A state Superior Court panel has weighed in on an ongoing and long-running dispute between Philadelphia prosecutors and criminal defense lawyers over how soon to provide arrest reports, writing in dicta in an unpublished opinion that the best policy may be for the district attorney to allow defendants to obtain copies before preliminary arraignment.
The Philadelphia Police Department’s arrest reports under the city of Philadelphia’s Preliminary Arraignment Reporting System were available for about a decade in criminal court files. But the practice was stopped in 2007 at the request of the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office and with the approval of the Philadelphia Municipal Court president judge because of the office’s perspective that PARS reports are internal police documents.
