Some 6,500 criminal suspects were freed after district attorneys across the Big Apple last year declined to prosecute them.
Based on the data gathered by the state Division of Criminal Justice Services, prosecutors dropped all charges in 16.9 percent of the 38,635 felony cases that were closed in New York City during 2020.
The data has also shown that in 2019, that rate was just 8.7 percent and the average for 2016 to 2019 was an even lower 8 percent.
It was learned that the total number of cases closed in 2020 plunged by a massive 44.1 percent last year amid court closures due to the COVID-19 pandemic — down from 69,119 the year before.
Among the factors cited for the prosecutors’ failure to prosecute those cases are the following: veteran prosecutors retiring or leaving for other jobs and “inexperienced [prosecutors] and cops making it harder to do trials,” as well as the political nature of DAs’ jobs.
The same data has also revealed that the borough with the highest number of felony cases that weren’t prosecuted last year was the Bronx, where DA Darcel Clark dumped 2,408, or 28.5 percent.
Moreover, the same data has also shown that another 2,365 cases, or 28 percent, were dismissed by judges, helping push the rate at which defendants were convicted and sentenced in the Bronx to a dismal 27.4 percent, down from 44.2 percent in 2019.
JOIN US ON WHAT'SAPP, TO GET INSTANT STATUS UPDATES AND BE IN THE KNOW.
CLICK HERE
