By Joseph Ax

NEW YORK, Jan 15 (Reuters) - Ten judges from around New York state will be reassigned temporarily to the Bronx to combat the city's worst backlog of felony cases, Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman announced Tuesday.

The measure was one of several proposed by Lippman, including stricter case management time frames and increased judicial efforts to encourage plea agreements, in an effort to solve what has been a decades-long problem.

"The Bronx numbers, for as long as I can remember -- and this goes back 40 years in the court system -- have always been out of skew, particularly as it relates to older felony cases," Lippman said at a forum hosted by the Citizens Crime Commission at Fordham Law School.

The judges, who have not yet been announced, will oversee 10 new special court parts that will exclusively handle trials for the oldest cases, starting with those that have been pending for more than three years.

More than 70 percent of felony cases in the Bronx are over 180 days old, exceeding guidelines set by the Office of Court Administration that call for felony cases to be adjudicated within six months. That compares with 44 percent in Manhattan, 48 percent in Brooklyn, 52 percent in Queens and 25 percent in Staten Island, Lippman said.

There are 931 felony cases in the Bronx that have been pending for two years or longer, more than double the combined total of the city's four other boroughs.

"This acute backlog of felony cases is entirely unacceptable to all of us in the courts and the entire justice community in Bronx County," Lippman said.

The persistent backlog in the Bronx has resisted previous attempted fixes, including an ill-fated 2004 merger of the Criminal Court and Supreme Court that allowed criminal judges to oversee both felonies and misdemeanors in an effort to streamline the system.

Lippman ended that experiment last year when it became clear the merger had exacerbated the backlog.

THE 10 JUDGES

The new plan has short- and long-term goals: to resolve the oldest felony cases quickly and to implement policies that will ameliorate a backlog that has frustrated defense lawyers, prosecutors and judges.

The 10 judges will sit in the special trial parts for up to six months under the supervision of Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Patricia DiMango, who will be reassigned to the Bronx.

DiMango will work with lawyers to facilitate guilty pleas when possible and assign cases to the trial parts if an agreement cannot be reached.

"We are confident that a large-scale infusion of new judges to try these older cases, combined with Judge DiMango's proven skills in attaining pleas and getting cases trial-ready when a plea is not possible, will eliminate Bronx County's backlog of older felony cases within six months, if not sooner," Lippman said.

As part of the long-term effort to address all 3,690 cases older than 180 days, Lippman said that in addition to the 10 he plans to assign judges to the Bronx in the coming months.

Moreover, Bronx cases will have tighter motion schedules, fewer adjournments and case coordinators to ensure that lawyers whose cases are set for trial move forward without delay.

The plan also includes a shake-up at the administrative level. Justice Douglas McKeon, who has been the administrative judge for civil matters in the Bronx since 2011, will now have responsibility for criminal cases as well, replacing Justice Efrain Alvarado, who will return to the trial bench.

Justice Robert Torres will serve as McKeon's deputy.

The plan was designed in consultation with Bronx District Attorney Robert Johnson and the defense bar, including the Legal Aid Society and private attorneys.

"There are defendants and victims who are living in uncertainty and anxiety about the outcome of their cases," Johnson said at the forum. "Nobody should have to wait years, especially those who are innocent and those who have been victims and lost loved ones, to see the outcome of a case."

Steven Banks, the attorney-in-chief for the Legal Aid Society, and Marvin Raskin, a former president of the Bronx County Bar Association, praised the effort following Lippman's remarks.

"Justice delayed is justice denied, particularly for New Yorkers who are wrongfully accused of crimes," Banks said.

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