Superior Court was awarded a State Justice Institute Grant for technical assistance to permit the Court to engage the National Center for State Courts (NCSC) to conduct a thorough study of the court’s caseflow management structure and procedures and recommend feasible approaches to manage and resolve cases.

The experts from the NCSC spent one week on site with the court and the stakeholders and then came back for a follow up meeting. Produced from that study was the NCSC Felony Caseflow and Calendaring Study of Thurston County Superior Court. We realized that we had a lot of work to do but knew we had a report that pathways for meaningful change of our current systems. The Court quickly engaged a team, Felony Leadership Improvement Project (FLIP) comprised of county officials and department representatives to work collaboratively with other stakeholders on system changes towards an efficient process for fair and timely resolution of cases.

Through many months of work, by the FLIP partners, and engagement with stakeholders the court now uses the processing guidelines outlined below. We will work on data measures and sharing those with you to ensure that we keep our criminal justice system healthy in Thurston County.

NCSC Report 

Criminal Case Processing Guidelines