ROCHESTER — When A. Michael Kuehn attended an Olmsted County Justice Partners meeting in early October, attorneys at the public defender’s office hit a milestone.

Cases from Olmsted County assigned to the Third Judicial District’s Public Defender’s Office were being scheduled a year out from that date.

“We’ve lapped ourselves,” said Kuehn, chief public defender for the Third Judicial District.

After two years of progress in speeding up criminal cases in Olmsted County, cases began piling up again this spring. Attorneys and court officials list a variety of reasons court calendars are stretching further out. They point to relatively heavier case work, court procedural rules and widespread use of video by law enforcement among the reasons defendants are now waiting a year between receivin

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