Zone system a dramatic shake-up for Philadelphia courts

For decades in Philadelphia, as in most big cities, the District Attorney's Office has deployed staff on a "horizontal" basis, with different prosecutors picking up cases at each step in the process.

Some prosecutors handle preliminary hearings, the critical sessions at which Municipal Court judges decide whether enough evidence exists to hold someone for a full trial. Others handle routine trials. Still others try the most complex or violent cases.

In the jargon of prosecutors, they "work the room," their assigned courtroom, rather than work cases. This horizontal method is the norm in most big cities. Like a factory assembly line, it is cheaper to operate.

But starting Monday in Philadelphia, neighborhood teams of prosecutors, all assigned to the same floor at the Criminal Justice Center in Center City, will handle most cases from start to finish.

This shake-up in the way local courts are run - one of the most dramatic in years - will result in closer prosecutor cooperation with neighborhoods, less witness intimidation, and, finally, more convictions, predicts District Attorney Seth Williams.

"We have a broken system. We have the highest rate of cases discharged for lack of prosecution. That should sicken and disgust everyone in the city of Philadelphia," he said. "We're trying to fix it."

Williams' "zone court" approach breaks the city into six zones conforming to police detective divisions, and each now gets its own floor at the Criminal Justice Center, known as the CJC. Preliminary hearings - more than half of which were held in police districts around the city - will be consolidated at a central location.

The centralization is backed by Pennsylvania Chief Justice Ronald D. Castille and fellow Justice Seamus P. McCaffery, a former Philadelphia homicide detective and top Municipal Court judge.

"Nobody has ever tried to undertake anything of this magnitude," McCaffery said.

The two justices have been leading a campaign to overhaul the Philadelphia courts in response to an Inquirer series, published in December, called "Justice: Delayed, Dismissed, Denied."

The series reported that in Philadelphia, defendants charged with violent crimes were escaping conviction in nearly two-thirds of all cases. Citing comparative federal studies, the paper reported that Philadelphia had the nation's lowest felony-conviction rate among large cities.