Prosecutors emphasized that jury trials or the threat of a jury trial is their best tool when it comes to prosecuting DUI cases. With all of the COVID-related court closures , the prosecutor’s tool of a jury trial was largely taken away for large stretches of time, especially in a county like Richland County where they suspended regular court proceedings the longest. Taking away the option of jury trials has caused a major backlog in cases in most counties. One upstate county reported that they had more than 2,100 pending jury trial cases. While delay tactics were already a common tool of the defense, this has taken that situation to an all-new level. Defense attorneys can request a jury trial in their case knowing that prosecutor will have to offer a plea deal or the case will drag on for perhaps years while waiting to get on the trial docket. Our stakeholders said that it became very easy for the defense to use the word “COVID” in almost any way and continuances, maybe multiple ones, were easily granted, dragging the case even further along. In our previous court monitoring reports, we included convincing data that shows the longer the case goes on, the less likely it is to get a guilty disposition. Before the earlier stages of the pandemic, when infection rates were rising but courts were still operating, some prosecutors said their community had a hard time getting jurors to show up. Either the jurors were being diagnosed with COVID, were in quarantine due to a close contact, or were simply afraid of being in close proximity to other people. Some of this still existed once courts reopened. Only some courtrooms in the state were big enough to accommodate a full jury with the social distancing requirements even if there was a desire to begin trials again.
Backlogs: “Feeling the Pressure”
We heard multiple accounts that some judges were uncomfortable with the massive backlog of cases and were pressuring prosecutors to move cases as quickly as possible. When cases need to move fast, plea deals are very likely. Sometimes cases are just dismissed completely to keep the pipeline moving. After speaking with multiple officers and prosecutors, they reported that there was a perceived uptick in judicial dismissals during bench trials or motion hearings. Most of the officers and prosecutors we spoke with indicated that despite the backlog and the pressures that came with that, they were not changing their typical practices of what cases they would plea down and which they would refuse to do so. However, there were other comments made that indicated something had to be done with the impossible situation of no trials and growing backlogs, implying that there were plea arrangements being made that might have not been offered in previous times. The conviction rate data MADD collects through court monitoring may eventually be able to speak to this in time. However, looking at case disposition numbers for just 2021 would be misleading. Two of our counties had an incredibly high conviction rate for the cases that were adjudicated. However, this was because that of the cases that were finalized, only the strongest cases and those where the person pled guilty moved. Any case where someone would not plead
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