For years, Wisconsin has faced a backlog of cases stemming from a shortage of legal staff. Raises and new positions in the state budget are the latest effort to tackle that backlog.
Wisconsin Court System data shows only around half of all criminal cases statewide were resolved within six months last year. In 2023, it took an average of 259 days for a Wisconsin felony case to be resolved — five days faster than in 2022 but months longer than before the COVID-19 pandemic.
In one egregious example, Brown County had a backlog of roughly 5,000 cases earlier this year. State Sen. Jamie Wall, D-Green Bay, told WBAY in June the county has the biggest backlog of court cases in the state…