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Youngstown court purges hundreds of criminal cases
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Criminal Supervisor, Doreene Carson, and Criminal Clerk, Mike Diana, stand alongside boxes of bench warrants, to be considered for dismissal by a judge, in the office of Sarah Brown-Clark, Clerk of Youngstown Municipal Court, Thursday Feb. 26, 2009.
STAFF REPORT
YOUNGSTOWN — About 500 people are about to get a free pass on criminal charges.
That’s because municipal court is purging cases of people who didn’t show up for court.
This applies to everyone charged with a misdemeanor before January 2006 or a felony before January 2003. After a review of the cases by the city prosecutor, there’s a chance the charges will be dismissed, along with the bench warrant for suspects’ arrests, also called a capias.
“Defendant failed to appear, capias to issue” is the language judges use when they call a defendant’s name, and he or she isn’t there. Men and women miss court appearances — arraignment, pretrial hearing, preliminary hearing, trial or sentencing — for a variety of reasons. Maybe they just don’t want to go, forgot, moved away, died or are incarcerated, said Doreene Carson, supervisor of the clerk of court’s criminal and traffic division.
Municipal Judge Robert P. Milich said that aside from assessing a $60 capias fee when a defendant is arrested and brought to court, judges consider higher bonds for those who have a history of failing to appear.
City Prosecutor Jay Macejko said that, under most conditions, failure to appear is not a matter that can be addressed criminally, unless the person had been released on his or her own recognizance and failed to appear in court when scheduled. In that situation, the defendant can be charged with a misdemeanor or felony, depending on the original charge for which they failed to appear, he said.
Read the full story Monday in The Vindicator and on Vindy.com