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"Change of Pleas" at the Dillingham Courthouse

In the past couple of weeks, we've noticed what seemed dozens and dozens of "Change of Pleas" on the Dillingham courthouse calendar. These cases have involved assaults, driving under the influence, importing drugs to town ... and in each, the defendant accepts responsibility for some or all of the charges against him or her, hopefully in exchange for a lighter sentence or having one or more of the charges dropped. The state gets a conviction without going to trial, the defendants and their attorneys have more say in the appropriate sentencing, and the whole justice systems seems to move along a little faster. We asked Duke Circle, one of the state's two assistant district attorneys in town, to talk more about this. He spoke with KDLG's Dave Bendinger earlier this week: