ALPENA — The share of Northeast Michigan criminal circuit court cases ending with a guilty plea returned to normal last year, while the share of cases dismissed by prosecutors remained relatively high, recently released state data shows.

The head of the region’s public defender office said the data shows ongoing statewide reforms to the court-appointed attorney system continue to make a difference in the way criminal cases play out. The chief judge of the 26th Circuit Court serving Alpena and Montmorency counties said those reforms have made a difference, but it’s hard to say how so from the available data.

In 2022, guilty pleas made up 71% of all cases wrapped up by circuit courts in Alpena, Presque Isle, Montmorency, and Alcona counties, according to data available online from the State Court Administrative Office. That was the lowest share of cases that ended with a guilty plea in at least five years.

Cases dismissed by prosecutors, meanwhile, made up 11.5% of all cases wrapped up by circuit courts that year, the second-highest share in at least five years.

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At the time, an official with the Michigan Indigent Defense Commission, which regulates the state’s public defender system, said the data showed new standards imposed over the last few years were making a difference for criminal defendants who can’t afford to hire a lawyer.

For the first time, the standards require attorneys appointed by courts to be well-trained, well-compensated, work fewer cases, and more thoroughly investigate the cases they handle.

In 2023, however, guilty pleas made up roughly 80% of all cases wrapped up by Northeast Michigan circuit courts, a return to the share recorded in previous years. Cases dismissed by prosecutors made up about 9% of all cases wrapped up by the courts, still higher than typical.

Rick Steiger, chief defender at the Northeast Michigan Regional Defender Office, which handles court-appointed cases for Alpena, Montmorency, and Oscoda counties, said the work public defenders have done since the state implemented the reforms — including filing more motions challenging the prosecution, more thoroughly investigating cases, and more — have pushed prosecutors to more carefully consider charges. Guilty pleas might be up again because prosecutors are only charging truly guilty people, he said.

“My assumption would be that prosecutors would notice they’re losing a lot of cases at the prelim level and they’ve heightened the bar before charging,” Steiger said, referring to preliminary examinations hearings at which a judge decides if prosecutors have enough evidence for a case to proceed toward trial. “That would be my assumption. We focus on every single case, now. Instead of having a half hour to review before prelim, we’re spending weeks on cases now.”

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Ed Black, chief judge of the 26th Circuit Court, said it’s hard to measure the impact of the indigent defense reforms from the court caseload data alone. Often, he said, defendants face charges in multiple cases, and prosecutors might agree to dismiss charges in one case in exchange for a guilty plea in another case, which could drive up the share of both dismissals and guilty pleas in the caseload data.

“I’m not saying MIDC hasn’t had an impact,” Black said, referring to the Michigan Indigent Defense Commission. “Do I have that number? No. I think it’d be hard to say.”

Outright dismissals, in which a defendant is freed from all charges in all cases, are rare, Black said.

“You could probably count them on one hand and, if not on one hand, then certainly two,” the judge said.

Nationally, as in Northeast Michigan, court-appointed attorneys handle the overwhelming majority of criminal cases, and the overwhelming majority of criminal cases end in guilty pleas. Trials made up less than 2% of cases wrapped up by Northeast Michigan courts last year.