An Ohio judge was reprimanded for not advancing his cases rapidly enough.

One childless couple’s case was on the judge’s docket for two and one-half years – before being handed off to a general magistrate for trial. And the Wife specifically wanted the case tried to a judge, not a general magistrate.

The judge’s caseload includes a wide mix of cases, not just family law cases. And the cases that languished the longest on his docket were divorce and child support cases.

Statistically, for the years 1998 through 2007, the judge’s peers had only 4% to 11% of their cases open for too long. But, in four of those years, the reprimanded judge had as many as 43%, 42%, 38% and 26% of his cases open for too long.

The judge defended that certain cases have circumstances that cause them to take longer to resolve. Likely true.

In at least one case, some of the custody issues in the case were mooted by the passage of time. For examply, one of the children attained the age of majority.

The odds are that that happened in other cases as well.

The judge will be retiring at the end of the year anyway though. And his statistics have improved. And he has no other blemishes on his record.

So he will be allowed to finish out his judicial term.

Read more in this central Ohio News Messenger article: No rush to judgement.