The pandemic slowed the criminal justice system to a crawl in much of the U.S., and now an increase in violent crime is straining the system even further.
Why it matters: COVID-19 has caused backlogs in criminal cases across the U.S. to swell, forcing district attorneys to focus on the most violent offenses — and decline, delay or deal down a slew of other cases.
- “For the prosecution, the older a case gets, the tougher it gets to prove in a lot of cases,” said Billy West, president of the National District Attorneys Association and the D.A. for Cumberland County, N.C.
Details: Prosecutors in Chicago are pleading out or dismissing cases to help shrink the courts’ backlog. And in Oakland, Calif., they’ve had to dismiss old cases amid an uptick in violent crime, Alameda County District Attorney, Nancy O’Malley announced in June.
By the numbers: The number of violent crimes in the U.S. rose by 5.6% in 2020, according to FBI figures released Monday — the first increase in years.
What they’re saying: “Without a substantial change, we are facing the very real possibility that it could take more than three years before some violent crimes make their way to trial and even longer for homicide cases,” Spencer Merriweather, the D.A. in Mecklenburg County, N.C., said earlier this year.
- Merriweather stopped prosecuting low-level drug offenses in February 2021 to focus on homicides and violent crime, Axios Charlotte’s Michael Graff reports. As of this summer, Merriweather’s team of about 85 prosecutors had 110 murder cases awaiting trial, following two of the city’s deadliest years on record.
- Beyond those cases, the office is also prioritizing defendants with a history of violent crimes, especially gun crimes, because many homicides are carried out by repeat offenders.
Courts in many parts of the country were closed for part of last year, and virtual hearings didn’t make up for that lost time.
- The virus can still slow things down now — the trial of former Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes was delayed last month because a juror might have been exposed to COVID.
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