to be the criminal case monitoring justice to oversee the policy in each court as of April 1 of each year.  The Chief Justice as well as the criminal case monitoring justice will receive a copy of the monthly speedy trial report by the seventh day of each month.  In consultation with the clerk of that court, the criminal case monitoring justice shall be responsible to see that the speedy trial policy is being adhered to and in addition to see that the criminal docket is arranged so as to avoid the 4 month and 9 month “show cause” hearings to the maximum extent possible through the case scheduling process.  The monthly monitoring reports shall list in numerical sequence all active criminal cases pending for longer than 3 months, that is those not dismissed, nol prossed or in which sentences have not been imposed.  The clerk of each court shall provide the senior presiding justice in that court with copies of the monthly monitoring reports.
On a quarterly basis the Chief Justice of the Superior Court shall ensure that the speedy trial reports from all ten counties are available electronically to the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court to assist the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in determining what changes, if any, may be necessary in the monitoring process.