LANSING — Congested dockets in circuit courts have resulted in lengthy waits for people awaiting trial.

Delayed trials are one still-lingering effect of the COVID-19 pandemic, Michigan Sheriffs’ Association Executive Director Matt Saxton said.

“We’re still dealing with the backlogs in the courts. Every new crime just stacks up on a number of trials they haven’t caught up on from 2020 and 2021,” said Saxton, a retired Calhoun County sheriff.

The latest data for circuit courts, which handle felony cases, shows their average clearance rate — a figure comparing their completed caseloads to their incoming caseload — was 98% in 2023.

The statistics come from the Supreme Court’s Interactive Court Data Dashboard.

That’s an improvement from the 92% average clearance rate statewide in 2020, when the pandemic temporarily halted in-person jury trials and pushed many other court proceedings online.

However, courts are still working to eliminate their backlogs, Saxton said.

Although Genesee County’s circuit court maintained a 98% average clearance rate from 2020 to 2023 – in line with the state average – that hasn’t prevented prolonged waits for people in pretrial detention in the county jail.

Genesee County Maj. Jason Gould said approximately 90% of people held in the county jail are awaiting trial.

Gould confirmed that several inmates have been waiting multiple years to be tried, but stopped short of blaming one specific factor.

“There’s a lot of delays with the court, with defendants changing their attorneys or adjournments and adjournments,” Gould said. “There’s many different reasons why that can happen.”

Monroe County Sheriff Troy Goodnough, however, said responsibility for extended pretrial detainments can’t be pinned on the court backlogs.

“There’s a number of different things — they could be receiving treatment here in our jail — that keep them incarcerated. It’s not the backlogs,” Goodnough said.

The average stay in the Monroe County Jail lasts 47 days, he added.

State law dictates that a defendant facing a potential felony charge can be released on personal recognizance bond after waiting 180 days to be tried — or after waiting 28 days on a misdemeanor charge.

That law allows defendants to be kept longer if a judge decides they are unlikely to return to court or present a danger to the community.

However, Alec Karakatsanis, the executive director of the Civil Rights Corps, said Genesee County judges have routinely failed to make the necessary findings to justify a continued detainment.

The group is a nonprofit advocacy organization based in Washington, D.C., dedicated to changing the criminal justice system.

“Almost everyone I’ve seen in pretrial detention is there illegally,” Karakatsanis said.

Rather than allocating more resources to courts and county prosecutors’ offices to reduce backlogs, Karakatsanis said, efforts to address extended pretrial incarcerations should focus on ending Michigan’s cash bail system.

Because the cash bail system relies on defendants paying money to be released from jail until their trial, low-income people who are unable to pay are unfairly targeted, Karakatsanis said.

In 2021, the Washtenaw County Prosecutor’s Office ended the use of cash bail, citing the system’s tendency to keep poor people jailed for minor crimes while allowing wealthier people accused of serious crimes to go free.

Bills to change the pretrial bail system — including one that would have required judges to release people charged with low-level, non-violent offenses without bail — were introduced during the 2023 legislative session but did not pass.

With Republicans now controlling the House, Speaker Matt Hall, R-Richland Township, pronounced those efforts dead at a January press conference.

Although the legislative path to revamping the system is seemingly closed for now, Karakatsanis said individuals or advocacy organizations could legally challenge their pretrial detainment, as has happened in other states.

“The courts have an obligation to ensure the people’s constitutional rights are not being violated,” he said.