There's no mistaking that the criminal-justice system is bogged down with cases whose trails have gone cold or were not pursued, with criminals long out of the picture. D.A. Williams has pledged to try to fix the broken system, and streamlining his operations is a natural move.
The D.A.'s budget is limited, and he says this will free up more resources to pursue current cases.
But Williams and Castille, who both pushed for this, could have done a better job communicating their strategy - to the victims of these crimes, as well as the public at large.
Imagine having been assaulted or robbed 20 years ago and finding out - not from the court, but from a newspaper - that, to those at the top of the criminal-justice system, your crime never happened. This mass purging may make sense from a work-flow standpoint, but it has larger implications to which Castille in particular seems blind.
For example, Castille was quoted as saying: "The system is clogged. You're never going to find these people. And if you do, are you going to prosecute them? The answer is no."
These are rather cavalier words from the top judge in the state, exhibiting a laissez-faire attitude about justice that we find shocking. (Castille also claimed, incredibly, that outstanding bench warrants may have served as a deterrent to criminals, actually acting as nonreporting probations.)
Also, we wonder about what actually was clogged: The names and details of 20-year-old cases are not hairballs clogging a drain; that information is sitting in files, no doubt as ignored today as they were two decades ago. There are costs incurred if the long-ago criminal is caught and needs to be extradited, but we can't help wondering how often that happens.
