PROSECUTIONS DIPPED DURING ALITO'S TENURE AS U.S. ATTORNEY

Data Show Number Of Prosecutions By His Office Dipped 30% In His First Year
As Jersey's U.S. Attorney

WASHINGTON -- In Samuel Alito's first year as U.S. attorney for New Jersey
in 1987, the number of defendants his office prosecuted plunged 30 percent
from the year before, with the biggest drop coming in drug cases, an
analysis of federal criminal justice data shows.

During the next three years under Alito's leadership, the New Jersey U.S.
attorney's office never fully recovered, each year failing to prosecute as
many as the 980 defendants indicted or charged in 1986, the analysis by
Syracuse University researchers shows.

In fact, in no year in the past two decades has the office prosecuted so
few criminal defendants as it did in each of the four years it was under
Alito's control, the analysis found.

Alito has not been a prosecutor for 15 years, but his tenure as New
Jersey's U.S. attorney from March 1987 to June 1990 is being re-examined
since he was nominated to the Supreme Court on Monday.

John Lacey, a former assistant prosecutor under Alito, and crime expert
Alfred Blumstein of Carnegie Mellon University, yesterday both said the
drop in prosecutions, particularly of drug crimes, could indicate Alito's
preference for organized crime and other cases.

While Alito's prosecutions of drug cases dipped sharply before rising
again, nationally federal narcotics prosecution rose from nearly 15,000
defendants in 1986 to nearly 24,000 in 1990, the analysis shows.

Lacey and Blumstein said it probably also shows how understaffed Alito's
office was.

Alito's office in 1990, for example, had 13 attorneys per million
population while the national average was 17 per million, the data from
Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse show.

The White House had no comment.

The Justice Department said it has not reviewed the data compiled by TRAC,
which is nonpartisan and nonprofit.

But a Justice official said on condition of anonymity that the department
has disputed TRAC studies in the past.

The TRAC data show that in 1986, the New Jersey U.S. attorney prosecuted
980 defendants, including 391 for drugs.

In Alito's first year in 1987, the office prosecuted 679 defendants, only
101 for drugs.

In 1988, prosecutions rose to 852 (with 154 for drugs), and in 1989 the
total reached 969 (including 242 for drugs). In 1990, his last year, the
total was 935, with 214 for drugs.

After Alito resigned as U.S. attorney in 1990, the U.S. attorney's office
under his successor, Michael Chertoff, prosecuted 1,147 defendants,
included 294 for drug crimes. Since then, the office has never prosecuted
fewer than 1,000 defendants in a year.

"He obviously slowed things down," said Blumstein.

If Alito consciously sought to move away from small drug crimes to focus on
more complex criminal activities, Blumstein said, it was a "wise exchange."

Lacey, now a New Jersey defense lawyer, said his recollection is that is
exactly what Alito did - drop the "small buy" cases.

Lacey said Alito also limited the number of cases with a dozen or more
defendants.

One organized-crime case Alito inherited had 20 defendants - and all 20
were acquitted after a two-year trial.

When President George H.W. Bush nominated Alito for the appellate court in
1990, both of New Jersey's Democratic senators praised him.