After last month’s conclusion of the ‘Rocket Docket’ in the Bexar county criminal courts to lighten the load on the court’s criminal docket, Bexar County recently released some results from the two month long experiment. 

As notes in a recent blog on the San Antonio Express-New website, the initial results indicated as follows:

1,472 total felony cases cleared (out of 2,844 pending that were more than a year old)

405 cleared cases involving defendants who have been in jail for more than a year awaiting trial, including:
– 5 capital murders
– 16 “regular” murders
– 25 aggravated sexual assaults of a child
– 46 aggravated assaults 
– 52 aggravated robberies

5,999 potential jurors sorted and sent to 11 courtrooms (including the regular impact court and a civil courtroom transformed into an impact court)

39 jury trials

30 jury verdicts

129 pleas/cases taken into consideration

23 dismissals

The ‘Rocket Docket’ was modeled after a program in Tarrant County, the county seat of Fort Worth.

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