Slam-dunk arrests?
Not according to Common Pleas Court Judge Paula A. Patrick.
In all three cases, Patrick ruled the police conduct unlawful and said prosecutors could not use the seized guns as evidence. That effectively doomed any chance at conviction.
The District Attorney's Office is appealing those decisions and two dozen more like them by the judge.
What prosecutors find worrisome is that this pattern has emerged over the last year as Patrick has presided over Philadelphia Gun Court, a special tribunal founded in 2005 to combat the city's unusually virulent gun culture.
The main charge against Gun Court defendants is illegal firearms possession. The idea is to crack down early before criminals escalate to even more serious gun crimes.
Among America's largest cities, Philadelphia has the highest rates for gunpoint homicides, robberies, and assaults, FBI figures show. In the last comparative count, 84 percent of Philadelphia homicide victims were killed with firearms; that was the highest use of guns as the weapon of choice for homicide in the nation's top 10 cities.
Since taking charge of Gun Court almost a year ago, prosecutors now contend in appeals, Patrick has repeatedly misapplied the law on firearms possession, prompting a record number of appeals of her decisions by the D.A.'s Office.
The 27 cases prosecutors are appealing represent a sharp spike compared with earlier years. They appealed only about five such rulings by the previous two Common Pleas Court judges assigned to annual rotations through Gun Court, according to an Inquirer analysis of court appellate records.
Patrick, 42, a former civil and criminal defense lawyer elected to the bench in 2003, declined a request for an interview.
