North Carolina: District Attorney attempts to spin assessment of lame job in dumping DWI cases

From WSOC

CHARLOTTE, N.C. —2013-09-28 — The Mecklenburg County District Attorney’s Office is firing back at a state report that stated prosecutors dismissed nearly 50 percent of DWI cases in the county.
The report from the State Auditor’s Office analyzed data from 2011-12 and listed Mecklenburg County as dismissing 47 percent of cases, more than twice the state average.
But Thursday, DWI prosecutor Bruce Lillie called that number skewed.
“That number doesn’t reflect the hard work that’s being done by the DA’s office, by law enforcement, by members of the court system,” Lillie said.
Lillie said the Auditor’s Office analyzed data from the same year Mecklenburg County switched over to a new warrant system, NC AWARE, a computer program now being used statewide to help track criminals.
As a result, Lillie said county officials purged nearly 1,000 old DWI cases from the records, some dating back to over a decade — and that those cases were reflected as “dismissed” by state officials.
“These were cases that we were never, ever going ….MORE