Schuylkill strives for court efficiency

By Lisa Price

tneditor@TNONLINE.COM

Let’s take the case of an imaginary guy we’ll call Joe Offender. Offender gets busted making meth in the back seat of a Bronco somewhere in Schuylkill County. He’s arraigned at a magistrate, and then his case becomes one of about 1,200 on the pretrial list.

And then Joe Offender waits. A witness for the case, the woman in the front seat? Can’t be located. The arresting officer? Retired and moved to Florida. Offender’s case is absorbed into the list of pending cases.

Schuylkill County District Attorney Michael O’Pake and others involved in the judicial process knew there had to be a better way. In November, after discussions with President Judge William Baldwin, the DA’s office launched what’s called status conferences.

Backlog

Before the change, there was a backlog of 400 cases.

“Our system had become unmanageable,” O’Pake said. “We have five criminal terms (February, April, June, August, October), and before the term we’d have pretrial conferences, where attorneys would meet with Judge Baldwin.”

After the pretrial conferences, typically from 1,100 to 1,200 cases would be attached for pretrial. Judge Baldwin and the court administrator would compile a list of cases for trial, and that list would usually reach 100 cases. County officials would begin rounding up prospective jurors, solidifying witnesses and taking all the steps needed to prepare for trial.

The unwieldiness and length of the process was the genesis of the status conferences. Here’s how it works: One judge, two attorneys (one from DA’s office, one from public defender’s office) and the accused person meet. Each of the county’s six judges hears cases from one magistrate’s office. The county has seven magistrates so one judge covers two, the two with the lowest number of cases. Status conferences will take place each month.

“The goal of the program is to get cases through the system quicker,” O’Pake said. “Prisoners don’t languish in county prison, and if they receive a longer sentence they go to state prison.”

“Another benefit of moving cases through is that it helps bring closure to the victim.”

“When we have the status conference, here’s what we want to find out — is discovery completed, are there any plea offers, are you going to trial, are you ready for trial,” O’Pake said. “Only cases going to trial get on the pretrial list.”

The system will work as long as everyone involved understands a basic premise — if an offer is made at the status conference, that’s the best offer. There won’t be a better one, there won’t be a second or third offer.

“If there’s an offer, it’s good for two or three weeks; if it’s not taken, any other offer won’t be as good,” O’Pake said. “There’s a big difference between an offer that’s six to 23 months, or six to 24 months — the longer offer means state prison. Also, the length of probation time can be longer.”

Consistency

O’Pake said the DA’s office is “very consistent” with offers.

“The offer is based on whether or not the person was on probation or parole at the time, if a probation or parole was previously revoked, and the number of times a person has been on probation,” he explained. “The defense attorneys know what the parameters are.”

“We will stick to our guns on the offer, and there will be no better offer with time passing,” he said. “The goal is to get a person in and out of the system in six months, and I’ve got to tell you, it’s working.

“It’s a great system although initially it means more work for everybody,” he added. “But if we stick with it, I believe that by April of 2019 there will be fewer cases in the system.

“We typically have four sessions of guilty pleas per month. In November we had 15 sessions of guilty pleas and disposed of a lot of cases, about 400,” he said.

O’Pake and the county’s magistrates are also coming on board for a Fast Track guilty plea. It’s for defendants who have been arrested for “M-3” charges, which would be misdemeanors. Examples of M-3s would be arrests for a small amount of marijuana, drug paraphernalia or certain pharmaceuticals.

An arrested person who participates in the Fast Track guilty plea waives the preliminary hearing. He or she can make the guilty plea at the magistrate’s office or come to a formal arraignment at Schuylkill County courthouse and plead guilty there.

O’Pake said that the program is not for habitual offenders and that the Fast Track guilty plea process can’t be used by anyone whose arrest involved meth, heroin, cocaine or opioids.