Effort to reduce criminal court backlog in Georgia moves forward in US Congress

ATLANTA — Legislation supported by U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff to help clear federal court backlogs and wait times has passed in the U.S. Senate and heads to the U.S. house of Representatives.

The Judicial Understaffing Delays Getting Emergencies Solved, or JUDGES, Act aims to reduce the wait times and backlogs in criminal court by adding new judgeships to judicial circuits across the United States.

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For the Northern District of Georgia, that means two new judgeships would be added in 2027 and 2033, if the bill is signed into law.

Recent reports from the U.S. Court system show that the Northern District of Georgia had seen a nearly 100 case increase in what are called weighted filings per judgeship in the past year.

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If passed, the JUDGES Act would put the two new judges in the northern district, covering courthouses in Atlanta, Gainesville, Newnan and Rome, according to Ossoff’s office.

“The shortage of federal judges serving Georgians can mean justice delayed or justice denied,” Ossoff said in a statement. “That’s why we’ve now passed this bipartisan bill through the Senate to add two more Federal judge positions in the Northern District of Georgia. We must ensure Georgians have timely access to our court system.”

The move to provide more judges also comes in answer to the Judicial Conference.

“These new judgeships were requested by the Judicial Conference, the national policymaking body of the judiciary headed by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and the Chief Judges from the Courts of Appeals, based on its analysis of the case burdens carried by the 94 district courts nationwide,” Ossoff’s office said.

It has been about 21 years since Congress added judgeships to any state in the U.S., and legislation to add more has not been passed since 1990, according to Ossoff’s office.

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