By Joseph Ax

NEW YORK, Jan 30 (Reuters) - The latest effort to tackle the chronic backlog of felony cases in the Bronx is paying dividends less than two weeks after its launch, a court official said Tuesday.

Patricia DiMango, a Brooklyn Supreme Court justice reassigned to the Bronx to help oversee the initiative, said she has disposed of approximately 30 older felony cases with plea agreements since mid-January, when Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman announced a program to address the decades-long backlog. Some of these cases have been pending for years.

"We've already hit a number of the targeted cases," she said. "I think everybody's trying to work towards the goal."

The Bronx backlog has bedeviled court officials. More than 70 percent of felony cases are over 180 days old, exceeding guidelines set by the Office of Court Administration that call for them to be adjudicated within six months.

Over 900 felony cases have been pending for two years or longer, more than double the combined total for the city's other four boroughs, according to court officials.

The centerpiece of the new plan is a special so-called blockbuster part, supervised by DiMango, which will handle the oldest felony cases, some of which have been pending for more than three years.

Starting at the end of February, 10 special trial courtrooms will begin operating for six months under the supervision of judges transferred from outside the city to handle cases from DiMango's blockbuster part that cannot be resolved.

JUDGE POOL

Judge Douglas McKeon, who was named the administrative judge for criminal matters in the Bronx as part of the initiative, said the 10 trial parts will draw from a pool of judges.

According the Office of Court Administration, the pool so far includes Suffolk Supreme Court Justices Andrew Crecca and Joseph Santorelli, Albany Supreme Court Justices Thomas Breslin and Joseph Teresi, Onondaga Supreme Court Justice Donald Greenwood, Oswego Supreme Court Justice James McCarthy, Monroe Supreme Court Justice John Ark, Acting Supreme Court Justice Richard Kloch in Niagra County and a pair of Court of Claims judges, Donald Cerio in Madison County and John Brunetti in Onondaga County.

McKeon said more judges will likely be added to the pool.

In addition, three judges have volunteered to do shorter stints: Michael Coccoma, the deputy chief administrative judge of courts outside New York City; Suffolk County Administrative Judge Randall Hinrichs; and Court of Claims Presiding Judge Richard Sise.

DiMango was chosen in part because of a track record of success in encouraging plea deals in Brooklyn, Lippman said in announcing his plan.

DiMango said lawyers and prosecutors who appear before her know that the cases will no longer be allowed to languish. That in turn gives her the leverage to offer lawyers a simple choice: Negotiate a plea or head to trial almost immediately.

"They know why I'm there," she said. "I'm here to resolve this case now. For the most part, I'm not a big fan of tomorrow."

McKeon said the initiative, which Lippman vowed would eliminate the oldest felony cases within six months, presents a number of logistical challenges, including finding enough courtroom space and deciding how many additional jurors to seek to handle the extra trials.

He also said he would pursue long-term efforts to ensure that the backlog does not re-emerge, such as the assignment of specific judges to intervene when cases are pending for too long.

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