Yesterday a San Francisco court dismissed dozens of criminal cases because there were part of a long-running backlog the court failed to clear. Today, some of the victims in those cases are speaking out. As expected, this is horrifying stuff. For instance, in May of 2022 two women were killed when a taxi veered onto the sidewalk:

Mary Henderson, 72, and her 31-year-old daughter, Willa Henderson, were in San Francisco for a friend’s wedding when the taxi struck them at Third and Mission streets shortly after 4:30 p.m. Sunday afternoon. Mary Henderson’s husband, Wayne Henderson, was seriously injured in the crash and is currently in intensive care at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital, a close friend said...

They were standing near the Grove at Yerba Buena Center when the driver of a northbound Mercedes on Third Street attempted a right turn from the center lane, toward a taxi that was cruising in the red lane for buses and cabs, also headed north...

...the taxi veered onto the northeast corner of the sidewalk, attempting to avert a sideswipe. Though the taxi driver managed to avoid eight pedestrians, he struck three, killing the two women.

Michael Dennehy, the driver of the Mercedes, was charged with misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter. His case is one of those dismissed yesterday. Wayne Henderson, the survivor of the crash, can't believe this is happening.

“I am a victim who survived, though only in a manner of speaking. I have lost my wife and my daughter,” he said in a statement that was read aloud by a victim advocate. “I am the one left with little but the sorrow, the anger, the pictures, the memories. But I know I am not the only one. We, the victims of these crimes, are being denied our moment of accountability, our day in court to see and hear the defendant answer for his misconduct,” Henderson said...

“What is both unbelievable and appalling is that Mr. Dennehy is now on the verge of having the case dismissed, simply walking away and avoiding entirely his day in court,” Henderson said in a victim impact statement read to the court.

It is unbelievable but in San Francisco it happened. Another victim had a knife held to her throat by her ex-husband. His case was also dismissed.

“When I agreed to cooperate with the DA’s office, there were many times I wanted to give up because this was so triggering. But I decided to stick with it because I believed it was right. And I believed that the state would support me and bring some sort of justice to what had happened. Instead, I have been failed,” she said. “You have triggered and re-traumatized me over the past year and a half for nothing. I will not get a day in court, and my ex-husband gets to walk away, knowing what he did and thinking he could do it again.”

The initial backlog started during the pandemic and since then courts have been using the emergency declaration tied to the pandemic to excuse their years of delays. But that fell apart last month when an appeals court ruled another misdemeanor case could not be delayed any longer because the defendant had a constitutional right to a speedy trial. Of course you wont' hear me argue the appeals court should have ignored the constitution. People do have a right to a speedy trial and a 2 1/2 year delay is not speedy.

This also isn't the fault of the DA. Brooke Jenkins released a statement saying "It is not the responsibility of the district attorney’s office to manage the court’s caseload." Unless there is some specific information that delays from the DAs office were causing this, she's right.

The fault here is not the constitution or the DA but the court itself, which dropped the ball and knew this could happen if it didn't deal with its backlog. They have turned garden-variety bureaucratic bungling into real injustice. Someone should be fired for this but don't hold your breath waiting for that to happen.