The system, pushed by District Attorney Seth Williams, is the most dramatic shake-up at the courts since the Criminal Justice Center was opened 15 years ago.
Criminal cases are now divided along geographic lines on six dedicated floors, and all preliminary hearings are held at the main courthouse. That means that witnesses, especially police, will merely have to go from courtroom to courtroom to testify, rather than traveling to scattered sites across Philadelphia to give evidence in police districts.
A veteran police officer, observing the changes, said he had watched cases die because he had to choose among competing subpoenas, sometimes as many as five.
"You can't be in a million places at once," said the officer, who asked not be named. "Absolutely, cases die."
The new system was endorsed by Chief Justice Ronald D. Castille and McCaffery as part of an agenda of change they launched in response to an Inquirer series, "Justice: Delayed, Dismissed, Denied." It portrayed the city's courts as in crisis, plagued by unusually low conviction rates, entrenched witness intimidation, and an unchecked fugitive problem.
Before the advent of zone court, more than half of all preliminary hearings were held in police districts. The hearings, conducted by Municipal Court judges, establish whether the prosecution has enough evidence to hold defendants for trial in the higher-tier Common Pleas Court.
Of cases that fail in city courts each year, 84 percent die in Municipal Court - the target of the overhaul.
About 1,250 additional preliminary hearings will now be scheduled at the main courthouse each week - more than doubling the building's former caseload for such hearings.
