Court officials point to discovery, attorney turnover and continuances as main causes of trial delays

Nancy Mead, general counsel for the Alaska Court System, told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Feb. 24, 2025, that a mix of discovery volume, attorney turnover and repeated continuances are the primary reasons criminal cases in Alaska are taking longer to reach disposition. "This is something that the court system has been concerned about in looking at for decades," Mead said.

Mead said the state’s unsentenced or pretrial incarcerated population rose from about 1,300 in 2016 to roughly 1,500 in early 2019, peaked near 2,300 in 2022 and has fallen to about 2,000 on a recent snapshot. She noted that figure can represent about 50% of the incarcerated population on any given day but said the absolute numbers matter more than the percentage when assessing pretrial pressure. "That delay is generally because of the work that DOC has to do to prepare a pre sentence report," Mead explained of delays that follow convictions but precede sentencing.

The courts measure caseload pressure with pending-case counts and clearance rates. Mead told the committee the court’s snapshot of pending cases fell from about 15,700 on Jan. 1, 2024 (about 6,440 felonies and 9,313 misdemeanors) to roughly 10,300 on Jan. 1, 2025 (about 4,900 felonies and 6,000 misdemeanors). She said felony clearance over the most recent two-year period was about 101 percent, meaning the system closed slightly more cases than it opened during that span.

On time-to-disposition, Mead provided median timelines she said reflect the typical case: misdemeanor A cases under six months, misdemeanor B under four months, C felonies about six months, B felonies about 10 months and A felonies about 13 months. Unclassified felonies carry a much longer median — she said about three years — and that longer median is driven by a smaller number of complex cases (about 283 unclassified cases in that outlier group, Mead said). "If you have a case taking 7, 8, 9 years to get to disposition, there is no way to justify that," she said.

Mead described three core levers that affect the pretrial incarcerated population: the number of arrests/charges filed, bail and pretrial supervision. She said Alaska’s Pretrial Enforcement Division — established under SB 91 — remains available to supervise people released into the community and can reduce jail population because supervised defendants do not occupy a correctional bed.

Committee members pressed Mead on who asks for continuances and why. Senator Myers, vice chair of the committee, asked whether violations of release conditions are typically deliberate refusals or violations after release; Mead said violations are usually the latter and often detected through monitoring or testing. Mead told Senator Klayman, the committee chair, that most continuances are requested by the defense and agreed to by prosecutors, though the reverse can happen when prosecutors lack staff. She warned judges can be reluctant to deny continuances when a newly substituted attorney is not prepared because a forced trial under those circumstances can create a strong ineffective-assistance-of-counsel appeal.

Mead highlighted discovery as an increasingly heavy burden: phone and computer data can amount to terabytes of material that prosecutors and defense counsel must review, she said, and that work routinely lengthens pretrial timelines. She also described tools the court uses to accelerate resolution, including "trailing calendars" that set multiple trials to begin the same day to increase settlement pressure, and the use of pro tem (retired) judges to cover trial weeks when active judges are otherwise scheduled.

To limit avoidable delay, Mead walked the committee through several presiding-judge orders included in the committee packet. She said Anchorage and superior-court orders set time caps for the pre-indictment hearing (PIH) phase: B and C felonies are generally limited to 60 days in the PIH period, with discovery provided no later than 30 days and pretrial motions to be filed within 90 days. An order referenced for Anchorage limits A and unclassified felonies in the PIH phase to 180 days and instructs judges that "good cause" will not include outstanding discovery, ongoing plea negotiations or substitution of counsel. Mead said off-record continuances (a COVID-era practice) are no longer permitted in Anchorage.

Committee members asked about remedies and whether rules could be codified. Mead said the court is considering amendments to Criminal Rule 45 and that a time-standards committee, with input from the National Center for State Courts, is drafting rule language for the Supreme Court to consider; she estimated a court-rule amendment could appear within months to a year.

The committee also explored how caseloads and staffing affect the problem. Mead said improving prosecutor and public defender staffing and reducing turnover would allow attorneys to prepare cases sooner and reduce continuances. "If there were, you know, twice as many public defenders and twice as many prosecutors cases would go faster," she said, noting the court will eventually seek additional judges if filings and complexity continue to rise.

The meeting record shows the committee sought additional distribution of case-disposition distributions (beyond medians) and other supporting data; Mead said she would look to provide more detailed charts and explanatory material to the committee.

Ending: Committee members said they intend to continue oversight of court timeliness and indicated interest in both court-rule changes and potential legislative or budgetary steps to reduce attorney turnover and support case processing. No formal votes or legislative actions were taken at the Feb. 24 meeting.