Judge: no defendants ‘left languishing in system’
A judge responsible for criminal matters in the Supreme Court has insisted that efforts to tackle a backlog of cases has “borne fruit” ― though the number of continuing indictments that are more than a year old has risen.
Puisne Judge Juan Wolffe, the supervising judge of the criminal list, shared in the Bermuda Judiciary Annual Report 2025 that there were 23 cases still to be dealt with dating from 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024.
They represent a third of the total number of ongoing indictments, which stood at 72 when the annual report went to press.
Mr Justice Wolffe issued a statement on Friday in response to questions from The Royal Gazette in which he noted that “ … none of the matters currently before the court [is] not being actively managed through the case management process.
“In all instances, defendants are required to appear in court on a regular basis so that they may be informed about the progress of their matter towards an eventual trial.
“In other words, no defendants have been left languishing in the system.”
Puisne Judge Juan Wolffe described the formation of a Sentencing Guidelines Committee last July as a “watershed moment in the Criminal Justice System generally and in the sentencing of offenders specifically”.
The judge, who chairs the committee, wrote in the Bermuda Judiciary Annual Report 2025 that the aim was to “formulate sentencing guidelines which will ensure consistency and transparency in the sentencing process, not only for accused persons but also for victims of crime”.
He added: “It should be noted that the sentencing guidelines are not intended to be ‘tramlines’ and so they will not erode the discretion or the independence of the court to sentence offenders in accordance with the specific circumstances of the offence or of the offender.”
Mr Justice Wolffe said producing the guidelines would be a “comprehensive and lengthy process” but the committee was optimistic that this year would see guidelines “crafted for a least two prevalent offences, such as for bladed articles and traffic offences where injury or death has been caused”.
The judge insisted that “ … only the matters from 2021, 2022, and 2023 constitute a backlog.
“Therefore, matters from 2024 and 2025, and those which commenced in 2026, do not comprise a backlog as they are reasonably progressing through the statutorily mandated case management process, which includes various complex pre-trial applications being made by the prosecution and the defence.”
Last June, the Gazette reported figures shared by Mr Justice Wolffe, Chief Justice Larry Mussenden and Alexandra Wheatley, the Registrar of the Courts, that showed 65 ongoing indictments. The three justices said then that only 15 of them, dating from 2021, 2022 and 2023, could be “said to comprise a backlog”.
The recently released annual report showed an 11 per cent increase in the total number of continuing indictments, from 65 to 72.
It revealed that the “backlog” figure of 15 for the 2021 to 2023 cases had fallen to nine, but there were also 14 indictments still to be disposed of from 2024.
This was the breakdown of figures given for ongoing indictments:
• One 2012 matter set for retrial, which has involved several pre-trial applications, some still continuing;
• three indictments from 2021;
• one indictment from 2022;
• five indictments from 2023;
• 14 indictments from 2024;
• 45 indictments from 2025; and
• 3 indictments so far from 2026.
There were seven more indictments filed in 2025 than in the previous year but 2026 is expected to have fewer, based on the number filed so far this year, Mr Justice Wolffe said.
There were 14 criminal appeals in 2025.
The Supreme Court and appeal courts were allocated $6.5 million in the Government Budget last month, an increase of $536,000 on 2025-26.
The judge commented in the annual report that efforts to reduce the backlog of criminal cases, which had “ballooned” largely due to the coronavirus pandemic, had “borne fruit” last year.
The Supreme Court dealt with 37 indictments in 2025, which was four fewer than the previous year. But Mr Justice Wolffe noted the “length of the trials in 2025 (in terms of weeks) were longer than those of 2024”.
He wrote that 2025, like 2024, was punctuated by “frequent and results-driven case management hearings” with priority given to cases from before 2022, as well as those able to be disposed of quickly and those with multiple defendants or where the accused was in custody or a foreign national.
Mr Justice Wolffe wrote: “All of this with only two substantive judges presiding over the vast majority of the matters … We are hopeful that 2026 will be as successful as 2025.”
In his statement last Friday, Mr Justice Wolffe accused the Gazette of “perpetuating a misunderstanding” about the size of the court backlog and said “incorrect reporting diminishes the efforts of all stakeholders in the Criminal Justice System who have been working assiduously over the past three years to ensure that trials are heard within a reasonable period of time”.
The Gazette article published on June 11 last year clearly reported the judiciary’s position that the backlog was comprised only of the 15 cases from 2021 to 2023.
An earlier article, on June 6, 2025, described all the continuing indictments as a backlog and gave a breakdown by year for when they were filed.
The statement from the three judges was attached in full to the online version of the June 11, 2025 piece and Mr Justice Wolffe’s statement from last Friday is attached in full in the online edition today [see Related Media].
The judge said on Friday that the nine cases remaining from 2021 to 2023, were “either at various stages of the active case management process … and/or have trial dates fixed (in a couple of matters trials were commenced but for various reasons retrials have been ordered)”.
He added that the monthly arraignment session, held on or about the first day of each month, and the twice-monthly case management court, revealed the “flow of matters through the courts” and the “plenitude of legal and procedural issues which the court is called upon to resolve before a matter can be fixed for trial”.
The Gazette asked Mr Wolffe to explain a table of performance measures for the Supreme Court’s criminal division which appeared in the Government’s Budget Book published last month, but there was no response.
The backlog of criminal court cases was attributed, in part, last June to the limited number of criminal defence lawyers affecting how quickly matters could be brought to trial.
That issue is now being actively tackled, according to the Bermuda Judiciary Annual Report 2025.
Chief Justice Larry Mussenden wrote: “A continuing observation is that there were not many who were keen to develop a criminal defence practice.
“Happily, the Bar and existing practitioners are working towards developing the defence bar, noting that commercial firms could benefit by sending their young counsel to work with criminal practitioners and get time on their feet.”
Mr Justice Wolffe added: “The Bermuda Bar Association has taken meaningful steps towards attracting barristers to the criminal bar and we are optimistic that with their continued and valuable support we can avoid numbers dwindling to perilously low levels.”
• To see Mr Justice Wolffe’s statement from last week and the 2025 annual report of the Bermuda Judiciary, see Related Media
Editor’s Note: The Royal Gazette accepts that there may be different ways of defining what constitutes a backlog of cases, but it neither accepts that its reporting was incorrect nor that it has perpetuated a misunderstanding, given that the numbers presented by The Royal Gazette have not been challenged
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