March 23, 2001
(DALLAS) – Officials in Dallas say a county justice of the peace allowed his backlog to grow to more than 20,000 traffic cases while accumulating more than $200,000 in checks paid for fines in a drawer.
Justice Charles Rose faces no criminal charges, and officials say that at the most he appears to be guilty of mismanagement. Dallas County has now hired 11 people to catch up with his paperwork, a task that is expected to take up to three months of six-day weeks.
While the effort is expected to cost $125,000, officials say that cleaning up the backlog could bring in $2 million or more in fines.