By Den McLaughlin

dmclaughlin@tnonline.comI have been covering the Carbon County court system for over 30 years now. The criminal and civil case loads have increased most of those years at a moderate rate. However, in the past two years, and more directly, since late 2012, the case load for the criminal side has exploded.The number of criminal cases has increased to such an extent that recently the adult probation office staff added another officer and the clerk of courts office added another employee.The increase criminal case load has a ripple affect on several offices.The added cases affects directly the district attorney's office, and the public defenders' office, as well as the cases heard by the three county judges.The increase also touches the commissioners' office which must provide the funding for the court system. There are other offices affected including the collection bureau and sheriff's department.I remember in the not so distant past that a normal "guilty plea list" for one of the county judges would involved anywhere between 15 to 25 cases. Now the judges routinely handle 40 or more cases a session.To give you an idea how the case load affects some of these offices I asked for figures from each.William C. McGinley, clerk of courts, reported his office handled 1,171 criminal cases in 2012, and that does not include summary appeal actions or miscellaneous petitions filed. Combined, the total for the last four years for those types of items was 1,738. Also, comparing the criminal case figures to 885 in 2011, 863 in 2010, and 844 in 2009.The adult probation office, headed by chief probation officer Ronald Kokinda, is put under the most pressure as his staff must monitor every defendant that comes through the system.As of May 30 Kokinda reported his staff has 1,543 offenders under supervision for active caseloads. Since Jan. 1 to May 30 of this year 495 individuals have been added to the caseload of defendants being monitored.A review of past years shows how much the case load has steadily increased for the adult probation office.In 2007 there were 1,012 supervised individuals added to the office, in 2008, 973, 2009, a total 1,169 added. Continuing, in 2010, 921, 2011, 769, and last year, 1,057. As I mentioned in the beginning it seems that since late 2012 the number of cases/defendants, coming through the system has exploded.Judging by the number of cases and defendants that have been added since the beginning of this year through May 30, there won't be any let up and the case load will continue to increase.These increases in criminal matters also puts pressue on the office of District Attorney Gary Dobias and his staff, and that of Chief Public Defender Gregory Mousseau and his staff, who represent the vast majority of defendants in the cases.And it should be noted that while the criminal case load has grown, so has the civil department and the case load for the office of Prothonotary Joann Behrens.Based on the size of Carbon County, which has a sixth class ranking, it is obvious that these increases can be termed significant.