More than 16K charges erroneously dismissed due to computer error, DA says

MECKLENBURG COUNTY, N.C. — The Mecklenburg County District Attorney’s Office is working to correct a computer error that resulted in more than 16,000 charges getting dismissed inadvertently, officials said.

According to the DA’s office, a computer error at the state courts’ administrative office means more than 300 DWI charges and high-speed charges were dismissed incorrectly. In a news release, officials said DA Merriweather notified the Administrative Office of the Courts director and his staff that he would reinstate as many as possible of those charges that had been incorrectly dismissed.

The DA’s office said the error was discovered when some “court system stakeholders” notified their office on Sept. 26 of case outcomes that weren’t consistent with the direction they had been given.

“Immediately, DA Merriweather reached out to the AOC Director and called for a halt to those dispositions,” the release read. “The DA’s Office has been working with AOC staff consistently since then to diagnose the extent of the errors, the reasons for the errors, and what solutions may remedy them.”

Merriweather said his top priority is getting the DWI cases reinstated first.

In an effort to address case backlogs that were created when the Mecklenburg County District Court closed during the pandemic, the DA’s office had been dismissing minor traffic and lower-level misdemeanor offenses. The DA has been working toward that initiative with the AOC.

The goal of the process has been to allow prosecutors to focus resources on more serious traffic charges and misdemeanors instead of minor ones.

The DA’s office said many of the cases they are working to dismiss date back more than three years. A recent uptick in vehicular homicides has coincided with more than 10,000 pending cases in which drivers are charged with speeding 25 mph or more over the speed limit. Officials said there are currently more than 1,000 pending cases in which drivers are charged with driving at speeds of 100 mph or more.

“Without action to address the backlogs, it would take years to resolve currently pending cases, which would then delay all future District Court proceedings, creating a cycle of delays in priority cases and for victims for years to come,” authorities said.

The DA’s office has worked with AOC since 2020, without issue, to gather data about pending charges and dismiss low-priority cases on a smaller scale, officials said. This summer, that project grew bigger as AOC began to provide technical help on dismissing 97,000 minor traffic citations and low-misdemeanors, some of which date back to 2019.

“Clerical and computer errors in a system with the case volume that exists in a county of our size do occur, and when they do, reinstatement of affected cases occurs as a matter of course. We would not expect a different outcome in these circumstances,” the release read.

“We appreciate the promptness with which the AOC Director and his staff and our own local court stakeholders have responded to this incident, and we look forward to prompt resolution,” the DA’s office added.

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