70 percent of felonies get reduced to misdemeanors or dismissed
None of the 801 felonies issued in Hillsdale County in the past two years made it to jury trial. According to Circuit Court Judge Michael Smith, seven out of every 10 people charged with felonies have their charges dismissed or reduced to a misdemeanor, which he said is “not a good thing.”
The lack of jury trials over the past two years is extremely unusual, Smith said.
“You can’t find that anywhere else in the state,” he said.
But county prosecutor of 19 years Neal Brady disagreed.
“This is the process by which prosecuting offices generally convict people,” Brady said, adding that plea bargains guarantee a conviction the way a jury trial cannot.
“Jury trials do not necessarily equal justice,” Brady said. “A jury can be sympathetic and decide they are not going to convict.”
Smith said he has no choice but to accept a plea bargain when it comes to circuit court.
“As a citizen, I think there is way too much plea bargaining for felonies,” Smith said.
Brady said most suspects end up charged with more than one offense: if someone breaks into a home, he or she could be charged as a conspirator with another person, as well as for breaking and entering. Those multiple charges give Brady room to offer incentives to suspects: he can agree to knock off some of the “superfluous charges” if they agree to plead guilty to some of the charges or lesser charges.
“Incentives must be real, they can’t be illusory,” Brady said.
Conviction by jury also allows the convicted felon to appeal, Brady said, costing the state hundreds of thousands of dollars as the felon appeals until he has exhausted all his options. Brady added that criminals who are forced to confess to a crime place themselves in a position to be rehabilitated. On the contrary, even if convicted by a jury, they will never take responsibility for their actions. Finally, Brady said the county has limited resources, so he said he thinks it’s a good thing no felony cases have gone to trial in two years.
“It has forced probably close to 1,000 people to start the rehabilitation process, admit responsibility, and be punished, without spending more resources to do the same [via jury court],” Brady said.
“This comes down to a difference in philosophy,” said Brent Weigle, district judge of Branch County, which abuts Hillsdale County to the west. “Neil thinks Smith is too harsh, and Smith thinks Neil is too soft.”
Weigle said it is important to realize that the justice system in a county depends on more than just Brady and Smith.
“It’s not a totally accurate premise to boil it down to two players. Everybody has their roles,” Weigle said, mentioning the arrest, charging, bond, and plea bargaining practices all function together to create the system. He added that you have to look at the specifics of each case.
For example, a sexually abused child might find testifying in jury court a traumatic experience, so a plea bargain avoids that. Additionally, Weigle said it doesn’t matter to him personally if someone pleads guilty to operating under the influence of alcohol rather than getting a guilty conviction in a trial. He also mentioned that he had around 2,500 misdemeanors and 500 or 600 felonies reach district court, so if there were no plea bargains at all, the courts would need more staff and more courtrooms to deal with all those cases.
On the other hand, if plea bargains are reducing felonies to misdemeanors, some see that as a problem.
“My philosophy is that people should have to deal with the consequences of their conduct,” Weigle said. “I tend to be old-school. I have a reputation for being a little on the tougher side on sentencing, but I look at everything.”
He said to remember the data represent real people and real victims.
“I think you have good people over there in Hillsdale in terms of ethics and integrity,” Wiegle said.
Brady said 30 percent of the suspects he charged ended up in Smith’s court, which Brady considered a generous number.
“If he was creative in his sentencing options, I could get 40 to 50 percent of the cases to him. In talking with a retired district judge, he was surprised that even 25 percent of the issued felons went to circuit court,” Brady wrote in an email.
Brady said he received 548 requests for felony charges in 2015, but the number of individuals charged is less because some people received more than one charge. Of those he issued 421 files, denied 98 and 29 went “for further investigation or other disposition.”
According to Brady, some of the felonies break down as follows: 21 manufacturing meth charges, 71 breaking and entering or home invasion, 16 operating while intoxicated 3rd degree, 20 fail to pay child support, 19 larceny in a building, 34 criminal sexual conduct charges, 42 resisting police, and 27 felony assault charges.
“Judge Smith is a master of manipulating numbers and if he wants to make it look like we are not doing our job, he can do that,” Brady said.
Smith disagreed.
“I am not manipulating anything. How can I manipulate numbers produced by the District Court and the County Clerk?” Smith said.
He admitted that Brady’s claim could be true — that 95 percent of those charged are convicted of something — but “crimes that the Legislature says are serious enough to send you to prison, are dealt away to misdemeanors or dismissed,” Smith said.
“The numbers speak for themselves,” he said.
March 8- This story’s headline has been updated to clarify important data.
