DEFENDER ASSOCIA TION OFFICE

THREE SOUTH PENN SQUARE

 

0 PHILADELPHIA 19t0?~3499
215686-8000
1441 Sansom Street
Philadelphia, PA .191024004 . i,
(2 i 5) 568-3190 (215) 988-0208 fax fl. 

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UWRINCE memes,
Fahd? ?rm-1N: 1

May 3, 2019
Dearjudge Dugan and judge Fox,

We write together to regretfully inform you that the Defender Association and the
District Attorney?s Of?ce are withdrawing our support for the Risk Assessment ?l?ool
(hereinafter, Over the last year and a half, the process to create this tool has
lacked transparency, despite our repeated requests for information.

In the 2018 calendar year, our staffs met approximately once a month as part of the
MacArthur Pretrial Working Group where the RAT and its development were topics
of conversation. During those meetings, our staffs repeatedly requested specific
information about its progress. For many months, we were told that Dr. Berk, the
professor who built the APPD risk tool in 2009, was working on development. In
August, 2018, your staff passed. out a worksheet listing possible factors upon which
the tool would be based. In December, your staff provided us with a list of factors
that you planned to use in the proposed tool. This was the summtotal of a year?s
discussion of the RAT.

In ajanuary MacArthur site Visit, Michael Bouchard and jaime Henderson infonncd
the staff of both of our of?ces, as well as the funders, that the data for the tool?s
development was ?stale? and that new data was required. After some pressing, they
acknowledged that this meant the process would have to start afresh. There was, we
then learned, nothing to show for nearly 18 months of work.? Your staff also
informed our staffs that risk had been de?ned as the hkelihood of te-?arrest in 18
months, a de?nition on which we were not consulted and with which we cannot
agree. When pressed, Dr. Henderson told those present that this de?nition had been
created in 2012, at least three years before we applied for our MacArthur grant.

In March, after the Defender stated its concerns regarding a risk assessment tool, the
asked if the Defender had an alternative plan that would not involve using such a
tool. At the time, we believed that the was willing to engage in an infonned
discussion regarding an alternative plan to eliminate cash hail without a On

 

?The Macarthur Grant application shows that Dr. Berk received FJD data in April 2017?.

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