Justice is not flowing now: court backlogs in the SQUO result in extreme delays --- the judicial system is in free-fall

A CBS News investigation has uncovered a massive backlog of court cases that has delayed progress on hundreds of thousands of criminal cases across the United States. CBS News obtained and analyzed data from courts and district attorneys' offices in more than a dozen major American cities and found "pending" criminal cases jumped from 383,879 in 2019, just before the pandemic, to 546,727 in 2021. In California, New York, Florida and Michigan, the number of "pending" cases in 2021 totaled nearly 1.3 million. The backlog has resulted in delayed justice for crime victims and their families and threatens to deny the constitutional right to a speedy trial for the accused. It also raises concerns of a possible public safety threat, with thousands of convicted criminals remaining free as they await sentencing. "We want justice for our son," said Colette Grabow, whose 24-year-old son was killed in a hit-and-run crash in San Jose, California. The suspect is accused of running a stop sign and hitting Barrett Grabow as he crossed an intersection on his way home from a party just before midnight on February 23, 2018. Prosecutors say the driver, who has a history of criminal convictions, sped away from the scene with a severely injured Grabow trapped halfway through the car's windshield, before pulling over, dragging Grabow into the car through the broken glass and dumping his body on a sidewalk. Grabow died in the hospital several days later. "When you lose a child, you miss him every day," Jim Grabow said about his son, who was pursuing a law degree at the time of his death. "His younger brother just got engaged [and] Barrett won't be his best man. And that just breaks my heart." The suspect in Barrett's death eventually turned himself in to authorities and is charged with second-degree murder and vehicular manslaughter. But nearly five years later, no evidence has been presented to a jury. The trial has been postponed 20 times. "This is absolutely a crisis," said Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen, who is prosecuting the Grabow case. "There's not accountability in our court system because cases are not moving, and we need to break through this kind of thinking and have an all-hands-on deck approach." Criminal attorneys and political leaders blame this delay, and others, on courts backlogs they say have paralyzed the pursuit of justice.