DoJ’s drug cases’ conviction rate: 1 percent 04/07/2011

DoJ’s drug cases’ conviction rate: 1 percent

04/07/2011
President Aquino, his Palace aides and his House of Representatives’ allies are bearing down on Ombudsman Merceditas “low conviction” rate, which is one of the grounds constituting betrayal of public trust in her impeachment case, but Aquino’s Department of Justice (DoJ) has an even much lower conviction rate in the matter of drug-related cases.

Only one case in one hundred drug cases handled by the DoJ results in conviction, Justice Secretary Leila de Lima bewailed yesterday .

“The main target is to increase the conviction rate because I understand the conviction rate in drug cases is only 1 percent. This is very low compared to the national average of overall types of cases which is 25 percent,” De Lima said yesterday as she vowed to do better.

The Justice chief pointed out that “in cases where the witnesses are covered under the Witness Protection Program, we have an average 92 to 95 percent conviction rate..... MORE

Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/headlines/20110407hed4.html