Pubdate: Thu, 03 Nov 2005 Source: Newsday (NY) Copyright: 2005 Newsday Inc. Contact: http://www.newsday.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/308 Author: Tom Brune, Washington Bureau PROSECUTIONS DIPPED DURING ALITO'S TENURE AS U.S. ATTORNEY Data Show Number Of Prosecutions By His Office Dipped 30% In His First Year As Jersey's U.S. Attorney WASHINGTON -- In Samuel Alito's first year as U.S. attorney for New Jersey in 1987, the number of defendants his office prosecuted plunged 30 percent from the year before, with the biggest drop coming in drug cases, an analysis of federal criminal justice data shows. During the next three years under Alito's leadership, the New Jersey U.S. attorney's office never fully recovered, each year failing to prosecute as many as the 980 defendants indicted or charged in 1986, the analysis by Syracuse University researchers shows. In fact, in no year in the past two decades has the office prosecuted so few criminal defendants as it did in each of the four years it was under Alito's control, the analysis found. Alito has not been a prosecutor for 15 years, but his tenure as New Jersey's U.S. attorney from March 1987 to June 1990 is being re-examined since he was nominated to the Supreme Court on Monday. John Lacey, a former assistant prosecutor under Alito, and crime expert Alfred Blumstein of Carnegie Mellon University, yesterday both said the drop in prosecutions, particularly of drug crimes, could indicate Alito's preference for organized crime and other cases. While Alito's prosecutions of drug cases dipped sharply before rising again, nationally federal narcotics prosecution rose from nearly 15,000 defendants in 1986 to nearly 24,000 in 1990, the analysis shows. Lacey and Blumstein said it probably also shows how understaffed Alito's office was. Alito's office in 1990, for example, had 13 attorneys per million population while the national average was 17 per million, the data from Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse show. The White House had no comment. The Justice Department said it has not reviewed the data compiled by TRAC, which is nonpartisan and nonprofit. But a Justice official said on condition of anonymity that the department has disputed TRAC studies in the past. The TRAC data show that in 1986, the New Jersey U.S. attorney prosecuted 980 defendants, including 391 for drugs. In Alito's first year in 1987, the office prosecuted 679 defendants, only 101 for drugs. In 1988, prosecutions rose to 852 (with 154 for drugs), and in 1989 the total reached 969 (including 242 for drugs). In 1990, his last year, the total was 935, with 214 for drugs. After Alito resigned as U.S. attorney in 1990, the U.S. attorney's office under his successor, Michael Chertoff, prosecuted 1,147 defendants, included 294 for drug crimes. Since then, the office has never prosecuted fewer than 1,000 defendants in a year. "He obviously slowed things down," said Blumstein. If Alito consciously sought to move away from small drug crimes to focus on more complex criminal activities, Blumstein said, it was a "wise exchange." Lacey, now a New Jersey defense lawyer, said his recollection is that is exactly what Alito did - drop the "small buy" cases. Lacey said Alito also limited the number of cases with a dozen or more defendants. One organized-crime case Alito inherited had 20 defendants - and all 20 were acquitted after a two-year trial. When President George H.W. Bush nominated Alito for the appellate court in 1990, both of New Jersey's Democratic senators praised him. - --- MAP posted-by: Jo-D