Do you look over your shoulder when you cross a dark parking lot? No? Bet you’ll start by the time you get to the end of this column. I didn’t become truly paranoid until the police department added me to its daily email list about a year ago and I developed the habit of looking up the criminal records of every suspect named within. If the average person read what I read every week, quite a few of them would be picketing outside the courthouse. In 1997, the Charlotte Observer did a blockbuster story about how Mecklenburg County’s grossly under-funded court system dismissed 50 percent of the criminal charges filed, the highest dismissal rate in the state and among the highest in the nation. It was outrageous, everyone agreed.
Eight years later, the dismissal rate in this county is — you guessed it — still 50 percent, the highest of the 30 court districts in North Carolina. And that doesn’t count the third or so of all cases that the district attorneys screen out because they believe there’s enough evidence to arrest a suspect, but not enough to convict him.
Since 1997, we’ve risen to even greater national distinction. Of the 21 states who keep searchable records, the state of North Carolina now has the highest felony dismissal rate — 35 percent — according to a study released in 2003 by the National Center for State Courts. That makes Mecklenburg County the highest dismissal rate county in the highest dismissal rate state, a stunning national achievement the Charlotte Chamber no doubt won’t be including in its promotional packets.
District Attorney Peter Gilchrist will tell you that part of the problem is that most suspects are arrested on more than one charge, a strategy not solely unique to Mecklenburg, and then some charges are dropped as part of plea bargains. But that doesn’t explain what is going on with serious charges. Take murder, for instance.
Statistically speaking, if you live here and are considering whacking an annoying neighbor and you don’t plan to leave a clear trail of evidence, your odds of getting away with it aren’t half bad. A third of the murder charges in this county are dismissed, almost twice the state average of 18 percent. Another 42 percent are pled down to a lesser charge. Again, that’s not counting the cases that are screened out before anyone is ever arrested.
And don’t let the fact the “we only drop some charges” thing fool you. From what I’ve seen from the police department’s email list, most of the criminals who go on to commit bigger crimes have records with more dismissals than convictions. Take Zavier Davis for instance. In the three years before Davis shot two people and assaulted a pregnant woman during a Pizza Hut robbery in February, about half of the four dozen or so charges filed against him were dismissed, too.
If you’re not seeing red yet, consider this. As Gilchrist loves to point out, the DA’s office operates on a budget of about $4 million. More than twice that is spent by the state on public defenders and indigent defense.
So the next time you hear about state legislative leaders like House Speaker Jim Black, who can’t seem to do anything about court system funding but has no trouble finding “extra” money to dish out to the Duke Mansion; or about the county potentially chucking millions at a baseball stadium; or about the amazing teamwork that has scraped together millions for a NASCAR museum on a moment’s notice, remember this. A recent study by UNCC professor Paul Friday found that this county lags far behind comparable locales in staffing. We have 51 district attorneys while Portland has 86 and Austin has 76. Court support staff statistics are almost laughable. Mecklenburg district attorneys get by with 38 support staff. Portland has 132, Austin, 108.
The court computer system is so antiquated that Friday had trouble finding even basic information on the outcomes of some cases, which were either never recorded or simply disappeared into the system.
Don’t think the chaos is confined to the courthouse; it’s spreading to the jails and costing the taxpayers money. As Friday’s study found, because the system lacks the staff and technology to resolve cases quickly, defendants, some of whom have been arrested on misdemeanor charges and can’t afford to bail out, languish for ridiculously long periods in the county jail awaiting trial.
According to American Bar Association standards, 100 percent of misdemeanor cases should be resolved within 90 days. In Mecklenburg County, only 24 percent of those languishing in jail on misdemeanor charges have been tried by the end of 90 days. In fact, 18 percent those awaiting trial in our local jail on misdemeanor charges are still there after a year. Beyond the obvious justice issue here, the situation is also sucking up tax dollars that could be used for something more productive than prisoner housing while our overwhelmed court staff continues their cases two and three times.
“We’re sort of baling as fast as we can to keep the boat afloat,” said Gilchrist. That could be the understatement of the year.
Contact Tara Servatius at tara.servatius@cln.com
This article appears in Apr 27 – May 3, 2005.
