Accession Number:

ADA399612

Title:

The One-Courtroom, One-Judge Policy: A Preliminary Review

Descriptive Note:

CBO paper

Corporate Author:

CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET OFFICE (U S CONGRESS) WASHINGTON DC

Personal Author(s):

Report Date:

2000-04-01

Pagination or Media Count:

18.0

Abstract:

Businesses, the military, government agencies, and nonprofit organizations frequently use mathematical techniques to improve their understanding of the operation of complex systems and to help ensure the efficient use of resources. This Congressional Budget Office CBO analysis applies one such technique to simulate the flow of trials through a federal court system and to assess the impact on trial delays of providing less than one courtroom per judge. The analysis is based on data collected by the General Accounting Office GAO it indicates that the sharing of courtrooms by judges should not cause major trial delays, as some have suggested. More specifically, most examples examined by CBO illustrate that courtroom sharing would not cause delays for more than 95 percent of trials and that for those few that were delayed, the waiting time would generally average less than half a day. CBOs analysis has important limitations, however, and firmer conclusions would require further research.

Descriptors:

• *EFFICIENCY
• *COMMERCIAL LAW
• IMPACT
• MATHEMATICAL ANALYSIS
• OPERATION
• DELAY
• RESOURCES

Subject Categories:

• Statistics and Probability
• Sociology and Law

Distribution Statement:

APPROVED FOR PUBLIC RELEASE