Castille and Williams - joined at a news conference in front of the Criminal Justice Center by Justice Seamus McCaffery and other senior law enforcement and judicial officials - called the new system a major step in a reform agenda crafted in response to an Inquirer series called "Justice: Delayed, Dismissed, Denied," which depicted the Philadelphia criminal justice in crisis.
McCaffery, a former homicide detective who served a decade ago as administrative judge for Philadelphia Municipal Court, said the change was overdue.
"Thankfully, almost a year ago, The Philadelphia Inquirer did a very in-depth study, and came out with the proper data," McCaffery said. "We looked at it. We decided it was time for the Supreme Court to get involved."
The series reported late last year that defendants charged with violent crimes in Philadelphia were escaping conviction in almost two-thirds of cases.
"We looked at some of the numbers that were reported by The Inquirer," Castille said, "and it's pretty astounding, the numbers and the consequences of what happened to the cases as they go through the system."
Aggregating case-by-case data supplied by the courts, The Inquirer tracked 31,000 violent-crime cases brought since 2006, and for the first time provided the public with conviction rates for the Philadelphia system.
The paper identified precisely where cases failed. It found that, of cases that ended without a conviction, 82 percent died in the lower-tier Municipal Court. At this level, judges preside over preliminary hearings to determine whether enough evidence exists for a trial in the upper Common Pleas Court.
