NATCHEZ — More than 450 criminal cases were turned over to the District Attorney’s office in Adams County this year, but less than 10 of them went to trial.

The majority of the cases ended with either plea bargains or a dismissal of charges all together.

The number of cases that ended with courtroom pleas is not uncommon, said Tony Lawrence, president of the Mississippi Prosecutors Association and district attorney in Jackson County. He estimated that more than 98 percent of his cases are resolved through plea-bargaining.

But what happens in the Adams County courtroom after the plea does, very much, stray from the norm.

District Attorney Ronnie Harper — who serves the sixth district of Adams, Amite, Franklin and Wilkinson counties — does not make sentencing recommendations.

Instead, the two sixth district judges — Lillie Blackmon Sanders and Forrest “Al” Johnson — use their own discretion to sentence guilty criminals.

And court case conclusions from September to November show that the two judges often have different opinions.

Why offer plea bargains?

Everything from court TV to an ever-increasing caseload is pushing district attorneys — not just Harper — to consider the plea first.

Harper said more than 90 percent of his cases are resolved through plea agreements, which sometimes involve dismissal of certain counts.

“There’s no way you can try everything,” Harper said.

Judges can see an average of seven cases a day if they aren’t trials, Harper said.

Therefore, if a trial lasted three days — a conservative estimate for the length of a trial — 20 other cases would not occur on those days.

The backlog that could create is unmanageable, Lawrence agreed.

Lawrence said if he went to trial with every case in Jackson County, he would resolve approximately 100 cases a year. Jackson County, he said, indicts 3,000 cases a year.

“(If more cases go to trial), we’re going to be going in the hole tremendously every year,” Lawrence said.

On top of the courtroom backlog, Mississippi DAs simply don’t have the manpower to work each case to the level of a trial, Lawrence said.

He said the per prosecutor case load in Mississippi is higher than anywhere else in the region.

Mississippi, with a population of nearly 3 million, has 22 district attorneys and 100 assistant district attorneys, Lawrence said.

Alabama, with a population of 4.7 million, has 42 district attorneys and 322 assistant district attorneys.

Louisiana, with a population of 4.5 million, has 41 district attorneys and 600 assistant district attorneys.

“(The disparity) is having an effect on the system,” Lawrence said.

At the same time, the caseload is ever increasing due, in large part, to drugs and the depressed economy, the attorneys said.

Lawrence said when he took office in 2004 he prosecuted 1,600 cases a year. Less than a decade later, the total has increased to 2,850.

“That increase is similar around the state,” he said.

Harper also said he has seen an increase in the past 10 years, and the caseload can follow the trends in the criminal world.

Harper said he noticed a boom when methamphetamine became popular, but the number of cases evened out when laws made it more difficult to purchase ingredients.

Crack cocaine accounted for a big spike in cases when it hit the local market, as well.

Copper theft, for example, accounts for a recent trend, too, Harper said.

The other major reason prosecutors lean toward plea deals first is because of you — and your favorite TV show.

The potential jury pool these days has been exposed to a variety of courtroom TV shows — most of which are fictional.

TV dramas introduce the idea to the local jury pool that prosecuting attorneys should produce DNA evidence, crime scene fingerprints and, essentially, a smoking gun.

That’s TV, not real life, the attorneys said, but the damage is done and prosecutors now think twice about sending a case to 12 strangers.

“It is becoming a bigger and bigger problem I have seen in what we call the CSI effect,” Lawrence said.

Lawrence said because of those shows, some jurors tend to hold more weight on forensic evidence than, say, eyewitness testimony.

“They think they should have some kind of forensic evidence in every case,” he said. “I may have a murder in broad daylight, if I have five eyewitnesses, those are just as strong as a ballistics match from a gun on a projectile.”

In addition, DNA evidence technology has not caught up with speed of the justice system. In one case, Harper said, it took six months to process DNA in Jackson.

Harper also said he thinks jurors today have less of an understanding than they used to of “reasonable doubt.”

In criminal cases, the state has the burden of proving the case beyond a reasonable doubt.

Media reports of convicted men exonerated, such as by groups like the Innocence Project, have made some jurors question themselves, Harper said.

The law stipulates neither lawyers nor the court can define reasonable doubt. Harper said the term “reasonable doubt” is aimed at encouraging jurors to use common sense.

“(Some jurors) have become more convinced that they don’t understand (the term),” Harper said. “In my opinion, it’s pretty simple.”

With uncertainty in the jury box, prosecutors know a plea deal might be the best way to make sure justice is served, since many defendants will plead guilty to their crimes.

“We don’t (make plea deals) for convenience. We do it based on what’s best for the case after evaluating (the evidence),” Harper said.

He said when his office chooses to dismiss certain counts, they do so in order to resolve the case and often with the understanding that the law provides a sentencing range for one count that would serve as an appropriate punishment for all the counts committed.

For example, in the case of Steven Woods, who Sanders sentenced in September to a suspended jail sentence and $20,000 fine for possession of more than 30 grams of cocaine, the district attorney’s office dropped four other drug and weapon charges.

Harper said to negotiate the guilty plea, his office dropped some of the lesser charges, and Woods was sentenced on a charge that carried appropriate parameters for the case. Harper did not offer a recommended sentence to the judge.

“(The charge Woods pleaded guilty to) carried a penalty of 30 years; we had no expectation (for) more than that,” Harper said. “But it’s up to (the judges) at that point.”

Hal Kittrell, the district attorney for Jefferson Davis, Lamar, Lawrence, Marion and Pearl River counties in the 15th district, said one of the newly elected judges in his district generally follows the sentencing recommendations his office makes.

Kittrell said his office still makes recommendations to the other judge, but that judge has always made clear he would not heed sentence recommendations from plea-bargaining.

So Kittrell’s office also uses “charge bargaining” when trying cases in that judge’s court. Instead of bargaining with defendants over their potential sentence, Kittrell agrees to drop some charges in exchange for a guilty plea on another.

After the plea

Harper, who first took office in 1996, stopped making sentencing recommendations with plea deals in 1997.

Prosecutors in every other district in Mississippi — all 21 of them — do make sentencing recommendations, the attorneys or their staff confirmed.

District attorneys and defendant attorneys come to the judge with negotiated terms to the plea bargain.

The agreement includes a sentence and conditions within the range of what the charge can legally carry.

The court is not legally bound by the recommendations, but Johnson and most district attorneys’ offices consulted, said judges commonly do follow them.

That doesn’t mean every judge follows every recommendation, several district attorneys from around the state emphasized.

Harper said entering plea deals with defendants without a recommendation can make plea bargaining more difficult, since he cannot offer a certain amount of jail time or probation, for instance, as part of the package.

But he said he had his reasons for choosing to stop making recommendations.

“In the past, one of the judges would generally follow (the recommendations), but the other one wouldn’t,” Harper said.

The work required in making recommendations — consulting with law enforcement and victims — is time-consuming. When the recommendations weren’t always used, the district attorney’s office stopped making them.

“(Making sentencing recommendations) was almost counter-productive,” Harper said.

So in Adams County, the final burden rests on the judges.

For ethical and professional reasons, Harper said he would not criticize or specify which judge followed the state’s recommendations and which would not.

“It’s not my province to comment on or get into what the judges do,” Harper said.

Harper did say he believes the system has worked well without giving recommendations.

When Harper’s office first began pleading out defendants, it was difficult to convince defendants to plead guilty without offering any indication of what time they might be facing.

“(The number of) trials went up initially,” Harper said. “But once (judges, prosecutors and defense attorneys) were able to see how it was going to work, it kind of settled back down,” Harper said.

Striking a balance

Harper said he has confidence in the jury system, but he must consider the risks and logistics when sending each individual case to a jury.

“The pendulum swings back and forth,” he said.

Lawrence said prosecutors must consider those risks when trying to resolve a case.

“You just never know what a jury is going to do and sometimes you have to strike a balance between justice and that uncertainty,” he said.

Harper said the public has a right to be critical of sentencing.

But each case has its complexities, and he thinks sometimes the public’s opinions may be uninformed.

“I realize people are critical, but we’re trying to do the best we can with what we’ve got, and we’re working hard,” Harper said. “If that’s not good enough, then I can’t do anymore than that.

“It’s not as easy as television might make it appear,” he said.