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District judge outlines drop in local crime, explains pretrial and court changes

Lansdale Borough Council · February 18, 2026
AI-Generated Content: All content on this page was generated by AI to highlight key points from the meeting. For complete details and context, we recommend watching the full video. so we can fix them.

Summary

At the Feb. 18 Lansdale Borough Council meeting, District Judge Ed Levine said pretrial services, public defenders at preliminary hearings and recent DA participation have changed local arraignments; he reported declines in criminal caseloads and crime rates while noting heavy landlord-tenant and civil dockets.

Judge Ed Levine, the district judge covering Lansdale and surrounding areas, told the Lansdale Borough Council on Feb. 18 that changes in court procedures and staffing have altered how cases move through the system and, by some measures, coincided with lower criminal case totals.

"I am judge Ed Levine. I'm the district judge here in Lansdale, Pennsylvania," Levine said as he opened a data-rich "state of the judiciary" overview. He described pretrial services, a vetting process started countywide in 2021 that the court uses to assess defendants' criminal histories and appearance risk before arraignment. Levine said pretrial personnel provide monitoring…

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