On Thursday, roughly seven months after his arrest and subsequent charging with 35 separate crimes, including 17 felonies, Michael Burham pleaded guilty to the six of the charges against him in Warren County Court.
Burham is still the prime suspect in the May murder of Kala Hodgkin of Jamestown, but Hodgkin’s family and friends shouldn’t count on anything happening anytime soon. Chautauqua County officials are still piecing together the evidence to see how best to proceed against Burham, but even if the case was a quick one justice would likely not come quickly.
Consider, for example, the case of a Jamestown man who was indicted in the spring of 2021 for selling drugs from a Hazzard Street residence. That case, part of Operation Crazy Ivan, didn’t result in a guilty verdict until September 2023. It took nearly 2.5 years to get from charge to guilty verdict in a relatively simple drug case. Need more convincing? How about the case of Randall Rolison, the driver whose second-degree manslaughter case in the December 31, 2021, death of Alexis Hughan wasn’t resolved until June 2023 – a relatively brisk 18 months compared to the aforementioned drug case.
In New York, there aren’t yet charges against Burham in the murder of Kala Hodgkin despite Burham’s status as the prime suspect in the Jamestown woman’s death. And if there are charges brought, who knows how long it will be until the case actually makes it to court.
We mention the difference between the length of criminal cases in New York and Pennsylvania to say this – New York took a swing at a speedier criminal justice system with its 2020 criminal justice reforms. Bail reform hasn’t worked out as well as Democrats in the state Legislature and former Gov. Andrew Cuomo had hoped. But neither have the speedier trial measures. Rather than give families closure, cases that can’t meet the state’s arbitrary deadlines are often dismissed. If cases meet the state’s timelines, it still takes months or even years longer for cases to conclude in New York than in Pennsylvania.
Pennsylvania’s lower population – particularly in rural areas like Warren County – surely helps cases move through the pipeline faster, but nothing says New York can’t create a judicial model with the same rough number of judges and attorneys per capita as Pennsylvania uses.
In our view, Democrats in New York should look south to Pennsylvania to see how courts can be administered in a more expeditious fashion.
Today’s breaking news and more in your inbox
2023-11-13 06:27:51
#Speedy #Trials #York #Long #Catch
