Montco 'DUI Court' Comes To An End
By Jim Melwert
NORRISTOWN, Pa. (CBS) - Montgomery County is ending its "DUI Court" pilot program, because there are too many cases for one judge to handle.
The pilot program scheduled all DUI cases in one court, in front of one judge, but Montgomery County court administrator Michael Kehs says the caseload was just overwhelming:
"The volume that we have in this county between 2,500-3,000-plus new cases each year, simply proved to be too much for one judge to handle."
He says nothing will change as far as how DUI cases are handled, other than scheduling, and they'll go back to the old system, with DUI's being spread among all the criminal division judges.
District Attorney Risa Ferman says she understands the reason for the change, but says having all DUI cases under one roof allowed her office to have a team that focused only on DUIs:
"Then we were able to sort cases by identify multiple cases by one offender and look to those cases where someone was a chronic re-offender and then intervene early."
Kehs says with this change, the court will continue to look for other options on how to best deal with DUI cases.
