DA puts gun cases on fast track to slammer

Alex Bloom

Faced with a growing backlog of old cases involving guns coupled with a sharp rise in new cases, Suffolk County District Attorney Dan Conley came up with a solution – streamline the bureaucracy.

Back in February, he decided to place gun cases on a “fast-track,” making them a “priority” in order to reduce the time between when an offender is charged and when their case reaches trial and disposition.

Since then, Conley’s “fast-track” plan, developed with Trial Court Chief Justice Charles Johnson, has reduced court delays by nearly two months and accounted for an increase in the rate of disposition to nearly 80 percent. About 65 percent of those cases resulted in convictions.

“It shows that we’re acting swiftly and surely to hold gun offenders accountable,” said Jake Wark, spokesman for the District Attorney’s office, pointing out one unintended affect. “…Certainly an important byproduct of gun court is we’re taking guns and gun offenders off the street.”

Since the gun sessions started in February, 136 cases have been disposed. Of those cases, 107 resulted in a substantive finding by a guilty plea, a trial or a motion. Eighty-eight of those 107 cases resulted in a conviction.

According to the District Attorney’s office, gun charges are usually not brought to trial for 180 days, meaning criminals are on the streets after they’ve been arrested and charged for gun offenses. Sometimes, though, that waiting period gets extended.

“It is routine for someone caught for gun possession for [the case] to linger a year or two before disposition,” said David Kennedy, the director of the Center for Crime Prevention and Control at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York. From 1991 to 2004, Kennedy was the senior researcher in Criminal Justice Policy and Management at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. He directed the Boston Gun Project in 1995 which implemented “Operation Ceasefire” to reduce the city’s youth homicide numbers.

That long waiting time creates the impression on the street that a gun charge is a minor infraction.

“People know that this person has been caught with a gun and yet they’re out on the street,” said Kennedy. “It means there’s not much risk in being caught.”

Wark said that the gun court sessions have managed to reduce the 180-day waiting period by an average of 58 days.

Kennedy said that while most people perceive gun possession offenses as serious, they often go by the wayside while prosecutors pursue other charges, such as drug charges. Other times the cases do not get prosecuted, end in a plea bargain, or get dismissed. Prioritizing gun cases means that the district attorney’s office will take a more proactive role in pursuing convictions for gun possession.

“What the defendant is looking at is going to jail faster,” said David Duncan, attorney and partner at the Boston law firm of Zalkind, Rodriguez, Lunt and Duncan.

Kennedy mentioned that putting offenders away in a timely manner can be better for communities than putting them away for extended periods of time.

“Oftentimes having something happen briskly means more than a major punishment,” said Kennedy.

“Neighborhood residents are better off with something that happens quickly.”

Wark also noted that the Omnibus Anti-Gang and Witness Intimidation Law signed in March by Governor Mitt Romney allows the District Attorney’s offices to pursue stiffer punishments in gun cases, including a mandatory prison sentence of two and a half years for possession of a loaded gun.

This has resulted, according to Boston police, in gun offenders carrying unloaded guns in one pocket with ammunition in another.

“Obviously everyone would prefer that there were no guns on the street,” said Wark. “But if anything is going to make it more difficult for somebody to pull a gun and shoot somebody, we have to get behind it.”