NY Daily News Editorial: This Court is a Crime...

This court is a crime: Judges are drowning in misdemeanor cases
The New York Daily News - EDITORIAL - June 21, 2009

The campaign to succeed Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau has produced a markedly good idea: Criminal Court must be rescued from the disaster it has become. Candidate Cy Vance has keyed on the court's dreadful performance as the tribunal charged with dispensing justice in misdemeanor cases. He's promising to lead a crash fixup program for Manhattan, but the dysfunction extends to all five boroughs. Starved for resources, the court has become the weak link in the justice system. As the place that determines what happens to arrests in crimes like vandalism, petty theft and prostitution, it is critical to quality of life. But it no longer remotely fits the definition of a court as an institution where charges are tried before an impartial magistrate. Not when, last year, it managed to hold trials in one-tenth of one percent of its cases. "Kafkaesque" is the right word for a court where the odds that any defendant will stand trial are, literally, 1,000 to 1. What happens day in and day out are paper-shuffling and endless plea bargaining, often by repeat offenders who spin the revolving door faster than a roulette wheel. Every performance measure is appalling. The caseload is up; so are dismissals, backlogs and the time cases linger before disposition. The number of judges and trials is down. Last year, the court initiated 357,480 cases, 21% more than in 1990, the high year for crime in New York. But, with a third fewer judges, the number of cases awaiting action has soared 169% and the number of dismissals has climbed 28%. Ten years ago, arraignment to disposition took an average of 69 days in Brooklyn. By 2008, it was 122 days, up 77%. During that time, Queens was up 58%, Manhattan, 54% and Staten Island, 45%. Such statistics are not kept for the Bronx because of an experiment in courthouse management. And all the trends have worsened over the past five years. By state law, Criminal Court can have up to 107 judges. But many were reassigned to other courts even as caseloads increased. For example, Staten Island has two criminal court judges. Last year they processed 13,051 filings - 26 each per working day. What's happening in Criminal Court is not fair to defendants and deprives the public of tough law enforcement. Vance is right to call for reform. State Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman, the city's five DAs and City Hall Criminal Justice Coordinator John Feinblatt need to swing into action.