Fewer Felony Trials in State Despite a Rise in Caseload : Courts: New laws, overloaded dockets are among pressures on defendants and prosecutors to plea-bargain.

It might be premature to declare the criminal trial endangered, but California defendants are forgoing their constitutional right to face a jury in order to plead guilty at a record pace.

While the docket of felony cases has nearly tripled in the past decade to more than 152,000, the number of trials held in Superior Court has dropped slightly. Only 4% of defendants go to trial, down from 12% a decade ago.

Ten years ago, 78% of California defendants pleaded guilty in Superior Court. Now 90% do so--most without even demanding a preliminary hearing to test the evidence.

Legal authorities trying to explain the trend cite stiffer prison sentences, new rules that favor prosecutors, overloaded court calendars and a soaring number of murder and drug cases among the pressures on defendants and district attorneys to settle before trial.

“What people in the system are realizing is that going to trial is indeed the exception to the rule, much more than in the past,” said Gregory Thompson, chief deputy district attorney of Los Angeles County. “As the volume of cases goes up . . . judges, defense attorneys and prosecutors are accommodating the increase by providing a way for people to plead guilty.”

Defense attorneys and some legal analysts warn that the trend increases the risk for conviction of the innocent. Without the presentation of evidence, cross-examination of witnesses and argument before a jury or judge, a miscarriage of justice is more likely to occur, they say.

“The adversary system seems to be slipping away from us,” said San Francisco Public Defender Jeff Brown. Overburdened defense attorneys have become too willing to agree to guilty pleas--rather than investigating the case, researching the law and making the prosecution prove its charges, he said.

Defendants--ill-equipped to deal with the system but wary of risking a longer prison sentence if convicted at trial--”go with the flow,” Brown said.

Authorities cite a wide range of factors for the trend away from trials. But near the top of every list is the proliferating number of criminal prosecutions--many costly and time-consuming murder cases that place added strain on the system.

In California, according to the state Judicial Council, the number of cases handled in Superior Court rose from 60,998 to 152,585 in the 10-year period ending in July, 1991. The number of trials dropped from 7,138 to 6,755 in the same period. Now, the council reported, of every 100 cases, 90 end with guilty pleas, six are dismissed and only four go to trial before a jury or judge.

The pattern is pronounced in larger, urban counties. In Los Angeles County, of the 55,921 criminal cases handled in Superior Court in the 1990-91 fiscal year, only 2,126 went to trial, according to the council. In Alameda County only 215 of 6,149 cases were tried.

Some legal experts view the diminishing number of trials as a clear warning of overload and misdirection in the criminal justice process.

“The model of the criminal trial that we learned in civics class is not what we have today,” said Laurie L. Levenson, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. “The system now is designed not to have trials but to dispose of cases. . . . We no longer seek the highest form of justice. We can’t afford it.”

Prof. Phillip E. Johnson of UC Berkeley’s Boalt Hall Law School said that without a trial the facts of a case may not be sufficiently established. Thus, a sentencing judge, parole board or the public may be deprived of essential information.

“The attorneys may have had interests in getting rid of a case (without trial) that are not necessarily the interests of justice,” Johnson said. “All this serves to make the system more invisible, giving greater reign to arbitrariness.”

As the load of criminal cases mounts, some prosecutors report that they are under increasing pressure from courts to negotiate pleas--even to the point where some judges intercede to make a deal with the defendant, said Michael W. Sweet, director of the California District Attorneys Assn.

“A judge may step in and say: ‘If you plead guilty, I will sentence you to X number of years,’ ” Sweet said. “In those instances, the D.A. is taken right out of the process.”

The pressures on the system to avoid trial sometimes result in open conflict--as Alameda County Superior Court Judge Stanley P. Golde can attest.

In a pretrial review of a rape case, Golde tentatively proposed a prison sentence of nine years--rather than the maximum 25 years--for the accused assailant, a first offender who almost died from stab wounds inflicted by the victim.

The proposed sentence was subject to change pending a probation office report--but nonetheless, the victim and a local women’s group raised heated protests, calling for Golde’s ouster. Now the case is going to trial--and Golde, weary of controversy, plans to stop hearing sexual assault cases and to give up the job of sentencing felony defendants who plead guilty in Municipal Court.

For Golde, a veteran jurist who has reviewed thousands of guilty pleas in his 19 years on the bench, plea bargaining is inevitable as spiraling caseloads and other economic factors place new strain on the system.

Murders, robberies and assaults are still likely to go to trial, he said, but other crimes are not. In the clear majority of cases where guilt is not seriously disputed, the only remaining question is what sentence to impose.

“We don’t have time to try those cases,” Golde said. “I don’t condone the sale of narcotics, but if you have death penalty and other murder cases waiting on the calendar, you’re not going to try a $20 heroin case.”

Brown, the San Francisco public defender, said the prospect of stiffer sentences and new limitations on defendants’ rights are other key factors. Defendants are more willing to forgo trials when they doubt that they can win the case and fear that they are only risking a longer sentence, he said.

In 1977, the Legislature adopted a new system of prison sentencing that resulted in longer terms. Under Proposition 8, enacted in 1982, defendants convicted of certain felonies face an additional five years in prison for each previous such conviction. The initiative, along with recent state Supreme Court rulings, has made it harder for defendants to challenge the admissibility of confessions and evidence found in searches.

Although the 1982 measure also contained limitations on plea bargaining, it allowed sufficient exceptions to permit the practice to continue virtually unabated, authorities agree.

Still another factor in the trend away from trials--one cited by the Judicial Council--is the increased number of drug cases. Such cases nearly doubled in California from 1983 through 1989 and now account for over half the prosecutions in Los Angeles County.

Authorities say that by their nature, most drug cases are relatively uncomplicated and the only hope for a defendant is to challenge the legality of a search or the use of incriminating statements. Once those issues are resolved, the case usually can be settled with a plea rather than a trial.

Budget constraints have also worked to reduce trials. “D.A. offices across the state are feeling the fiscal situation dramatically,” Sweet said. “There are more cases than ever before--and now, fewer resources to deal with them.”

Plea Bargains on the Rise

In the past decade, the number of criminal cases in California Superior Courts has nearly tripled. But fewer trials are being held. Nine in 10 criminal cases now end in guilty pleas. Here is a look at the disposition of Superior Court cases:

CASES CLOSED TRIALS GUILTY PLEAS 1990-91 152,585 6,755 (4%) 136,892 (90%) 1981-82 60,998 7,138 (12%) 47,664 (78%)

Figures do not total 100% because other pretrial dispositions are not listed.

SOURCE: State Judicial Council