The Cost of Santa Barbara Superior Court’s ‘Culture of Delay’
Supervisors Taking Hard Look at the County Budget
Public Defender Tracy Macuga didn’t exactly walk on water while telling Santa Barbara County supervisors on Monday how many County Jail inmates spend years behind bars at great taxpayer expense before ever going to trial. But when she was through, she all but got a standing ovation. “You really blew my mind,” Supervisor Das Williams told her. “This is one of the best presentations I have ever seen,” Supervisor Steve Lavagnino chimed in. “You are a force,” exclaimed Supervisor Peter Adam, the board’s most outspoken conservative.
For all the praise, Macuga’s message was both sobering and depressing. Millions of dollars are spent keeping inmates locked up before their day in court. “Justice delayed is not justice delivered,” she said, teeing off on “excessive continuance” and the “culture of delay” permeating almost every step of the criminal justice process. She talked of five clients her office represents who have been waiting in jail between three and five years. Combined, she said, these defendants have cost the county $740,000 — incarceration cost per prisoner is $42,000 annually — not including the added expenses of trial preparation, transportation to and from court, or medical attention. With more than half the inmates in County Jail awaiting trial, she said, millions of dollars that could be better spent providing mental-health services or addiction counseling are squandered warehousing defendants who more often than not need both.
There’s more, she continued. Prosecutors and defense attorneys routinely postpone cases. Important information and evidence are not shared by all parties in a timely fashion. Judges are slow getting cases on the court calendar and slower still in starting trials on time. “This is not a case for finger-pointing,” Macuga said. “We all have had a hand in it.” If the heads of various departments created a quick task force, they could make meaningful improvement, she added. One problem is that Santa Barbara Superior Court is funded by the state and not the county. Still, Macuga highlighted significant results achieved when her department worked collaboratively with county mental-health officials and prosecutors to reduce the crushing demand on the very limited bed space at the county’s acutepsychiatric-care facility by prisoners deemed “incompetent to stand trial.” The number of inmates taking up psychiatric beds has dropped by 50 percent and the length of time by 20 percent.
