Conviction rates: Meaningful number or political weapon?

<p>In her successful 2010 bid for Sonoma County district attorney, Jill Ravitch hammered two-term incumbent Stephan Passalacqua over a conviction rate she said dropped to second-lowest in the state.</p><p>Ravitch vowed to do better, touting two decades of trial experience she said made her better qualified to make decisions and lead an office of about 50 prosecutors.</p><p>Voters were persuaded by the tough-talking litigator and elected her by a margin of 54 percent to 46 percent.</p><p>But a year into the job, Ravitch is unable to say whether she's winning any more cases than her predecessor.</p><p>In response to a request for conviction-rate statistics made earlier this month by The Press Democrat, her office said it did not have the data<WC>. The statistics are being collected and will be released at an unspecified date, <WC1>Ravitch spokeswoman Christine Cook<WC> <WC1>said <WC>in <WC1>a Jan. 17 letter.<WC></p><p><WC1><CW-14>During the 2010 campaign, Ravitch challenged the 88 percent conviction rate claimed by Passalacqua for felony cases that went to trial <WC>—<WC1> a small portion of the total cases.</CW></p><p>She cited state Department of Justice statistics from 2003 to 2008 that showed Passalacqua never scored better than 74 percent and had the second-lowest rate in 2007 at just 62 percent, or 20 points below the state average.</p><p>She argued Sonoma County deserves better.</p><p><WC>“<WC1>There<WC>'<WC1>s a terrible pattern here. You<WC>'<WC1>re looking at someone who is consistently receiving a grade of D<WC>-<WC1> or F. We deserve better<WC>,” Ravitch said during the campaign.</p><p><WC1>Passalacqua called the state's numbers inaccurate and requested a formal review.</p><p>He said his overall conviction rate was 79 percent, a figure he called “outstanding” at a time when county residents supported treatment and jail diversion programs.</p><p>Justice officials conceded their numbers could be unreliable<WC>,<WC1> but said they were based on county reporting. Statistics for 2011 were not posted on the state's website.</p><p>Legal scholars questioned the difficulty of compiling trial conviction<WC>-<WC1>rate statistics<WC>,<WC1> but cautioned they were only one measure of a prosecutor's performance.</p><p>Robert Talbot, professor of law at the University of San Francisco, said they are mostly a political tool. A majority of criminal cases never go to trial, so it's important to consider other factors such as settlements and plea bargains <WC>—<WC1> two things that are hard to quantify.</p><p>There are also other variables<WC>,<WC1> like the quality of police investigations and <WC>the composition of local juries, <WC1>he said.</p><p>“The conviction rate is an all-important political fact,” said Talbot, a former criminal defense lawyer. “But winning or losing might not have much to do with how good a prosecutor you are.”</p>