AFTER A YEAR IN JAIL, HE GETS HIS SPEEDY TRIAL

A Man Held Without A Court Date Evidently Got Lost In The System.  Now He's Wanted Elsewhere.

Preston Lee Burns languished in the overcrowded Chester County Prison for a year with no court date, a poster child for the adage that the wheels of justice grind slowly.

Yesterday, the 28-year-old Norristown man experienced the opposite extreme as Chester County Court Judge James P.  MacElree 2d held a swift, nonjury trial - and acquitted Burns of marijuana possession.

One deputy sheriff called it "the fastest trial I ever saw."

Charles M.J.  Nester, an assistant Chester County public defender, agreed.

"I don't think it lasted more than a minute," he said.

Burns' time in Chester County Prison dated to July 11, 2003.

He had been charged with possessing marijuana on Sept.  22, 2001, in Phoenixville.  But after he agreed to do community service, his preliminary hearing was continued until July 25, 2002.

Burns never appeared at that hearing, however, so the county issued a bench warrant and extradited him in July 2003 from Montgomery County Prison, where he had served time for a drug conviction, according to court records.

When he arrived in Chester County, he should have had a trial within a couple of months.  But someone incorrectly identified Burns as a parole violator - which meant it would have been the responsibility of a a parole officer to get him before a judge.

Because Burns had no criminal history in Chester County, the Department of Probation and Parole had no record of him, Nester said.  That meant no one in the court system was looking after his case.

When Nester asked Burns why he did not contact the Public Defender's Office sooner, Burns told him that his jailhouse colleagues had assured him nothing was amiss in the length of time he had been jailed.  And so he sat - and sat some more - until deciding to call the office Monday.

Nester, who has worked for the defender's office since 1977, said he could not remember another case falling so far through the cracks.

Even if Burns had been convicted, he would not have been in jail for so long.  His alleged infraction called for no more than a 30-day punishment, Nester said.  He probably would have been eligible for parole before that.

District Attorney Joseph W.  Carroll concurred that the case was unusual, but added that it "certainly shouldn't happen."

Carroll said an erroneous computer code kept Burns' case from being listed for trial.

"I can't imagine someone sitting in prison for months and not mentioning to anyone that they hadn't seen a lawyer," Carroll said.  "But even though I think it's unlikely to occur again, we've added some steps to prevent it."

Carroll said that the person who handles extraditions for the District Attorney's Office will now monitor prison admissions so that prosecutors know exactly when defendants arrive from outside the county.

According to court records, Burns, who has been repeatedly booked on drug and assault charges, has not made tracking him easy for authorities.

In addition to a passel of addresses in places such as Reading, Pottstown, Norristown and various prisons, he is no stranger to no-shows.  On April 25, 2002, he failed to appear for a Montgomery County hearing on a drug charge.  Prosecutors caught up with him at Berks County Prison, and lodged a detainer, a document that would keep him from being released but that would require his transfer to the jurisdiction where it was filed.

Even after his long stint in jail, Burns isn't home free yet.  A Berks County assistant district attorney, Eric Winter, said Burns had a warrant pending against him for parole violation - one that apparently occurred when he was in Chester County Prison.

With a detainer against him from Berks, Burns could not be freed yesterday.  But he could get credit in Berks County for his extended time behind bars in Chester County.

Nester wondered how Burns could have violated parole while he was incarcerated.  "I really feel bad for the guy," Nester said.  "This is the first time I've ever encountered anything like this."