Courthouse Construction

Trial courtrooms, because of their size and configuration, are expensive to build. The judiciary's current policy is, whenever possible, to assign a trial courtroom to each district judge. GAO's work in seven cities--Dallas, Miami, Albuquerque, Santa Fe, Las Cruces, San Diego, and Washington, D.C.--found that courtrooms were idle, on average, about 46 percent of the days available for courtroom activities. In other words, these courtrooms were vacant 115 days out of 250 federal workdays in 1995. Courtrooms were used for trials less than one-third of the days, and the use of courtrooms for trials varied by location. At the six locations with more than one trial courtroom, all courtrooms at any one location were seldom used for trials the same day. Senior judges--district judges who were eligible to retire but chose to continue to perform judicial duties, often at reduced caseloads--used the courtrooms assigned to them for trials considerably less frequently than did active district judges. The judiciary recognizes that it has not developed the data or done the research to support its practice of providing a separate trial courtroom for every district judge. Although it has taken some steps to help it better understand courtroom usage, the judiciary has yet to develop a plan to gather data on actual use of courtrooms for trials or to systematically quantify the latent and other usage factors. Refer to GAO's May 1997 correspondence (GAO/GGD-97-59R) discussing courtroom usage in Denver, Fresno, Salt Lake City, and Seattle.

GAO noted that: (1) according to the judiciary, the availability of a trial courtroom is an integral part of the judicial process because judges need the flexibility to resolve cases more efficiently; (2) trial courtrooms are expensive to construct, and constructing any unneeded courtrooms would waste taxpayer dollars; (3) the extent to which trial courtrooms are utilized for trials and nontrial activities is one indication of need, but the judiciary does not compile data on how often and for what purposes courtrooms are actually used or have analytically based criteria for determining how many and what types of courtrooms are needed to effectively administer justice; (4) therefore, the judiciary does not have sufficient data to support its practice of providing a trail courtroom for every district judge; (5) GAO's detailed work at seven locations showed that courtroom usage for trials and nontrial activities varied by judge and location; (6) on many of the workdays during 1995, courtrooms were not used at all for these purposes; (7) on average, trial courtrooms were used for trial or nontrial purposes about 54 percent of all the days that they could have been used; (8) courtrooms were used for trials less than one-third of the days, and the use of courtrooms for trials varied by location; (9) at the six locations with more than one trial courtroom, all courtrooms at any location were seldom used for trials or nontrial activities the same day; (10) senior judges used the courtrooms assigned to them for trials and nontrial activities considerably less frequently than active judges; (11) GAO's discussions with district judges in the various locations showed diverse opinions about changes to current courtroom configurations or use practices; (12) all preferred having their own courtrooms to help them resolve cases, but their views on the one judge, one courtroom practice were mixed; (13) the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts (AOUSC) considers the data GAO developed limited because GAO did not capture such other factors as "latent" use or cases that settle just before a scheduled trial, leaving a courtroom available that cannot be easily rescheduled; (14) the judiciary recognizes that it has not developed the data or performed the research to support its practice of providing a trial courtroom for every district judge; and (15) the judiciary has taken some actions intended to help it better understand courtroom usage, but these actions do not include a plan to produce data on the actual use of courtrooms for trials or nontrial activities or to systematically quantify the latent and other usage factors.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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