“Court delays in the Bronx — so troublesome that state officials had to create special courts to clear a backlog of felony cases — remain unresolved and have ‘fatally undermined the right to trial’ for tens of thousands of people charged each year with low-level offenses, according to a lawsuit filed on Tuesday.
“The suit, which was filed in Federal District Court in Manhattan and seeks class-action status, depicts a broken system in which hundreds of people arrive each morning and wait for hours or even a day for perfunctory court appearances.”