BY DAVID HENCH

MaineToday Media, Inc.

A single criminal defendant often makes a half dozen or more trips to court before their case is resolved. Every bail hearing, pretrial conference and appearance before a judge creates paperwork and takes time in a judicial system that is struggling to keep up with a growing case load.

In Cumberland County, a group of lawyers, judges and other criminal justice professionals are seeking to streamline that process by combining district court and superior court criminal cases. The goal is to create a more efficient system, reduce delays and save money.

"It's certainly born of lack of resources," said Supreme Court Justice Ellen Gorman, who is chairing the committee working on the issue. "We have many fewer judges than we need and many fewer clerks than we need and we cannot afford to have clerks and judges doing things a second time when it only needs to be done once and we need to stop making people come back to court more often than they need to."

If successful, the unification of the courts could become a model for other counties in the state. The goal is to have the consolidation occur by the end of the summer.

But defense attorneys say the court needs to make sure defendants' constitutional rights are not given short shrift in the interests of efficiency.

Other counties throughout the state are consolidating district and superior clerk functions. This led to the idea of consolidating misdemeanors and felony cases into a single process in Cumberland County.

"One of the benefits of that is, we hope we will not have people sitting in jail as long because they'll get through the process sooner," said Ted Glessner, administrator of the Maine court system. The change would not affect civil cases.

The logjams appear minor by themselves but can add up to a sluggish criminal court process.

A person brought to the court from jail currently can make bail and return for a future court appearance. They are supposed to see a financial screener to determine if they are eligible for a court-appointed lawyer.

Often the defendant returns, not having seen the screener, and the case is delayed.

Sometimes, a court appearance consists of the defendant asking for a jury trial, which is then scheduled for sometime in the future.

Each one of those steps add paperwork and time to the criminal docket. It can also mean additional trips from the jail.

A unified criminal docket would require defendants to see a financial screener before they are released on bail. It would automatically be assumed they are requesting a jury trial unless they specifically waive that right.

Motions such as what evidence is admissible at trial, whether a case should be dismissed or whether to reconsider a bail amount would be dealt with in a single pretrial conference. Prosecutors, defense attorneys and a judge would meet with the goal of resolving the case.

Fewer separate court appearances would also result in fewer continuances, where an attorney asks for a postponement because of scheduling conflicts or some other issue.

The effort is underway in Portland because the state's busiest court system has the personnel needed to make it happen.

"You usually don't test things in the busiest county but all the right players are here," said Glessner. The project will require four full time judges dedicated to handling the initial stages of criminal cases.

The idea has strong backing from Cumberland County District Attorney Stephanie Anderson.

"We are bursting at the seams and I think everyone is looking at how can we do a better job with what we have," Anderson said.

"If this works perfectly ... then I expect to see a better use of resources all around, with fewer officers and civilians -- victims and witnesses -- getting served subpoenas, waiting and having nothing happen."

Anderson said her office's case load has grown from 13,106 in 2005 to 15,709 in 2007, a 20 percent increase.

Other steps to streamline the process are emanating from Anderson's law enforcement advisory panel comprised of area police chiefs.

The ideas include not prosecuting some nuisance crimes like certain drinking in public cases, encouraging defendants to pay the fine on certain criminal cases to avoid a court appearance and handling criminal infractions in the jail. That might include handling a possession of contraband charge administratively rather than as a court matter.

The group also is considering treating some cases with a court summons like a traffic ticket rather than a traditional criminal case.

The existing two-tiered system is common across the country, where misdemeanors are treated at a district or municipal level and more serious crimes are treated at the superior court, or county level.

But because each defendant, regardless of the criminal charge, is entitled to mount a defense before a jury, many misdemeanor cases are transferred to Superior Court where jury trials are held.

That system evolved and worked well when there were fewer criminal cases, said Gorman, the court justice. Case loads have grown and some crimes now carry more severe consequences, such as operating after suspension and unlawful sexual contact. That means many more defendants are requesting time-consuming jury trials than in the past.

The unification process does face hurdles, including space constraints and training.

Rob Ruffner, a former prosecutor and Portland lawyer who directs the Maine Indigent Defense Center, said the effort to streamline the court process needs to ensure the rights of defendants are protected.

"We need to make sure that in the effort to evaluate whether we've made a better system that there isn't any pressure on the district attorney or defense attorneys or individual defendants to compromise the rights they have in the zeal to show the system is more efficient," Ruffner said.

Cases that may not directly lead to jail time - and so are not eligible for a court-appointed lawyer - still result in a criminal record and could lead to other sanctions like a loss of driving privileges, he said.

Ruffner said the improvements, no matter how effective, won't solve the underlying problem of chronic underfunding of the judiciary, which has prompted the chief justice to consider closing some courthouses or calling a summer moratorium on trials.

He said the system needs to invest in more alternatives to traditional court like drug courts and diversion programs for shoplifters.

Ruffner said the public, not just those working in the system and defendants, does have a stake in how the judiciary operates.

"An inefficient criminal justice system gives bad results and those bad results range from the wrong person being convicted to the wrong outcome being achieved and all of those are more expensive to the public," he said.

Maine courts by the numbers, fiscal year 2007:

Courthouses - 39

Budget: $58 million

Judges: 60

Cases filed statewide: 278,088

Superior Court:19,151

District Court: 128,431

Supreme Court: 774

Violations bureau: 129,732

Criminal cases in Cumberland County:

Superior Court: 4,593

District Court: 23,761

Source: Maine Judicial Branch 2007 annual report