During 1907 in New York County out of 4,573 indictments .62 per cent. (including pleas of guilty) resulted in convictions. The following table shows a gradually increasing percentage of such convictions for the past eight years:
| Year | Number of Indictments Disposed of | Total Convictions | Ratio |
| 1900 | 3,620 | 2,096 | .5790 |
| 1901 | 4,096 | 2,389 | .5839 |
| 1902 | 4,410 | 2,528 | .5506 |
| 1903 | 3,909 | 2,403 | .6144 |
| 1904 | 4,022 | 2,466 | .6131 |
| 1905 | 3,887 | 2,490 | .6405 |
| 1906 | 4,214 | 2,543 | .6035 |
| 1907 | 4,573 | 2,848 | .6228 |
During this eight-year period 32,731 indictments were finally disposed of either by trial, plea, direction of the court or on the recommendation of the district attorney. These dispositions bear the following ratios to each other:
| Year | Convictions by Verdict | Pleas of Guilty | Acquittals by Verdict | Acquittals Directed | Discharges | Minor Dispositions |
| 1900 | .1171 | .4619 | .1013 | .1012 | .1707 | .0478 |
| 1901 | .1345 | .4487 | .0840 | .0840 | .1831 | .0657 |
| 1902 | .0950 | .4556 | .0792 | .0791 | .2324 | .0587 |
| 1903 | .1239 | .4905 | .0786 | .0785 | .1770 | .0515 |
| 1904 | .1231 | .4901 | .0887 | .0853 | .1685 | .0443 |
| 1904 | .1231 | .4901 | .0887 | .0853 | .1685 | .0443 |
| 1905 | .1258 | .5148 | .0769 | .0779 | .1585 | .0461 |
| 1906 | .1101 | .4934 | .0584 | .0745 | .2067 | .0569 |
| 1907 | .1273 | .4955 | .0577 | .0857 | .1739 | .0599 |
What the reader is naturally most curious to discover is in what proportion of cases (where they had any say in the matter at all) the jury let the defendant go. Roughly speaking, the proportion of convictions to acquittals by actual verdict is considerably more than two to one,—the ratio for 1907 being as 69 is to 31:
| Year | Number Convictions by Verdict | Number Acquittals by Verdict | Convictions Per Cent | Acquittals Per Cent |
| 1900 | 424 | 367 | 54 | 46 |
| 1901 | 551 | 344 | 62 | 38 |
| 1902 | 419 | 349 | 55 | 45 |
| 1903 | 485 | 307 | 61 | 39 |
| 1904 | 495 | 357 | 58 | 42 |
| 1905 | 489 | 299 | 62 | 38 |
| 1906 | 464 | 246 | 65 | 35 |
| 1907 | 582 | 264 | 69 | 31 |
The writer desires very particularly not to be understood as suggesting that because the district attorney in all these cases thought the defendant guilty or even knew him to be guilty, the action of the jury was necessarily improper. So far as his opinion may be worth anything he believes thoroughly in the jury system in criminal cases, with some trifling modifications. In a vast proportion of the cases in which acquittals resulted there was undoubtedly room for an honest difference of opinion as between reasonable men,—men in the long run better qualified to judge of the defendant's guilt on the evidence than the prosecutor himself, who is always at the disadvantage of knowing the "inside" or "unprovable" elements of the People's case, a fact which is apt to lead him to believe that the record establishes his own contention more than it appears to do so to the jury. The propriety of any jury's action must be determined only upon the basis of the evidence presented to them, and upon which they are permitted to act. The writer is inclined to believe that nearer eighty than seventy per cent of the defendants tried should be convicted. In the heat of conflict he might even claim ninety per cent and maintain that if a majority of eleven on each jury could render a verdict, nine out of every ten defendants, after a hearing in the magistrate's court, an examination by the grand jury, and a careful investigation by the prosecutor's office, should be convicted. The writer submits that the increasing percentage of convictions shown on the opposite page is evidence of the effectiveness of the jury in criminal cases in New York County.
FOOTNOTES:
[27] This is a vast improvement over the conditions which existed in this regard six or seven years ago, when defendants in prison could count themselves fortunate if tried within three weeks, or, if on bail, within a year. It was by no means unusual to have cases appear upon the calendars from three to five years old, the backs of the indictments being covered with the names of assistants long since departed from official life. The writer once tried a case that had appeared on the calendar TWENTY-EIGHT times, and cases which had appeared there from ten to twenty times were the rule, not the exception. In the days when the present district attorney was a deputy, indictments were so carelessly found and treated that in order to clear the calendars bushel baskets of them would be brought into court and dismissed "on the recommendation" of the district attorney. A house-cleaning process of this sort would ordinarily occur just before it became necessary to make an official report on the number of cases "disposed of." To-day there are very few indictments not tried within the year, and almost any defendant who wants one can get a speedy trial, such delays as arise being generally caused by the defendant himself. Of course during the summer months when but two courts are open, and the judges sit from only ten-thirty to one o'clock, action is somewhat less speedy, and as homicide cases usually require more time for trial than others, and are tried seriatim in order of age, the defendants may have to wait a little longer than in cases of less gravity. Even in such cases defendants generally have to be "forced to trial" against their will.