Judge Zayas on infrastructure for complex cases and problem-solving courts
Zayas explains dedicated court attorneys for homicides, felony sex crimes, and gang prosecutions, plus a 30% increase in problem-solving court staff statewide, serving over 31,000 New Yorkers last year.
We've also set up infrastructure in each borough to ensure that homicides, felony sex crimes, multiple defendant gang prosecutions, and other complex matters, which tend to be difficult to resolve,
move towards this position.
There are many reasons these cases get delayed.
The discovery can be voluminous, plea bargaining is more fraught, and scheduling is complicated because even in New York City, we have too few lawyers on both sides handling the most serious criminal cases.
This is why we've hired experienced court attorneys in each of our Supreme Courts to aggressively
conference these cases, identify barriers to progress, and develop firm plans for moving forward.
In addition, over the past two years, we have significantly ramped up the number of non-judicial personnel serving in our problem-solving courts statewide.
Statewide, we've added nearly 100 project directors, case managers, and resource coordinators,
amounting to a 30% increase in programmatic staff, which has allowed us to reduce caseloads in some of our busiest courts, particularly in New York City, and open new ones.
In fact, last year, problem-solving courts in the city's Supreme Courts served over 31...
100 New Yorkers, nearly 1,000 more than we served in 2022.
And credit for that must be shared with our district attorneys and our defense bar, who have demonstrated a laudable commitment to alternative forms of accountability in criminal cases.