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Dallas County leaders raise alarm over thousands of unresolved criminal cases and drug-lab delays
Summary
County officials pressed for answers after staff presented a report showing thousands of criminal cases still needing disposition, repeated passings of older cases and slow drug analysis after a vendor change, and asked staff to get more detailed jail and case-status data from clerks and courts.
Dallas County officials pressed staff on May 6 about a large backlog of unresolved criminal cases and delays in drug analysis that county leaders said are keeping people in custody and slowing prosecutions.
Commissioners and court staff flagged a report showing about 7,900 cases filed from 2019 through 2023 that must be disposed of by Aug. 1 for the county to meet a 90% disposition target. Commissioner John Wiley Price and others pointed to individual cases that have been “passed” dozens of times — with examples in the meeting transcript of cases passed 15, 40 and even 53 times — and asked why cases that appear active have not moved toward trial or disposition.
The county’s criminal-justice and clerk’s staff told the court they are reviewing the lists to determine whether defendants are in jail or out on bond and why settings were repeatedly delayed. A…
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