District Attorney 2004 Report


Courthouse 35 West Main Street Bloomsburg, PA 17815	District Attorney's Report on Criminal Prosecutions 2004

	This report represents an effort on the part of District Attorney Gary Norton to provide the public and individuals in law enforcement data on the status of criminal prosecutions in Columbia County. The year 2004 marked the first year in DA Norton’s term. It was a year of development of new file organization methods, work flow systems, case management procedures and personnel assignments. In short, 2004 was a year of tremendous work by very dedicated District Attorney staff, attorneys, judges, court administrators, Sheriff’s office personnel, Clerk of Court staff and law enforcement officials. An expression of the quality of any success will be left to individual citizens to judge. This Report is intended to illustrate the seriousness of the crime problem in Columbia County, the magnitude of the work that it takes to deal with the problem and some quantitative measures of the extent to which District Attorney’s Office and the Courts have dealt with the crime problem in Columbia County. The District Attorney’s Office presently has 3 full-time secretaries and 3 part-time attorneys, including the District Attorney. The attorney staffing is down from 4 part-timers who were employed in the DA’s Office from 2000 into early 2003. Work among the attorneys is assigned by caseload: The geographic area covered by District Justice Donna Coombe (Bloomsburg, Scott Twp. and Montour Twp.) is assigned to First Assistant District Attorney Thomas Leipold. The territory of District Justice Richard Cashman (Berwick and vicinity) is assigned to Assistant District Attorney Anthony McDonald. The areas within the jurisdictions of District Justice Craig Long (Catawissa and the south side municipalities) and District Justice Ola Stackhouse (the Millville and Benton areas) are handled by District Attorney Gary Norton. This constituted an annual intake of cases, per year, per attorney, of between 371 to 542 cases per prosecutor per year (excepting those cases which are disposed of at the District Justice level). See: 2004 Criminal Cases per District Justice. This system has assisted the attorney prosecutors to become familiar with their cases early on and to develop a closer relationship with the police departments which they serve with more frequency. The system also allows the “control attorney” to handle all of the pre-trial motions and procedures on the file all the way through trial or guilty plea. In 2004, the Columbia County District Attorney’s Office took 18 cases to verdict, with convictions occurring in 16 of the trials, for an 89% trial winning percentage. The DA’s Office has not been hesitant to go to trial, even in the more difficult or sensitive cases. Through 2004, the DA’s Office has tried rape, drug delivery, theft, public catastrophe and DUI cases, all involving challenges in presentation, persuasion and coordination. See: 2004 Criminal Trials - Columbia County - Taken to Verdict. The types of crimes being committed in Columbia County mirror the nation. Hard core drugs such as heroin have been seen to have exponential rippling effects, resulting in thefts, assaults, intentional property damage and sexual abuse crimes. The Pennsylvania State Police maintain a Uniform Crime Reporting (“UCR”) database which accumulates the types of arrests by county and year. Although there are still some municipalities which still do not enter their arrest data in the UCR system, most municipalities in Columbia County participate. As a result, one can view with confidence the percentage reporting of crime, if not the absolute numbers. Liquor Law violations, such as Underage Drinking, represented 25.01% of all arrests (432 reported) in Columbia County in 2004. These are Summary cases, handled predominately at the District Justice level, but significant numbers of appeals of Summary cases are taken to the Common Pleas Court and are prosecuted by the District Attorney’s Office. This should be affected by the new Juvenile Offenders Program instituted on a trial basis before District Justice Donna Coombe in 2005. The Juvenile Offenders Program allows first time offenders to work through a probationary educational program to earn the right to withdrawal of the charge of Underage Drinking. Of misdemeanor and felony charges, DUI has the highest filing frequency, at 12.28% of all arrests. Drug sale arrests in 2004 represented 2.44% of all arrests, but the number of drug sale arrests increased from 16 in 2003 to 42 in 2004, an increase of more than 162%! Thefts, including Robbery, Burglary and simple Thefts amounted to 9.55% of the total arrests in 2004. Total reported arrests in 2004 increased 19.52% over 2003. See: Columbia County 2004 Uniform Crime Reporting Arrests. The number of Criminal Cases actually filed in Columbia County, as distinguished from arrests, increased 22% in 2004, to 1,217 cases. This represents an increase in the number of cases filed of 222 cases, over those which were filed in 2003. In 2003, 995 Criminal Cases were filed, which was up 10% from the 906 cases filed in 2002. See: Total Criminal Cases Filed per Year in Columbia County. While 222 more Criminal Cases were filed in 2004, compared to 2003, an increase of 22%, the pending case list, or “backlog”, has decreased by 7%, from 425 cases pending on January 1, 2004, to 397 cases pending on December 31, 2004. Click here for a chart of the pending cases reported monthly to the Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts, which is run by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. The working down of the backlog by 7% while 22% more cases were coming into the system is remarkable in view of the fact that the Columbia County District Attorney’s Office is the one of the lowest staffed DA’s Offices among all 6^th Class Counties in Pennsylvania, second only to Elk County, which has half the population and 25% of the caseload of Columbia County. The average staffing of the 6^th Class Counties and the counties surrounding Columbia County was determined in an informal telephone survey. A part-time attorney was counted as one-half of a “Full Time Equivalent” (“FTE”) and a full-time attorney was counted as one FTE. Thus, since Columbia County has 3 part-time attorneys (and “part-time” is used loosely here), it has 1.5 FTE attorneys. The average of the surveyed counties is 1 FTE attorney per 313 cases filed per year. Columbia County has 1 FTE attorney per 604 cases filed per year using 2002 statistics, almost twice the average. See: Survey of DA Staffing in 6^th Class Counties and Counties Surrounding Columbia. When compared to population, the same statistics hold true: Columbia County has 1 FTE attorney per 42,767 in population, the second lowest of the surveyed counties (again, to Elk County), while the average of the surveyed counties is 1 FTE attorney per 24,263. Again, the Columbia County District Attorney’s Office has about half the attorney staffing which is present in comparable counties, when compared to population. Columbia County had three Assistant District Attorneys from 2000 to 2003, but lost one of the those positions when a grant expired. Therefore, the Columbia County District Attorney’s Office presently has significantly more cases and less attorneys to work them than in the past. The Columbia County Commissioners have been receptive to the information presented above, and are working with the District Attorney to determine options which may be available to secure funding for a third Assistant District Attorney position. New initiatives have also been instituted by the District Attorney’s Office in 2004. Police have been strongly encouraged to notify the District Attorney’s Office upon the conclusion of a drug dealing case in which valuable cash or other assets have been seized, so that Asset Forfeiture Petitions may be filed. A large dilemma in Columbia County is the every increasing list of bench warrants. Approximately 25% of the cases on the pending list are against Defendants who have not appeared for required proceedings and who are now fugitives. To create further incentive to appear, a Bail Forfeiture Program has been instituted. In 2004, $13,750 in bail funds were forfeited to the County, and a Court Order is in place which will result in payments in the amount of $68,750 to Columbia County if one particular fugitive is not found. Time delays between the filing of pre-trial motions and hearings on the motions have generally been cut to less than 5 weeks, and some are heard within two weeks. This and case management have reduced delays in cases getting to trial. There is still much work to do. The “backlog” can continue to be reduced, educational initiatives can be instituted in the schools to instill respect for the law at an early age and the Drug Task Force can expand its operations and coordination with all municipal police departments in Columbia County. Of course, funding is always an issue and certainly facilitates program development. Nonetheless, the District Attorney’s Office in Columbia County is well poised to move the state of law enforcement in Columbia County to more efficient levels in 2005.