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Fewer criminal cases are going to verdict in Philadelphia and more defendants are agreeing to negotiated pleas deals. That's according to case disposition data collected by the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas and recently obtained by The Legal.

The data details the outcomes of hundreds of thousands of criminal cases that were disposed through the Common Pleas and Municipal Court systems over the past five years. Along with showing a busy court system, the information also provides some insights into how the criminal justice system has functioned during the first year under Philadelphia's reformer District Attorney Larry Krasner.

Some court watchers said the data indicates that Krasner, elected in 2017 on a platform of criminal justice reform, is making good on his campaign promises, and others said the data shows only a mild departure from the previous administration. However, one of the clearest trends revealed in the data is that the courthouse is seeing fewer trials and the office is increasingly withdrawing cases.

Steven Fairlie, a criminal defense attorney with Fairlie & Lippy in North Wales, Pennsylvania, a former prosecutor in the Montgomery County District Attorney's Office, said the data seems to indicate Krasner is doing what he said he would do during his campaign.

“In some administrations the prosecutors are afraid to dismiss charges voluntarily because of the fear of repercussions from their bosses, and if you have a progressive DA who's not going to give anyone a hard time for dismissing charges when the evidence isn't there, you're going to see them voluntarily dismissed for lack of prosecution and lack of evidence and maybe fewer not-guilties,” Fairlie said. “If the evidence isn't there, or the cases are not the types he thinks should be prosecuted, then the ADAs handling those won't feel any pressure to prosecute those cases, and they're going to be nolle prossed.”

The number of cases going to verdict in the Court of Common Pleas has hovered around 16% of case dispositions over the past five years, but that number dropped to 11% in 2018. That reduction carried over to the Municipal Court as well, where the number of verdicts for felony cases dropped from 3% in 2017 to just over 1.7%. For misdemeanor dispositions in Municipal Court, the percentage of cases going to verdict dropped from nearly 22% in 2017 to little more than 12% in 2018.

The number of cases being withdrawn has been increasing each year, with some of the biggest increases occurring in 2018.

In the Common Pleas category, the percentage of withdrawn cases jumped from 13% to nearly 17.5%. According to the numbers, nearly 27% of the felony Municipal Court cases were dismissed in 2018—up from nearly 23% in 2017—and more than 36% of the Municipal Court misdemeanors were also dismissed. That percentage was up significantly from 2017, when 24% were dismissed.

Ben Waxman, spokesman for the District Attorney's Office, said some of the reductions may be attributable to policy directives the office implemented in early 2018, which said prosecutors should decline charging sex workers arrested for prostitution and decline charging marijuana possession, paraphernalia or buying. He also noted policies providing for plea offers below what they had been in previous administrations.

“This is literally us following through on implementing what we said we were going to do,” Waxman said.

Waxman disagreed with any characterization that prosecutions are down, and said the office is seeking to resolve cases in a more appropriate way.

“It doesn't mean we're just withdrawing or nolle prossing cases. They're still resulting in convictions. People are still being held accountable,” he said.

Waxman, however, said the office would be unable to give detailed responses regarding the statistics, saying The Legal did not give the office sufficient time to review the data and that the office would need at least a week to develop comprehensive responses.

Verdicts and Pleas

According to the numbers, the percentage of cases being disposed through pleas did not drastically change in 2018 in either the Court of Common Pleas or Municipal Court dockets—staying around 64% in Common Pleas, and around 3.5% for Municipal Court felonies and 17% for Municipal Court misdemeanors.

Courts in Philadelphia, however, saw more striking increases in the rate of pleas being reached through negotiations. On the Common Pleas dockets, the rate increased from 72% to 82%, and in felony Municipal Court cases the rate rose from 92% to nearly 96%.

Several attorneys said this was in line with what they've seen as the office under Krasner has been offering more favorable pleas.

When it comes to the cases that go to trial, the numbers also show a consistent trend in the courts seeing fewer guilty verdicts each year.

In the Court of Common Pleas, although the total number of guilty verdicts dropped year-over-year, the percentage of trials ending in guilty verdicts remained largely steady over the past five years at about 67%.

Guilty verdicts on felony cases in the Municipal Court, however, saw a sharper decline. According to the number of total cases that went to verdict, the percentage of guilty verdicts dropped from more than 80% in 2014 to around 75% between 2015 and 2017, before seeing a nearly 8% drop to 68% in 2018. Misdemeanor verdicts in Municipal Court also dropped from nearly 80% guilty verdicts in 2017 to 76% in 2018.

Some sources who declined to be named for the article said the numbers could be a reflection of Krasner's decision to abruptly fire 31 longtime prosecutors—many of whom had significant trial experience—within his first five days in office.

However, defense attorney and former Bucks County prosecutor David Zellis said the verdict data likely cannot be attributed entirely to the mass firing.

“Is it lower because the cases that are actually going to trial are not strong enough? Is it because they lost really good trial lawyers, and now they're trying to replace people? I don't know. I suspect it's just because most of the time defendants, if they're offered something that's satisfactory, they'll enter a plea,” Zellis said. ”It may be that the only cases really being tried are the toughest cases for the commonwealth. Maybe that's why the conviction rate is down. Only the really difficult cases are going to trial.”

Defense attorney and former Lawrence County District Attorney Matthew Mangino said the clearest pattern depicted in the data is that the number of cases moving through the system has declined over the past five years. According to the numbers, the system saw nearly 63,000 cases in 2014, while in 2018 nearly 46,000 were disposed. Those declines, he said, are consistent with other jurisdictions, and should not be attributed to the policies of any one office.

As for 2018, Mangino said the numbers did not seem to indicate any dramatic policy departures.

“The DA is looking at cases, and if they don't believe there's merit to them, then they're not pursuing them,” Mangino said. “In prosecuting fewer misdemeanor cases it would not be out of line with what he said when he was running. It's not like he ran on a tough on crime agenda and then pulled the rug out on the voters.”

Attorneys who reviewed the data also cautioned that only so much information can be gleaned by the numbers. For instance, several pointed out that, although the stats show that convictions are down, they give no indication about the types of charges that are being pursued or declined.

“You never know what's underneath the hood with these numbers,” Fairlie said.