Legal Logs Jammed by Plea-Bargain Moratorium

WESTMINSTER — Apparently frustrated with Dist. Atty. Michael R. Capizzi’s ban on plea-bargaining by his deputies, judges in West Municipal Court have stopped overseeing plea negotiations themselves, creating a growing backlog in court proceedings and mounting overtime bills at public expense.

Judge Donald S. Macintyre spearheaded the judicial boycott when he took charge of scheduling felony cases July 1, and he informed prosecutors as well as defense attorneys that he would not offer or arrange plea-bargains. His colleagues quickly joined the movement.

In overburdened courts throughout the nation, plea-bargaining has long been a necessary if controversial practice. Officials can speed up the system and save taxpayers money, for example, if they let a defendant plead guilty to a lesser charge and avoid a costly trial. But the prosecutors and judges involved also run a risk that voters could later accuse them of being too lenient.

Macintyre did not return calls Thursday, and Judge Thomas J. Borris, the presiding judge in the Westminster courthouse, declined comment. But the results of the plea-bargain boycott are clear, others say.

Orange County public defender Carl Holmes said one of the immediate effects of the plea-bargaining halt has been a 400% increase in the number of cases requiring preliminary hearings, minitrials at which witnesses give testimony.

“A plea-bargain can take minutes, while a preliminary hearing can last . . . from three or four hours to two days,” Holmes said. “What used to be four or five hearings a week now is 20.”

Holmes said he did not believe defendants were being treated unfairly as a result of the backlog.

“It’s more a waste of money and time. Police officers have to sit in court at time-and-a-half pay waiting to be witnesses, when they could be out on the street doing their jobs.”

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At the Superior Court level, cases formerly settled at the Westminster court now require double staffing in one courtroom on Mondays to handle the huge influx of additional proceedings and paperwork on cases that would have been plea-bargained at the lower court level.

Judge David O. Carter, the presiding criminal court judge, said many of the cases coming from the lower court are weak and should not be clogging the Superior Court calendar. “We had nine cases dismissed this Monday,” he said. “Those cases never should have been brought to Superior Court.” Superior Court clerk Julie Boyd said that, on Monday, July 28, the normal docket of about 70 had swollen to 122 cases.

However, Deputy Dist. Atty. David Himelson, who oversees the Westminster court’s staff, said he believes that the judges’ decision to withdraw from the plea-bargain process has not caused any major problems.

“Everybody’s busy, but you know court is always busy,” Himelson said. “The system isn’t any more or less overloaded, it’s just a matter of how one judge chooses to handle his calendar. Frankly, it’s been good for us. We’ve seen we can handle it.”

Capizzi has had a long-standing policy against plea-bargaining--the widespread practice of offering to reduce charges or lower punishment in exchange for guilty pleas. Under his policy, his prosecutors are supposed to make a sentencing recommendation when a case is filed in court and stick with it.

“Our job is to prosecute cases, not sentence criminals,” Himelson said. “The public deserves more than bargain-basement justice.”

But Holmes said it was impossible for every case to go to trial and everyone involved in the system knows it.

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To keep the wheels of justice turning, Orange County Municipal Court judges have taken up the slack until now, evaluating the strength of the evidence, listening to pleas from defense attorneys who present additional evidence, and arranging settlements in chambers.

Most agree that the boycott could be short-term. Macintyre’s term as calendar judge is up Oct. 1.

“This is not a big deal, this will pass,” Himelson said.

“I’d have to agree with him on that,” Holmes said. “These things have come and gone before. “ But with all the Westminster court judges involved, Carter noted it was possible the policy might drag on.

Carter said he would not take sides in the dispute or try to intervene, although he said he believed the judges were “fine jurists” who were easy targets because they had been required to hand out plea-bargains that made it look as if they were “soft on crime.”

“The point is this is costing taxpayers money,” he said. “Whoever is right or wrong, if you have the district attorney not doing plea-bargains, and you have judges not settling cases, it’s the taxpayer who is footing the bill.”