DA's office tackles large criminal caseload

Coryell County's justice system is working overtime to serve the community. Helping to lead the efforts are District Attorney Dusty Boyd and five assistant district attorneys who have been busy trying to move the caseload forward despite challenges and delays greatly magnified by the COVID-19 pandemic.

"Y'all would be proud of the efforts being made here in Coryell County," Boyd said. "We've tried more cases in the last two months than McLennan County and Bell County combined."

Putting that statement in perspective, Coryell County has a population of around 78,000, including soldiers based at Fort Hood and prison inmates, compared to more than 261,000 residents in McLennan County and about 378,000 residents in Bell County.

Boyd said the justice system can be compared to plumbing.

"When the number of pending cases rises month to month, it is like pressure building in the system, and this pressure is released when the DA's office disposes of cases," he said. "If the plumbers -- or DA's office -- do not have a mechanism to release the pressure, then there will eventually be a blown pipe and damage to the system as a whole.

For 2020, there was an average of 1,203 pending criminal cases in Coryell County each month, with an average caseload of 240 per attorney.

"There has been a steady rise in the caseload (in Coryell County) which exploded in 2020," Boyd said. Unfortunately, that's the year that COVID-19 hit, closing down the ability to have grand jury meetings and jury trials.

The Coryell County District Attorney's office was able to dispose of 914 cases from March to November 2018, 786 cases for the same time frame in 2019 and only 364 cases in 2020.

Addressing the caseload has been a primary objective of the department, which continues to make strides despite lingering pandemic issues, which spike from time to time.

Boyd, who arrived in Coryell County in 2008 and took office as district attorney in 2013, said the county has significantly changed in the time he has been here.

"It is so completely different now compared to 2008," he said. "The days when this area was a quiet little hay baling community with (Texas Department of Criminal Justice) units are gone. The growth has definitely far outpaced our infrastructure.

"COVID exposed a lot of problems that stakeholders were already navigating in our justice system. The number of cases and the workload has gone up substantially. In 2013, there were just two ADAs (assistant district attorneys) and now there are five, and all of them are very busy. That's just one indication of how my office has changed."

While COVID-19 resulted in delayed trials, it did not end crime.

"We didn't have a spigot (grand jury indictments and court dates) to release all the inmates we had in the county jail," Boyd said. "We still had a pipeline (of inmates) coming in but no way to dispose of cases, which really affected our jail population and the cost.

"Everything we did last year was dictated by the local health director. In October 2020, we were able to have three jury trials (before a COVID-19 spike disrupted the system again), and that was 20 percent of the entire state's jury trials for that time period."

Jury trials were again postponed because of the pandemic, and began again in July. Since then, there have been six jury trials in Coryell County.

"I focus on clearance rates," Boyd said. "It's important that we effectively and efficiently move cases. He said 44 percent of cases are typically cleared within the first 90 days, 64 percent within 180 days, 82 percent within one year and the additional cases left over.

Another indication of the county's growth is that the District Attorney's Office had a budget of about $400,000 when Boyd took office. Boyd said that has increased to more than $1 million as the county's population has surged.

However, money isn't the biggest concern, Boyd said — seeking justice is. And there are some cases, such as murder trials, where substantial amounts of money may have to be spent, especially when witnesses have to be brought in from great distances.

"It's definitely a balancing act," he said. "Money is an important consideration, because it is provided by our taxpayers, but making sure our community is protected and receives justice is even more important."