- Judge Tom Dyer dismisses two misdemeanor cases due to lack of judges and courtrooms.
- Yolo County District Attorney’s Office says dismissals are a denial of justice to victims.
- Yolo County’s court system faces a backlog due to declining settlement rates.
- “The dismissals were not discretionary decisions but statutory mandates.” – Yolo County Court Executive Officer Shawn Landry
WOODLAND, Calif. — Earlier this week, the Yolo County District Attorney’s Office issued a pointed press release stating that Judge Tom Dyer dismissed two misdemeanor cases set for trial due to a lack of sufficient judges and courtrooms.
The Vanguard reviewed the circumstances surrounding the dismissals and determined that the situation is more complex than the district attorney’s statement suggested.
On Feb. 17, 2026, Judge Dyer dismissed two misdemeanor cases against Israel Alvarez after they reached their statutory last day for trial under California Penal Code section 1382. Under the statute, misdemeanor cases generally must begin within 30 days unless the accused waives time and agrees to a later trial date. Alvarez had requested jury trials without waiving the 30-day requirement.
According to the district attorney’s office, the assigned prosecutor was ready to proceed and was not moving to dismiss. The court invited the defense to waive time and continue the cases, which was declined. Because appellate courts have ruled that insufficient judges or courtroom availability does not constitute “good cause” to continue a case past its statutory deadline, Judge Dyer dismissed both matters as required by law.
District Attorney Jeff Reisig stated in the release, “Each branch of government has specific responsibilities to fulfill to the public. Only the judicial branch has a responsibility to provide sufficient court rooms and judges such that all cases filed receive a just hearing and result.”
He added, “What happened today is a denial of justice to the victims in each of these cases. It is also an extreme waste of resources for all involved, including the victims, to prepare for trial, be ready for the case to start, and find out the case will be dismissed because there are not enough judges. This contributes to a lack of faith in the system providing justice to the victims and the public at large. This is unprecedented and to my knowledge has never happened before in Yolo County during my tenure as District Attorney.”
The press release detailed the underlying allegations. In one case, Alvarez was charged with 11 violations of Penal Code section 273.6 for allegedly violating a domestic violence restraining order. In a separate matter, he was charged with violating Penal Code section 148(a)(1) and section 647(f), stemming from an incident in which officers investigated a vehicle that had run a stop sign and gone off the road.
What the release did not address was whether the courtroom shortage reflected a structural failure in judicial staffing or a broader congestion issue within the county’s trial calendar.
In a written statement to The Vanguard, Yolo County Court Executive Officer Shawn Landry emphasized that the dismissals did not result in Alvarez’s release from custody.
“The Court does not comment on existing cases,” Landry wrote. “However, it should be noted that according to the record, the defendant remains in custody on an unrelated case and is currently serving a custodial sentence through June 2026. The dismissal did not result in the defendant’s release from custody. Additionally, the criminal protective order associated with one of the dismissed cases remains in full force and effect until April 2033.”
Landry underscored that the dismissals were not discretionary decisions but statutory mandates.
“When no courtroom was available to begin trial and no time waiver was entered, the Court was required under Penal Code section 1382 to dismiss the case due to lack of courtroom availability,” he wrote. “The dismissals were made by the Court as required by law.”
In a phone interview this week, Landry rejected the suggestion that the issue stemmed from an increase in filings.
“No, it’s not an increase in filings,” he said. “In fact, filings have been pretty flat the last several years.”
He noted that in 2016, when the court had six judges assigned to criminal departments, there were 9,333 combined felony and misdemeanor filings. In 2025, he said, there were 5,311.
“There’s a huge difference,” he said in the interview . “And that’s why we have less judges assigned to the criminal departments now.”
Judicial assignments in Yolo County are guided by the Judicial Council’s Assessed Judicial Need (AJN) methodology, a statewide formula that allocates judges based on weighted caseload data averaged over three years.
“Criminal courtroom availability reflects the Court’s responsibility to balance limited judicial resources across all legally mandated case types and community priorities, consistent with Judicial Council’s Assessed Judicial Need (AJN) workload allocation methodology,” Landry wrote.
Landry explained that using more judges in criminal departments than the weighted caseload supports would divert resources from family law, juvenile, probate and civil matters.
“We wouldn’t want six judges in the criminal departments for 5,311 filings right now because that would short sell to people who are looking at family law to have their cases adjudicated,” he said.
Judge Dyer, who dismissed the two cases, is assigned to the juvenile division rather than to a dedicated criminal trial department. According to Landry, his availability for the misdemeanor matters reflected the court’s attempt to accommodate additional criminal trials beyond its designated criminal departments.
More significant, Landry said, is a recent shift in how misdemeanor cases are being resolved.
Although the court maintains a dedicated criminal settlement department intended to resolve cases before trial, Landry said settlement rates have declined, increasing the number of cases proceeding to trial and placing pressure on limited courtroom space.
“I would also add that in 2025 there were more misdemeanor trials than felony trials, unprecedented for Yolo,” he wrote in a follow-up email. “We saw more lower level misdemeanor cases going to trial than felony trials. That is a first.”
“Our misdemeanor settlement program is, there’s either, and I put this in my comments, there’s either an inability or unwillingness to settle. And so that causes calendar congestion,” he said.
He also cited an increase in “burn jurors,” meaning jurors summoned for trials that ultimately do not proceed as scheduled.
“Our burn juror rate is the highest in 2025 than it’s ever been,” he said in the interview . “You don’t want settlements the day of trial because that’s a major inconvenience for not only jurors, but the whole court system.”
Others described some plea offers from leadership in the district attorney’s office, including Garrett Hamilton and Dave Wilson, as “now ridiculous,” suggesting that hardened positions may be contributing to more cases being set for trial rather than resolved earlier.
Landry characterized the congestion as “multifactorial” in the interview, citing statutory deadlines, courtroom capacity limits and changes in settlement patterns rather than a simple shortage of judges.
Suggestions that the court could simply bring in retired or out-of-county judges, he said, overlook both workload data and logistical constraints.
“The filings don’t justify it,” Landry told the Vanguard . Even if a temporary judge were assigned, additional courtroom clerks, reporters and sheriff’s deputies would be required to support an expanded department.
“There’s a whole compliment that comes with bringing in an additional judge,” he said .
The district attorney’s office noted in its release that Penal Code section 1050(j) requires a court dismissing a case due to calendar congestion to immediately contact the chair of the Judicial Council, currently Chief Justice Patricia Guerrero.
Landry stressed that the court operates within a structured allocation model and must serve all case types equitably.
“Turning other departments into criminal departments to handle criminal cases exclusively is a nonstarter and would be unfair to the many other important cases handled in the Court,” he wrote.
Landry noted that next week there are 15 cases which have been confirmed for trial.
“We can’t handle, no one could handle 15 cases of a court our size,” he said. “We would have to use every single department, civil, family, juvenile, and we still wouldn’t have enough courtrooms.”
For now, the dismissals underscore that when statutory speedy-trial deadlines collide with limited courtroom capacity, dismissal is not a discretionary policy decision but a legal mandate.
The DA’s press release framed the incident as a breakdown in courtroom availability. The court’s response suggests a different narrative: a system strained not by rising filings, but by trial rates, settlement dynamics and resource allocation decisions governed by statewide methodology.
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