Philadelphia D.A.’s Office to probe clerical mistakes in court docs

The Philadelphia District Attorney’s office says it will look into recent mishandling of court cases.
In one instance, reported by the Philadelphia Daily News, a man struck and killed a pedestrian while driving drunk, but served just six months despite being sentenced three to six years.
The court clerk had incorrectly entered the man’s sentence as months instead of years.

The Philadelphia District Attorney’s office says it will look into recent mishandling of court cases.

In one instance, reported by the Philadelphia Daily News, a man struck and killed a pedestrian while driving drunk, but served just six months despite being sentenced three to six years.

The court clerk had incorrectly entered the man’s sentence as months instead of years.

Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams says his office will look into the operations at the Clerk of Quarter Sessions, the city office responsible for handling prisoner paperwork.

Williams: Hopefully, this is just an anomaly.  Just one out of several thousand cases that we have every year.  This is just an anomaly.  But it’s something we have to monitor, and something we have to make sure doesn’t happen again.

The incident was the second uncovered by the Daily News in the past month.

The Clerk of Quarter Sessions is also under fire for various clerical bunglings, including  not accurately recording how much the city is owed in bail payments.  The office is now under the supervision of the city prothonotary’s office, which handles paperwork for civil matters.