Sunday’s New York Times front-paged this piece on the broken Bronx criminal courts.

Waiting Years for Their Day in the Bronx Courts

Outside the courtroom, the children of the murdered man waited with their mother. It had taken five years for the Bronx courts to get around to them and to the man with teardrop tattoos charged with killing their father.

The death of Robert Gaston on a bloody bodega floor was one of those murders New York barely notices. The family’s grief had given way to an agonizing wait for what they called their day in court. Two years. Four. Five, as bloodstains and memories faded.

“It should never take five years,” 15-year-old Kaitlynn Gaston said. “All the good parts of New York, the high-class parts of New York, they easily get justice.”

The Bronx courts are failing.

With criminal cases languishing for years, a plague of delays in the Bronx criminal courts is undermining one of the central ideals of the justice system, the promise of a speedy trial.

Helpful chart:

The Times devoted two full pages to this investigation, which is depressing in the extreme.

But extremely impressive at the same time.