prosecutes all of their own DUI arrests will have less experience prosecuting a DUI case than an attorney prosecutor assigned the DUI arrests of multiple officers, and experience is very important in this arena. Many DUI defense attorneys are very experienced. Resources may also be needed within the court system. A shortage of jury trial roster spots was often listed as one of the reasons why prosecutors had to consider pleas more often.
“A Spotlight on Success: The 7 th Circuit Solicitor’s Office”
As shown in our data above, we observed a 67% conviction rate for Spartanburg County, notably higher than other counties. In our local discussions, MADD also noted that several of the steps taken by that county were not mentioned in other areas. In general, they all seemed to fall under the umbrella of having the will to aggressively prosecute DUI cases. In fact, when we asked Solicitor Barry Barnette to summarize why he believed his county had a higher conviction rate in our data, he succinctly said, “We try our cases.” When MADD asked in many local areas about the frequency of DUI jury trials, the reported numbers were often very low, such as 1% or 3%. Some very experienced DUI officers reported never having one of their cases going to jury trial. However, the 7 th Circuit Solicitor’s Office reported sometimes having three or four jury trials in a week. Additional supporting actions to this philosophy include assigning multiple prosecutors to magistrate level DUI courts so no single prosecutor gets overwhelmed by a large caseload of these complicated cases. They worked with their court system to move other charges to General Sessions court to free up jury trial spots at the summary court level. In addition, the Solicitor noted that they are perhaps less likely to drop a number of associated charges in order to get a conviction on one charge as may happen more often elsewhere. We applaud the 7 th Circuit Solicitor’s Office for their culture of being tough on DUI. The Solicitor already has a reputation across the state for being a true leader in DUI prosecution, and our observations have confirmed this.
Focus Area #6: Judges Own the Culture of DUI Cases in their Court
A limited experience in the courtroom could lead one to the conclusion that the summary court judges hearing misdemeanor DUI cases do not have a substantial impact on the percentages of cases that lead to DUI convictions or are pled down to lesser charges. Often, the majority of DUI cases heard on a given day have already been worked out between the prosecutor and the defense, whether that agreement is a guilty plea for DUI or DUAC or a plea to a lesser charge. In these cases, the judge is typically just signing off on this agreement.
28
Made with FlippingBook Learn more on our blog