Late last year, the Philadelphia Inquirer ran an in-depth expose on the Criminal Justice System in the city of Philadelphia. The reporting detailed a system in crisis, troubled by rampant witness fear and a growing number of fugitives from court. By the reporters’ count, there were more than 47,000 defendants on whom active bench warrants had been issued because of a failure to appear for a scheduled court date.
The articles reported that Philadelphia had one of the nation’s lowest conviction rates, with thousands of cases every year collapsing early in the legal process without any exploration of their merits. According to the Inquirer’s analysis of 31,000 cases from 2006 and 2007, nearly two-thirds of all defendants charged with violent crimes walked free on all charges. Only one in 10 people charged with a gun assault is convicted of that crime. Only two in 10 people charged with armed robbery are convicted of that crime.
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