Don't do the crime if you can't do the time

If you end up on trial in Montgomery County, odds are you'll be doing some time.

From a story by Carl Hessler Jr. in The Pottstown Mercury:

The scales of justice appear to be tipped heavily in favor of Montgomery County prosecutors when criminals choose to do battle with them at trial.

Prosecutors last year won 83 percent of all criminal cases that went to trial, either before a jury or a judge, according to statistics compiled by the district attorney's office. Of the total 117 trials involving various misdemeanors and felonies last year, 97 resulted in guilty verdicts.

The statistics indicate that defendants who rolled the dice against prosecutors in 2008 by going to trial had only a 17 percent chance of being acquitted.

Read the full story at the newspaper's Web site.