Municipal Court Operations - March 2011
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Municipal Court Operations
Released March 2011 Download the Full Report here Download highlights here We undertook this audit at the request of Atlanta City Council. The council, in Resolution No. 10-R-0402, asked us to audit the Municipal Court, and the Offices of the Solicitor and Public Defender. Council members expressed concerns about court operations and citizen complaints since the abolishment of the traffic court and merger of the traffic court functions into municipal court. |
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We found:
- The court could handle its existing workload with four courtrooms; cutting the number of judges and court staff could save $2.3 million annually
- Even with an uptick in the number of traffic and criminal tickets filed, case workload in the last six months of fiscal year 2010 required judges to spend only 28% of their time on the bench
- The court workload would have to more than double to justify the use of nine courtrooms
- During the last six months of fiscal year 2010, courtrooms were not staffed to the level the chief judge, city solicitor, and city public defender identified as preferable
- Absences did not appear to affect the court’s ability to process the caseload; we conclude that reviving the use of pro hac judges — substitute judges to cover absences — does not appear to be warranted