Engram

In recent years, the Superior Court of Riverside County (hereafter Riverside Superior Court or Riverside court) has been severely overburdened by the substantial number of criminal cases awaiting trial in that county. The presumptive time period established by state law for bringing a felony case to trial is 60 days from the date a defendant is arraigned on an information or indictment. (Pen. Code, § 1382.) Nonetheless, a task force of experienced trial and appellate judges that was established specifically to assess and assist with the criminal case backlog in Riverside County reported in 2007: “Information from the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department showed that nearly 25 percent of jail inmates had been awaiting trial for more than one. year. One hundred seventy-seven inmates had been awaiting trial for more than two years, 32 inmates were awaiting trial for more than four years, and in one case the delay was an astonishing eight years.” (Riverside Criminal Backlog Reduction Task Force, Rep. to Jud. Council of Cal. (Aug. 1, 2008) p. 5 (Riverside Task Force Report) [as of Oct. 25, 2010].)

To address…