Toldja former Mecklenburg District Attorney Peter Gilchrist was a slacker.
This just proves it. For years, Gilchrist whined that he had to cut everyone a mega plea deal because his office was broke, with less funding than the dog pound — and it was. So I worked for years to elevate the issue and get the office adequate funding and he wound up with more assistant prosecutors than you’ll find per capita in the average city.
But his prosecutorial bent toward dismissing most charges and pleaing stuff down to the point of ridiculousness never ended, even then.
New DA Andrew Murray appears to be proving that what Gilchrist claimed was impossible, well, isn’t.
In 2011, the Homicide Prosecution Team resolved 97 cases. This is a 62% increase in cases resolved over the past five-year average. The Homicide Prosecution Team tried 14 cases in 2011; this is a 61% increase over the past five-year average. In addition, the prison sentences for defendants convicted of murder have increased for cases resolved in 2011.
It’s a huge deal for Murray to try 14 murder cases. The reason Gilchrist got run slap over by the defense attorneys who ran the courthouse under his tenure was that he tried six or seven murder cases a year. They knew he was too disorganized in his use of resources to go to trial in all but the highest profile of murder cases, the ones he had to try because they’d gotten so much media attention he’d look like a shmoo if he cut the defendant one of his insane plea deals.
This allowed defense attorneys to plea bargain Gilchrist down to murder sentences of a length that most criminals serve for armed robbery in other places. And it allowed armed robbers to serve a year or two — on their second or third offense, something that would be unthinkable in most communities.
I’ve long said that to get longer prison times in plea deals, the DA must be willing to back tougher plea offers to defendants up with an ability and willingness to go to trial if a defense attorney won’t play ball. Murray appears to be headed in the right direction on this.
Gilchrist rarely used the habitual felon laws, which was a shame because over a few years, they could have been used to take Charlotte’s worst criminals off the streets for a long time, ultimately saving the city and county on law enforcement bucks and lightening the DA’s office load.
But with just a year under his belt — Murray took office in January 2011 — he is making improvements there, according to his press release:
In 2011, the Habitual Felon Team (HFT) convicted 345 felons and sent them all to prison. This 35% increase, from 2010, of criminals sent to prison by the HFT is a result of Mr. Murray’s efforts to increase the allotted courtroom time for the HFT, as well as his increase in the number of prosecutors and staff assigned to the HFT.
It’s a good start, but only a start. Murray’s got a lot more work to do, but he is headed in the right direction, something you could never say about Gilchrist, who had nothing but three decades of excuses on crime for this community.
