Upstream. A Mohawk Valley Blogzine.

Wednesday, April 26, 2006

The Numbers Don't Add Up In Saratoga County.

Either Saratoga County D.A. James A. Murphy III, or whoever compiles statistics at the NY State Department of Justice, failed statistics in college. On the Saratoga County website, Murphy describes his accomplishments:

Since taking office in 1998, D.A. Murphy has strengthened criminal prosecutions, expanded the role of the D.A.'s Office in the community, and promoted crime victims' rights. Specifically, he has:


Increased the Office's felony conviction rate to 98.7%: the fourth highest conviction rate among the 62 counties in New York State.

Statistics on New York State’s criminal justice website show, however, that in 2004 (the last year the state has listed), Saratoga County only had a 88.8% felony conviction rate.

Furthermore, there has not been a substantial increase since Murphy took office. Here are his conviction rates from 1998 to 2004.

1998 88.0%
1999 87.2
2000 86.9
2001 85.7
2002 86.7
2003 89.2
2004 88.8

Here are the felony conviction rates for 2004 for each of the counties in the Mohawk Valley. You can see that Saratoga County’s felony conviction rate is not even fourth in the Mohawk Valley, much less the entire state.

Herkimer 93.1%
Montgomery 92.1
Fulton 91.8
Oneida 89.3
Saratoga 88.8
Rensselaer 88.8
Schoharie 87.0
Schenectady 85.5
Albany 83.5

I give you these statistics without any commentary. However, you might want to bookmark the state’s site so that you can double check your D.A.’s claims at election time.

2 Comments:

  • Must be the same "fuzzy math" statistician who came up with the figures for Rensselaer County DA Patricia DeAngelis when she ran for judge last year. She, too, claimed a 98% conviction rate!
    The voters of Rensselaer County showed her some new statistics when they overwhelmingly rejected her!
    Hopefully, they'll do the same next year when she's up for re-election as DA.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 8:05 AM  

  • James Murphy is a self-congratulating fraud of a DA who needs a long class in ethics as he’s being showed the exit door from office. The absolute preposterous nature of his claims are astounding, if not misleading. Perhaps his conviction rate is more a result of his willingness to reach plea deals in difficult cases, rather than roll up his sleeves and go to trial. Just one example is the case of Larry Bovee, a Saratoga Springs city worker who stuck and killed Bob Gorham with his automobile while stoned, then left the scene to do shots of vodka at his home. Not only did Bovee flee from a fatal accident, but thanks to the self purportedly hard-case Murphy, he managed to evade any sort of prison sentence for killing a man while intoxicated. Bet you don’t read that in the Saratogian. Anyway, I figured I’d lend a comment in lieu of the post.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 12:30 PM  

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