Once again, Dong Nguyen’s name rang out in Old City Hall, his case appearing, again, on courtroom 112’s docket, only to be rescheduled for a future date — again.

This latest attendance, on Feb. 15, joins a long list on Nguyen’s file: July, August and September 2011, two dates in October and more in November and December 2011, nine times in 2012, twice in 2013, with another scheduled mid-month.

All told, Nguyen’s day in court has come and gone 18 times; a 19th is scheduled for March 12, which will mark 651 days since his arrest.

Nguyen isn’t on trial for a homicide, nor embroiled in a complex white-collar crime scheme, nor accused in a sophisticated drug ring. He is alleged to have swung a shovel at a raccoon rummaging through his garden.

He faces one count of animal cruelty and one count of possessing a weapon (a shovel).

In any court case, extenuating circumstances can lead to delays, but most lawyers — including Nguyen’s — agree this has drawn on longer than the charges warrant.

“It’s a little bit on the pathological side,” said James Morton, a Toronto defence lawyer and former president of the Ontario Bar Association.

A similarly straightforward case that does not require numerous witness and police testimonies could wrap up in four to eight court appearances and within a year of charges being laid, Morton said.

While it’s vital that every matter gets its due time in court, the cumulative effect of drawn-out cases like Nguyen’s harms the delivery of justice in Ontario.

Many of the province’s courtrooms are bogged down with ongoing court sagas over serious but simple charges such as drug or weapons possession. Some lawyers say the influx of relatively minor matters — a “tidal wave,” as one called it — is one reason the justice system often moves like ever-thickening molasses.

“The more troubling aspect is where you’re getting many, many appearances in many, many routine cases, such that the overall averages are really high,” said Toronto criminal lawyer Joe Di Luca.

“That’s a real problem because it eats into resources tremendously.”

Dong Nguyen’s case began with the yelping cries of a baby raccoon at the crack of dawn on June 1, 2011.

Startled, Roddy Muir ran into his Junction Triangle backyard and looked into the neighbouring yard belonging to Nguyen. There, he saw the cowering injured creature — and, allegedly, Nguyen swinging a shovel at a family of raccoons.

Police were called, media descended on the bizarre story, tensions flared, and Nguyen, a 55-year-old resident of Rankin Cres., was slapped with two criminal charges.

The case was first heard at Old City Hall on July 13, 2011, and Nguyen was charged with cruelty to animals, which as a lighter (called summary) offence carries a fine of $10,000 and a maximum of 18 months in prison; and possession of a dangerous weapon. The Crown opted to pursue the charges as summary offences, which are more minor than indictable offences.

First dates in every criminal case deal with basic housekeeping, such as whether the accused has a lawyer. The defence must also obtain the disclosure — in essence, the prosecutor’s file: all the evidence for and against the accused. Ideally, it’s handed over on the first meeting.

“Unfortunately we find that in many routine cases, disclosure is not being completed until five or six or seven court appearances,” said Di Luca.

Setbacks in obtaining disclosure are a major cause of delays, and among the reasons it’s not unusual at Old City Hall and other courthouses to have nine to 12 court dates before trial begins.

In Nguyen’s case, six dates in 111 courtroom followed the first. Appearances in 111 are typically short, because it is a set-date court.

Nguyen was not present at the first or second appearances — the latter because of the flu, according to a press report. He has been absent at many others.

By the third appearance, there were resolution discussions. By the fourth, there was discussion of a guilty plea, according to Nguyen’s file.

The next three appearances on his file are marked with “CP” — court clerk shorthand for “case progressing” a catch-all term.

Additional information about the numerous dates early in the case could not be obtained from Nguyen, whose lawyer has advised him not to talk to media, or his past or present lawyer (the latter couldn’t comment on the earlier delays, and the former did not return numerous calls from the Star).

A court clerk estimated the transcripts of all 18 court appearances, which would contain more details, would take a minimum of 30 days to obtain, if not longer.

The cause of the delays could be any of the participants: defence, Crown, or outside players such as police, who may not have submitted full disclosures.

When Nguyen’s case moved into a plea court, it hit more bumps. Nguyen switched lawyers in 2012, from Tak Chan to Peter Scully, causing a setback himself.

Then, for the last several court dates in late 2012, and in January and February of this year, Nguyen has been sick with the flu.

“These charges, they wouldn’t normally take so long to go through, but illness intervened,” said Scully, who expects to wrap up the case March 12.

“As you’re probably aware, there’s all kinds of flu going around and this chap was ill.”

In the case of serious illness, a longer delay can be scheduled, even a stay of charges. In more minor illnesses, the court may start inquiring and requiring medical documents. Scully did not, saying no such thing is necessary for the flu.

The backdrop of Nguyen’s case throughout has been Old City Hall, one of the busiest criminal courthouses in Toronto.

According to statistics from July 2011-June 2012, it took an average of 12.2 appearances to disposition and 282 days between the start and end of a case. 1000 Finch court in comparison had 8.2 appearance and 203 days, and College had 10.6 and 248.

The slowness doesn’t stop at the courtrooms, either.

When a Star reporter requested a copy of Nguyen’s basic case information — often produced within minutes or a few days — an Old City Hall clerk said the document could take two weeks to produce.

Pressed about the cause such a holdup, and told the information was required for a story about delays in the justice system, the clerk disappeared and came back with the documents in less than five minutes.

The glacial pace of the justice system — which in 2011-2012 cost taxpayers $1.595 billion — has been a problem in Ontario for years.

In the 1950s and ’60s a trial on a minor offence, such as prostitution, would start the same week the charge was laid — a speed that by today’s standards would probably be deemed unfair to the accused.

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By 1992, it took an average of 4.3 appearances and 115 days to complete a criminal case. Fifteen years later, those numbers had doubled to 9.2 appearances and 205 days.

To begin reversing the alarming upward trend, in 2008 then-attorney general Chris Bentley launched an initiative called Justice on Target, which aimed to reduce, by 2012, both the average number of court appearances and the time needed to dispose of a charge by 30 per cent.

One strategy was dedicated prosecution — assigning a case to a single Crown instead of several and allowing that prosecutor to make decisions earlier in the court process.

The four-year deadline came and went, and the results were mixed.

Brendan Crawley, spokesperson for the Ministry of the Attorney General, said the program has eliminated nearly 900,000 criminal court appearances since the strategy was launched.

“Most straightforward cases are being resolved sooner,” he said in an email.

But overall, the reductions fell far below targets. While the average number of appearances dropped for the first time in nearly 20 years, it was only by 8.1 per cent. The average number of days between the charge and a disposition was reduced by just 6.6 per cent.

A report by the Law Times revealed that, three years into the initiative, the charge to disposition duration at some Toronto-area court houses either remained the same or saw increases; College Park courthouse, for instance, an increase of 31 per cent.

“The results have been inconsistent at best,” said Daniel Brown, a Toronto defence lawyer.

The problem, Brown said, is that every courthouse deals with its own unique circumstances — whether it’s a culture of the Crown attorney’s office to delay cases that shouldn’t be prosecuted, or a problem with how the court lists are being managed, or problems preparing court lists ahead of trial.

“They are trying to find a uniform solution to what are unique circumstances at every courthouse, and it just doesn’t work like that,” he said.

The ministry has adjusted the Justice on Target tactics and is now aiming to reduce wait times based on the complexity of the cases.

The goal is to have less complicated cases, such as break-and-enter and theft, disposed of in five appearances and within 90 days. More complex cases would require 10 appearances and 240 days.

Legal experts suggest a variety of ways to fling off some of the mud slowing down the wheels of justice.

For instance, while the constitution allows for Justices of the Peace to hear guilty pleas, they’re still usually heard by a judge. Morton suggests bringing in JPs — who are not required to have a law degree — to free up judges, though other lawyers said that would just cause delays elsewhere.

Di Luca suggested a system to ensure the quick production of complete disclosures for the defence would free up court time dramatically.

Brown says Ontario should adopt a procedure called pre-charge screening, which aims to rid the system of weak cases by having Crowns examine them before charges are even laid. A similar arrangement is in place in Quebec, New Brunswick and British Columbia.

“This would ensure resources aren’t wasted at the back end of the process preparing and vetting disclosure for cases that shouldn’t be in the system to begin with,” he said.

Crawley, however, said there are important reasons not to involve the Crowns until charges are laid.

“A distinct line between these investigative and prosecutorial functions, which allows both police and Crown counsel to exercise discretion independently and objectively, forms part of a system of checks and balances,” he said.

Toronto lawyer Frank Addario says what’s really needed is a system-wide shift in expectation; if the Ministry of the Attorney General, police, lawyers, court staff and judges set their minds to it, they could resolve to have non-complex cases completed in two months.

That means the arrest and police report would have to be at the courthouse within seven days of the arrest — “no exceptions.” Within seven days of that, a meeting will take place with the prosecutor, judge and defence lawyer, and if the defendant doesn’t have money, he will get a Legal Aid certificate — “no excuses.”

Seven days later, a date is set, which must be within six weeks — “period.”

“You can do it,” he said. “You need a slightly iron-fisted mentality.”