As a new set of judges takes office in the Shelby County court system this month, many are coming into a tremendous backlog of cases ranging from domestic violence to murder and totaling nearly 500 trials that have yet to begin.

Judges are reportedly missing a significant amount of time from the bench, which may be compounding a problem of already piled-up cases caused by courtroom shutdowns and restrictions during the onset of COVID-19. 

According to documents stored in the Shelby County Criminal Court Clerk’s office, some judges have missed as many as 32 days from the bench since the beginning of 2022, frustrating many of those who are awaiting their day in court.

Some judges dispute the accuracy of those logs, saying the logs create the false impression that judges aren’t working as much as they actually are.

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Despite extensive conversations with judges and others in the criminal justice system, as well as detailed reviews of the records of court time that are available, The Daily Memphian could not put together a complete picture of how much time judges are in session.

This is because of unclear and inconsistent records, a lack of guidelines about how much vacation time judges can and do take, and different reporting standards between the county’s two main courts, Shelby County Criminal Court and General Sessions Criminal Court, which together include 18 judges across 18 divisions.

Furthermore, the General Sessions Court Clerk’s office was unwilling or unable to provide The Daily Memphian any information about judges’ time in session.

Meanwhile, there are about 465 pending trials in Shelby County Criminal Court with only 32 completed in 2022 as of Aug. 12, according to data compiled by the District Attorney’s office and the Criminal Court Clerk’s office.

One person caught in the middle of this backlog is Terry Jackson, who Monday, Aug. 29, sat for about an hour and a half waiting to be called to the Criminal Court Division 5 courtroom upstairs at 201 Poplar. At the time, the courtroom was overseen by now-retired Judge James M. Lammey.

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Jackson said he has been waiting for his trial to begin for three years, but it has been reset three times.

He said he has grown increasingly impatient with the wait as he reports to court each month, sometimes waiting for hours to be called into the courtroom and other times occasionally being met by the absence of a judge.

“You’re not able to do a lot of the things you’re supposed to be doing, taking care of your family,” said Jackson, who did not want to divulge his charges. “And it’s holding me back. Nine times out of 10, you’re going to be turned down on a job. And they’re running up the cost of the bill on me (with the court fees).”

Asked if judges’ attendance should be readily available to the public, newly-elected Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy said, “I’m a big believer in transparency. So it ought to be easier for the public to find out how many days the courts are open and how many days the courts are closed.”

But Mulroy said he would not begrudge someone for taking three to four weeks off for vacation and sick time.

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“You don’t know what the individual circumstances are,” Mulroy said. “Were they sick? Or did they have some sort of excuse? A simple 18 days or 21 days, that’s just three or four weeks. And I wouldn’t begrudge somebody for three or four weeks of vacation at that level.”

Outgoing Shelby County District Attorney Amy Weirich said she understood judges take time for rest and relaxation following long trials, but said they should be mindful of court backlogs when taking time off.

“We’ve got 465 trials pending, give or take a few,” she said. “And in my humble opinion, every one of these criminal court judges should be in trial every week until we work that down until we get until we’ve made a dent in the number of people both in custody and out of custody, waiting on their case to be handled, because nine out of 10 of those cases have a victim attached to it as well and that victim deserves to have their case heard and to have that closure.”

“If a case is in that posture of trial, and we don’t have a judge to try it in front of, it gets reset. And it doesn’t just get reset to the next week, or the next day. It gets reset for months out. And if that offender is sitting in custody, that’s one more body sitting in the jail. And if that victim has been waiting for years for their closure, and for their day in court, it’s not right.”

According to minutes logged with the Shelby County Criminal Court Clerk’s office, Lammey missed an estimated 32 days on the bench this year between January and August. Those missed days don’t include county holidays, the upcoming week-long Thanksgiving and Christmas breaks, and week-long judicial conferences that occur four times a year. 

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Other judges showing more than 14 absences since January 1, 2022 are Bobby Carter with 25 days missed, Glenn Wright with 23 days missed, Jennifer Mitchell with 19 days and Carolyn Wade Blackett with 15 days.

Judges and other elected officials do not get a set number of vacation and sick hours like non-elected employees do. Their time spent off the bench is not logged in an easily accessible format.

Judges also do not have to get time off approval from anyone, and they are allowed to take as much time off as they want as long as their work is being done. The standard for what constitutes getting the work done, however, is not entirely clear. 

In Shelby County Criminal Court, if a judge is absent, other trial judges can pick up hearings and cases for them. Sometimes, however, other judges don’t pick up their cases, meaning hearings on the docket for the day get reset.

There are many people to rely on to get a trial in motion — including judges, victims, witnesses and attorneys. But when judges take too many days off the bench, addressing the backlog can prove to be troublesome.

Before COVID-19 hit, judges seemed to be more productive, setting more trials than they do now. In 2018, 113 trials were completed. And in 2019, 96 trials were completed, according to data compiled by the District Attorney’s Office.

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Eight months into 2022, only 32 trials were completed.

Of all the courts, Divisions 5 and 4 each completed two trials, the lowest of the Criminal Courts with active judges.

These divisions appear to be two of the busiest courtrooms in Criminal Court. Division 5, formerly occupied by Lammey and now led by Carlyn Addison, had 65 pending trials for the year as of Aug. 12. Division 4, overseen by Judge Carolyn Wade Blackett, had 78, the highest of any of the Criminal Courts.

For perspective, Division 1, overseen by Paula Skahan, had only 34 pending trials. She has completed seven trials, the highest of any of the Criminal Courts.

Blackett said she never takes any time off except when there is inclement weather, an emergency or if she is speaking at schools, churches and events.

“I’m here every day. There’s no question about that. And I do work very hard with what I have. … I don’t have a huge backlog on my docket, and we get things done very efficiently.”

Carolyn Wade Blackett,
Division 4 Criminal Court Judge

“I’m here every day,” Blackett said. “There’s no question about that. And I do work very hard with what I have. … I don’t have a huge backlog on my docket, and we get things done very efficiently.”

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She was sick in February and took a week off for vacation in July, she said. The court was also shut down for a week when attorneys and defendants reported they had COVID-19.

“I have not been out of town,” Blackett said. “If you go to a friend’s wedding, most of the time, you’re leaving Friday, running so you can try to get back in on Sunday so you can be in court on Monday.”

She also said the logs in the clerk’s office do not accurately reflect absences. 

Other factors can also count towards what appears to be an absence from a judge, including courtroom shutdowns because of COVID-19 infections or the absence of a court reporter or the court reporter’s substitute, Blackett said.

According to Blackett, most of the retiring judges took off for retirement early, meaning the other judges had to cover their cases until new judges were sworn in.

“When the other judges retired or they decided they weren’t coming back, there have been days that I’ve carried not only my docket, but three other dockets,” Blackett said Tuesday, Aug. 30. “All the judges are helping everybody else out right now. It’s extremely exhausting.”

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Lammey, who retired Aug. 31, has not reached back to The Daily Memphian for comment. But Judge Lee Coffee of Division 7 said Lammey was the only of the three retiring judges to continue to work until his last day in office Aug. 31.

“He told me he’d be working until August 31st, because he’s still getting paid by the state,” Coffee said. “I know he took a couple of weeks off, three weeks off in the middle of July, but Lammey has been working here the whole time.”

Carter, Division 3 judge who missed 25 days from the bench, said he took 20 days off, or two years’ worth of vacation according to what is typical of time off granted to non-elected employees before retiring Aug. 31. But he said he had good attendance otherwise.

“Check the logs for the last 12 years and see how many times I’ve taken off,” Carter said, adding that his time off toward the end of his career would make for a smoother transition for the judge who takes his place, James Jones.

“The new person coming in could get set up and do all their things so I’m not handling things halfway that somebody else will have to finish or that I’d have to come back and finish,” he said. “If a judge starts a sentencing hearing, they’ve got to finish it.”

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Wright, another retiring judge who formerly occupied Division 2, did not respond to a request for comment. His spot on the bench has been replaced by Jennifer Fitzgerald.

According to one judge, there was a running joke that if one could not find Wright, he was likely out doing research at the law library. Research days are perceived by many in the criminal justice system as an excuse for not working.

Mitchell, Division 10 judge who had 19 missed days logged, said she doesn’t call her docket to hear cases on Tuesdays so she can catch up on writing orders and doing research.

The logs only count days judges sign off on various court proceedings and orders.

So if Mitchell spends Tuesdays signing orders outside the courtroom, that would still be logged with the clerk’s office, counting her as being present that day. But research time would not be logged.

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Mitchell’s logs from January to August show nine Tuesday absences in addition to other days missed.

But Mitchell said she in fact worked most of the days that were indicated as an absence or that were missing from the logbooks.

“I don’t know if the public recognizes how difficult this office is.”

Jennifer Mitchell,
Division 10 Criminal Court Judge

“I don’t know if the public recognizes how difficult this office is,” Mitchell said. “You tell me that, according to your records, I’ve taken 21 days off. But according to my records, I’ve only had two vacation days. So it’s just kind of troubling that I haven’t even had a vacation. I plan on taking a vacation, but for the fact that I’m sick now. I don’t know if I’m gonna get to go out of town after this weekend. And now, the press wants to say I’m not doing my job. And I haven’t even had a vacation.”

In General Sessions Criminal Court downstairs at 201 Poplar, which is where defendants are heard before they are indicted, attendance records for judges and judicial commissioners are even murkier, making it even harder to know how often trials are in session.

The General Sessions Court Clerk’s office, led by Joe Brown, was unwilling or unable to provide any information on judges’ time in session to The Daily Memphian.

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An assistant Shelby County Attorney said the county is not required to sort through General Sessions Court Judges’ daily attendance records. As a result, a clear picture of how much time General Session Court Judges are in session is not available.

However, the assistant Shelby County Attorney did provide annual reports showing how often special judges or what are called interchange judges sat in for the elected General Sessions Criminal Court judges between 2016 and 2021. However, these reports don’t give a complete picture, as they only record when defense lawyers sit in for judges and not when judicial commissioners substitute for them.

General Sessions Criminal Court judges had the most instances of special judges sitting in between September 2016 and August 2017 when Edward Stanton was the General Sessions Court Clerk.

Division 10 Judge William Turner had special judges sit in 16 times, Division 11 Judge Karen Massey had substitutes eight times, and three judges had interchange judges sit in seven times. Those judges are Division 8 Judge Tim Dwyer, Division 12 Judge S. Ronald Lucchesi, and Division 15 Judge Loyce Lambert-Ryan.

The next year provided, September 2018 to August 2019, Division 9 Judge Gerald Skahan had eight special judges sit in, Massey had five, and Turner had four.

In September 2019 through August 2020, the year Joe Brown became the General Sessions Court Clerk, Division 7 Judge Bill Anderson had the most substitutes, with five fill-ins.

Three special or interchange judges were reported for Dwyer’s courtroom the next year, September 2020 through August 2021.

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One of the General Sessions Criminal Court judges, who spoke off the record, said absences are likely due to illness and judicial conferences to earn their continuing legal education (CLE).

Often, judges are tardy to the court, making defendants wait until an hour or two after the courtroom is scheduled to begin at 9 a.m., according to Yonée Gibson, court watch coordinator for Just City, a nonprofit organization that advocates for criminal justice reform.

Gibson and Just City’s Executive Director Josh Spickler are members of the transition team for Mulroy, the newly elected Shelby County District Attorney.

Some judges are often not showing up to hear cases until 10:30 a.m. and they leave the bench at 1 p.m., Gibson said.

“If the accused were to be late, they would be yelled at or admonished from the bench. They’re not held to the same standard as someone who is sworn in to do this job.”

Yonée Gibson,
Just City court watch coordinator

Unlike absences, tardiness is not logged in the court system.

“Especially with the lateness, it is a lot of times kind of hypocritical, because defendants who are accused, their time just isn’t respected,” Gibson said. “If the accused were to be late, they would be yelled at or admonished from the bench. They’re not held to the same standard as someone who is sworn in to do this job.”

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Weirich said judges should be seeing cases on separate morning and afternoon dockets and should make every effort to do a trial each week. 

“There’s probably a large segment of the public that thinks that all the judges are here all day, every day, nine to five, and that’s just not the reality,” Weirich said. “In my humble opinion, every one of these criminal court judges should be in trial every week until we work [the backlog] down.”

In addition to hearing more dockets throughout the day, Weirich said there are a couple of changes that could be put in place to help hold judges accountable and get the backlog addressed. These include implementing scheduling orders and designating courtrooms to either trials or backlogs - not both.

As for Jackson, he said he hopes the new judge will get his case taken care of more quickly so he can go about his day-to-day life without wasted court dates.

“I just want to put this behind me, so I can live my life and try to start fresh,” Jackson said. “But who knows when that will be? I just hope I don’t have to wait another couple of years.”

Daily Memphian reporter Ben Wheeler contributed to this story.