OAKLAND — Every day, at least one courtroom at the Rene Davidson Courthouse is occupied by a murder trial.

Nine blocks away, at the Wiley Manuel Courthouse, at least two and usually three courtrooms are hosting pretrial proceedings for an upcoming homicide case.

Yet, on any given day, at least 160 murder cases are sitting idle, awaiting space in a court system overcrowded with criminal trials.

The city's rising homicide rate, coupled with strict charging guidelines administered by the district attorney's office, has resulted in a system overburdened by criminal trials.

As a result, because of reluctance to plea-deal homicide cases, lesser crimes, such as robbery and drug selling, are more likely to be pleaded out before a jury trial.

While the district attorney's office admits lesser crimes are offered plea deals more often than homicides, assistant district attorney Nancy O'Malley said those deals are not made in order to clear space in the courthouse.

"It has become a significant part of the process obviously, but court efficiency is not a reason to plea a case," she said. "I would not describe it as one causes the other."

And even when the lesser crimes are pleaded out, O'Malley said the district attorney's office never agrees to a deal that will result in the accused criminal spending less time in jail than the prosecutor handling the case believes they should.

"If it is a realistic offer, we will

But defense attorneys said they believe space limitations play a role in how plea deals are offered and said the length and complexities of a murder trial continues to rob space from the court system.

Lengthy murder trials

A typical murder trial usually takes at least two years to complete; if it is a death-penalty case, it could take as long as four years before a jury renders a verdict.

The rising number of murder charges and the length it takes to clear a case has resulted in frustration for everyone involved in the criminal justice system, including victims and suspects.

"The people familiar with the system recognize it is not unusual for a case to take two years, but for others, the family members and such, it is very frustrating," said Darryl Stallworth, a 15-year deputy district attorney who left the office last year. "There is just a lot of volume, you would love to be able to have the resources to spend, but you just don't."

Added Lisa Foster, director of the county's victim/witness assistance division, "For the victims, they want to know, how long do they have to wait as a family for justice."

While it is not unusual for a criminal trial to take months to complete, many said the way Alameda County District Attorney Tom Orloff chooses to charge homicides makes the process drag.

Every homicide in Alameda County is treated as a potential death-penalty case from the moment it is charged until after a preliminary hearing is held and the suspect is ordered to stand trial. It is then that Orloff and a team of deputy district attorneys gather to decide if the case warrants the death penalty.

Although a majority of the cases do not lead to a death-penalty trial, charging them as such from the beginning leads to lengthy pre-trial activities that gum up the system, defense attorneys said.

"We are just wasting a lot of money," said James Giller, a criminal defense attorney who has been practicing in Oakland for more than 50 years. "In the lower court, they are all special circumstance cases so they can all be death-penalty trials, and that takes a lot of time."

Suspects facing a potential death-penalty trial have the right to be represented by two attorneys. In addition, the investigation into the crime is more extensive for a potential death-penalty case, many said. A suspect's past plays a larger role in such cases as does a person's mental state.

But O'Malley argued that the office only adds special circumstances to a murder charge when warranted and said even if a case has special circumstances attached, it does not mean it has to take longer.

In addition, she said, special circumstances must be added to a case when it is originally charged because it is harder to add charges to a case once it has proceeded through the preliminary hearing phase.

"It's our constitution and ethical (duty) to evaluate the cases," she said. "If we did not do it at the beginning of the case, it would be harder to do."

O'Malley said lengthening the time of a murder trial also only benefits the defendant. Usually, she said, the district attorney wants a case in trial as fast as possible.

"The older a case gets, it's not good for the prosecution," she said. "It's never really great to have a case get old."

No homicide plea deals

Once a case gets beyond the preliminary hearing, many said, the chance to make a plea deal also has diminished, compared with a decade ago.

The lack of plea deals on homicides, many said, is a result of both Orloff's insistence that all homicide cases go to a jury, and a state parole system that, in the past decade, has refused to release anyone on parole.

As a result, a suspect who is accused of a homicide that has a life term as part of the sentence will most likely spend the rest of his life behind bars. No longer does it make sense for a suspect to take a plea deal reducing first degree murder with a 25-to-life sentence to second degree murder with a 15-to-life sentence.

"They will never see the light of day," said Annie Beles, an Oakland defense attorney. "The parole boards come up with anything to keep you in jail."

Added Giller, "When I was a young lawyer, I could deal a homicide to second-degree and the guy got five years. Now, they don't let anyone out even on second-degree."

In addition, Orloff's office frequently refuses to offer deals to suspects accused of murder.

"Very few homicides we see settle," said Ray Keller, the assistant public defender. "Fifteen years ago, the DA was satisfied with a penalty in the 10- to 15-year range on cases that now they insist that a person serves life in prison."

O'Malley said the office doesn't offer plea deals on homicide cases because homicide cases are serious crimes. In addition, she said, any deal that could be offered would be rejected by defendants because of the life term attached to homicides.

Nevertheless, with the homicide rate rising and plea deals not being offered or taken by suspects, the system becomes overcrowded with murder trials. That, in turn, leaves no room for cases such as drug dealing and robbery.

"That is the perception that I have and that is a huge concern that I have had over the last few years," Keller said. "Those people charged with those lesser felonies are not getting their day in court because there is such an emphasis on plea bargaining those cases with sweet deals.

"The danger of excessive sweet deals is that sometimes innocent people take them," Keller continued.

System doesn't solve problems

To be sure, overcrowded courts are not a problem unique to Alameda County. Almost every other county court system in the state faces similar problems as the crime rate rises and strict penalties are mandated by state law.

And in every county, plea deals are a common occurrence.

For example, during the fiscal year 2005-06, 76 percent of felonies cleared from the court docket throughout the state ended in a plea deal of guilty, statistics from the Judicial Council of California show.

Regardless of how long it takes for a homicide trial to finish or how the policies used by the district attorney affect that time, almost everyone agrees that the judicial system is not designed to solve problems.

"It is not the judicial system, it is the political system," said Judy Browne, a 30-year public defender now in private practice. "Drugs are a huge problem. Most of my homicides, whether I tried them or not, all dealt with drugs or some kind of addiction."

Others said the prevalence of guns on the street and defendants' increasingly lack of self-respect also led to more homicides.

In the city's poorer neighborhoods, attorneys said, residents can easily purchase a gun and disputes that would be resolved with fists in the past are now turning into murders.

"I represent them and I don't know what the hell they are thinking," Giller said. "What do they think is going to happen?"

Most said the defendants facing a homicide charge have no self-worth and no perspective that the crime they commit will result in them spending the rest of their life behind bars.

"Telling people that they are going to spend more time in prison, I don't believe that is going to have a big impact," Stallworth said. "You see a lot of these young men who just don't care. They have graduated to a place where they don't care. They have lost their conscience."