Brooklyn District Attorney Ken Thompson has indicted or obtained guilty pleas before indictment on the lowest percentage of felony complaints of any prosecutor citywide — a disturbing drop that could signal soft treatment of criminals, experts warn.
A Post investigation found that Thompson indicted or won a guilty plea on just 32 percent of felony complaints in 2014, his first year in office — a 10 percentage point drop from predecessor Charles Hynes’ last two years in office, when the average was 42 percent.
And during the first two months of 2015, Thompson’s figure plummeted even lower — 29 percent, a rate almost 8 percentage points lower than the city average of 36.9 percent.
“I’m going to be treated a lot better if I’m doing something illegal in Brooklyn than if I was in another county,” blasted a former top Hynes staffer, who was shocked to see Brooklyn’s paltry indictment rate.
The former Hynes executive was also surprised to see that Brooklyn had fallen behind The Bronx — long seen as the softest borough on crime — in the percentage of indictments or guilty pleas on felony complaints.
John Pfaff, a criminal-law professor at Fordham Law, said the numbers can show how lax a particular prosecutor is with criminals.
“You can use it as a rough measure of aggressiveness,” he noted. “The changes suggest that Thompson has taken on a different approach in how he handles felonies.”
While Hynes indicted 5,203 cases in 2013, Thompson indicted just 3,580 the next year, a decrease of 1,623 (not including guilty pleas).
And, while Thompson’s office handled 1,177 fewer felony complaints in 2014 than Hynes did the previous year, the decline in actual indictments still represents a large drop in the number of lawbreakers charged with a felony.
The Brooklyn DA’s Office also prosecuted fewer trials in 2014 than the previous year, with Thompson’s office handling 244 in his first year, compared with the 293 Hynes prosecuted in 2013.
Thompson’s office also saw a higher percentage of its cases dismissed, 33 percent, compared with the citywide average of 25 percent, court records show. That was the highest percentage of dismissed cases of any borough in the city, except for The Bronx.
A top Thompson aide defended the indictment numbers, saying they reflect a strategy of “indictment integrity” — part of which offers up a misdemeanor plea before indictment so as not to waste resources.
“When we think a case in the interest of justice deserves a misdemeanor, we are going to offer it up front,” said Chief Assistant District Attorney Eric Gonzalez.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment