New York Listed By FBI As America's Safest Large City...Not Charlotte

Great Job Mayor Bloomberg!

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Forbes List Of America's Most Dangerous Cities...Charlotte Is No. 14!

To determine our list, we used Charlotte's Violent Crime statistics from the FBI's latest uniform crime report, issued in 2008. The violent crime category is composed of four offenses: murder and non-negligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery and aggravated assault.

We evaluated U.S. metropolitan statistical areas--geographic entities defined by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget for use by federal agencies in collecting, tabulating and publishing federal statistics--with more than 500,000 residents.

No. 14 Charlotte, N.C.

(Charlotte-Gastonia-Concord, N.C.-S.C. metropolitan statistical area)

Population: 1,635,133

Violent Crimes per 100,000: 721




New Charlotte-Mecklenburg DA Will Face Pressure For Change



When Peter Gilchrist retires next year after 36 years as Mecklenburg's district attorney, his successor faces a daunting task: bolstering public confidence in a justice system many believe is broken.

The new DA will inherit the state's largest prosecutor's office - one that has come under increasing criticism from citizens and Charlotte's police chief over dismissals of felony cases.

Filing for the job begins in February. Gilchrist's retirement sets up a campaign that could revolve around how he has handled Charlotte's emergence as a city with urban crime problems, and his office's relationship with the police department. Already one candidate who has declared his intent to succeed Gilchrist has said he'll address the problems with police.

Last year Mecklenburg prosecutors dismissed nearly 5,500 felonies - more than prosecutors in any other urban county. Even Gilchrist has acknowledged his office dismisses too many cases.

During his tenure, crime soared as the county's population more than doubled. Gilchrist has repeatedly sought more prosecutors from the state.

Gilchrist, 70, is North Carolina's longest-serving elected district attorney. A Democrat first elected in 1974, he has been re-elected eight times without opposition. Even his supporters, however, say a new DA might find ways to improve efficiency.

"They could speed up the time from arrest to trial," says defense lawyer George Laughrun, whose law partner is running to succeed Gilchrist. "Defendants are just sitting in jail waiting. Imagine how frustrating that is for victims."

Michelle Lancaster, a Mecklenburg County general manager, said Gilchrist and the county's other criminal justice leaders have tough jobs.

"I don't think a new DA is going to turn it around overnight," Lancaster said.

Growing staff, Caseload

When Gilchrist took over the job, he had 10 assistant district attorneys and two secretaries and was paid $27,000 a year. Today, Gilchrist has the largest office in the state - 79 prosecutors and a support staff of more than 50. He is paid $147,937, with a budget that tops $8 million.

Wake County has 43 prosecutors; Guilford County 33.

A look at cases in the three counties last year shows:

Mecklenburg Prosecutors resolved 10,630 felony cases. Prosecutors in Guilford and Wake counties disposed of 8,999 cases and 6,126 cases, respectively.

Mecklenburg Prosecutors dismissed 5,488 felonies last year. That's 52 percent of the felonies they resolved. Prosecutors in Guilford and Wake counties dismissed 27 percent and 31 percent, respectively.

The median time Felony cases took to resolve in Mecklenburg was 243 days, 26 days more than the statewide median. For Wake and Guilford counties, the median times were 168 days and 191 days, respectively. The highest among urban counties was Durham, with 280 days.

While Mecklenburg prosecutors handled more cases, Guilford prosecutors obtained more Felony guilty pleas. In Mecklenburg, there were 4,529 guilty pleas; in Guilford, 5,885.

Former N.C. Supreme Court Chief Justice Burley Mitchell hasn't always agreed with the way Gilchrist runs his office.

In 2000, Mitchell told the Observer he did not sense that Mecklenburg's problem was a lack of prosecutors. "During my tenure, they did not seem to produce as well as other big districts," he said then.

In an interview last week, Mitchell, who was Wake County's DA in the 1970s, questioned why Gilchrist required prosecutors to review most felony investigations before authorizing police to make arrests. Gilchrist dropped the policy last year, saying police thought the screening hampered them.

"I didn't think Mecklenburg County got the best results in the state as far as obtaining guilty pleas and holding trials," Mitchell recalled. "They were spending too much time and energy screening cases and not bringing cases to trial."

The screening process may have hurt Gilchrist's efforts to persuade lawmakers to give him more prosecutors.

By screening cases early in the process, fewer cases reached a courtroom. The state bases decisions about money for prosecutors in large part on the number of criminal cases filed. But authorizing arrest warrants that would later have to be dismissed, Gilchrist says, would increase the workload of police, prosecutors and court personnel, as well as the cost of running the jail.

"Taking away somebody's liberty in a case we're not going to prosecute is unjust," he said. "My job is to do justice. I have a responsibility to protect citizens, just like I have a responsibility to prosecute them."

Former U.S. Attorney Tom Ashcraft has criticized Gilchrist's office for rejecting too many cases.

"That's a terrible mistake," Ashcraft said. "The prosecutors ought to be looking for ways to make poor cases better - not throw them out. It's the wrong signal."

Gilchrist has plenty of supporters in the legal community.

"I think Charlotte has been fortunate to have Peter Gilchrist at the helm of the DA's office for 35 years," said defense lawyer James Gronquist. "He's made his decisions on the facts and the law - not on what's politically expedient."

A Public Dispute

A growing rift between the DA's office and Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police has emerged as a potentially important campaign issue.

Since Police Chief Rodney Monroe arrived in Charlotte last year, he has chastised Gilchrist's office for dismissing too many cases. He also complained about the rule that required police to submit potential felony cases to prosecutors for screening.

In one public dispute in October, police criticized prosecutors' decision to dismiss a statutory rape charge against Royce Mitchell. He was accused of having sex with a 15-year-old girl (Tiffany Wright), who was eight months pregnant when she was shot to death at her school bus stop.

Gilchrist fired back: "This was not an example of a weak case. This was an example of a no case."

The dispute blew up again days later when Gilchrist complained about the police criticism at a meeting of criminal justice leaders. Gilchrist said the police department's version of events was inaccurate, participants recall. Monroe then suggested that each man tell the public his version and see whom the public believes.

"It made me really uncomfortable. It was the first time I had seen open hostility," said one leader, who works with both powerful men.

Monroe later told the Observer: "I stand by my staff and detectives that worked so hard and reported to me the facts of this case."

Andrew Murray, a Republican who has announced he'll run to replace Gilchrist, says he would aim to ease tensions between prosecutors and police.

"The bickering between the police department and the DA's office is counterproductive," Murray said. "It does not solve one crime and does not put one criminal behind bars."

Dismissing cases

Gilchrist thinks his staff does an extraordinary job sifting through thousands of cases and convicting the most serious offenders.

"We dismiss more cases than we ought to," he said in 2002. "We're certainly not doing everything that needs to be done. But we are utilizing the resources we have very well."

A 2000 Observer examination found that Mecklenburg had fewer prosecutors than any urban county of comparable size in the country. Five years later, a UNC Charlotte study found that Mecklenburg had fewer prosecutors than Portland, Ore., or Austin, Texas. The same study found the number of violent crimes in Charlotte was 62 percent higher than Portland, and 128 percent higher than Austin.

Mecklenburg County had 43 percent fewer prosecutors than Portland and 35 percent fewer than Austin, according to the study.

Gilchrist's prosecutors dismiss cases at a higher rate than the state as a whole. Across North Carolina, prosecutors dismissed 35 percent of the felony cases they resolved last year - lower than Mecklenburg's 52 percent.

Gilchrist said prosecutors throw out cases for many reasons. Sometimes witnesses can't be found. Other times, witnesses change their stories. Most times, charges are dismissed as part of plea bargains.

"We're not dismissing cases willy-nilly when there's evidence...," he said. "We don't care how bad the defendant is or how bad the crime is. If we don't have a case, we have to dismiss it."

Assistant District Attorney Bruce Lillie says dismissal figures are misleading. Mecklenburg prosecutors, he said, send more dangerous felons to prison than any other N.C. county.

"As the DA's office has grown," Lillie said, "we've been able to focus on the people who really need to be put away."

Anne Tompkins, a lawyer who once worked for Gilchrist, said it won't be easy for anybody to tame the justice system. Tompkins praises Gilchrist's leadership but says change can bring smart new methods.

"A new DA will give us a fresh set of eyes on an old set of issues and problems," she said. "It's always good to have somebody new come in. They'll see things differently."



View Larger Map


Sources: MSNBC, FBI, Forbes, McClatchy Newspapers, Charlotte Observer, MichaelBloomberg.com, Wikipedia, Google Maps