A lot of jurisdictions, including quite a few here in North Carolina, have to deal with an overburdened criminal-justice system. From personal experience, I can think of one way to ease that burden in a heartbeat. There are some cases based on charges that are so blatantly false that they really have no business being before our courts. Unfortunately, as I found out almost seven years ago, there's no real deterrent against filing these charges.
I was married to an emotionally abusive and controlling woman for three years. I finally left her in August 2006 and have been living with my mom since then. On the day I left my ex, her son gave me a savage beating. So naturally, I pressed charges. He was arrested the day after Labor Day. That Saturday morning, I got an unpleasant surprise--the police showed up at my door. It turned out that literally hours after her son had been arrested, my ex turned around and accused me of forcing the daughter of a close friend of hers to watch X-rated movies and threatening to beat her up if she told anyone.
A family friend who was a former longtime prosecutor here in Charlotte agreed to take the case. We showed him the charge sheet, and he said almost immediately that this was retaliation. If it was that obvious to my lawyer, I thought for certain it would be obvious to the prosecutor handling the case as well--and not only would I be cleared, but my ex would be racked up for perjury and suborning perjury. I was even more certain of this when, at my lawyer's request, I obtained my timesheet which clearly showed I was at work at the times I supposedly made this girl watch X-rated movies. Unfortunately, that didn't happen. My lawyer told me that at the first appearance, the ADA was adamant that they had a right to present their case. I thought that at by the first court date--fittingly, on Halloween--the case would be thrown out. No such luck--the ADA requested a continuance when my ex and that girl didn't show up, which was granted.
A few days later, the case where my ex's son beat me up came up, and I went to court as the victim this time. That day was the first time I even talked to a prosecutor. Needless to say, I was horrified. Unless I was very wrong, this likely meant that no one had met with my ex, that girl and the girl's mother before that case went to trial. You would think that one of a prosecutor's primary jobs is to make sure that palpably bogus cases never make it to court. And because of that, I had to endure the rigamarole of calling pretrial release every Monday for another two months before a second court date in January. She didn't show up again, and this time the charges were thrown out. I thought about suing my ex to recover my legal fees--but decided against it after finding out that my ex was now homeless. As much as I wanted to see her nailed to the wall, I could not bring myself to sue a homeless woman.
If there had been more safeguards against this nonsense, though, I wouldn't have faced that dilemma. You would think that a prosecutor would be morally obligated to make sure that before he brings a case, the charges aren't obviously false. But if that isn't the case, then maybe we need to require prosecutors to meet with the complainant at least three weeks prior to the court date. That would allow enough time to find out if the charges are false. Had such a meeting taken place with my ex, she'd have had a lot of explaining to do. After all, if the DA handling her case had looked at the time my ex made her false complaint and realized it came literally hours after her son was arrested, that should have raised some eyebrows. If I'd been a DA meeting with my ex, I'd have told her, "You'd better have a damned good explanation for this exceptional timing, or else you're going to be up on perjury charges."
I also think that, if it's constitutionally possible to do so, anyone filing false charges should be on the hook for any legal expenses, lost wages, etc. incurred by someone having to defend himself. Presently, something like this is a civil matter, but it needs to be criminal. After all, the filing of false charges wastes valuable court and police time. Not only that, but if the false charges are an act of retaliation, they rise to the level of obstruction of justice and an infringement on civil rights.
It makes me sick to think that we may need a law to make prosecutors do what conventional wisdom suggests they would be morally obligated to do. But if that's what it takes to both help clear the backlog in our courts and protect the rights of innocent people, so be it.