BOSTON, Dec. 30, 2015—Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel F. Conley and Boston Police Commissioner William B. Evans today released a report on homicides committed, solved, and adjudicated in the City of Boston this year, pointing to the special challenge posed by illegal firearms.

“No other weapon makes a homicide easier to commit or harder to solve,” Evans and Conley said in the report, which is “dedicated to the memory of all those who lost their lives to violence in the City of Boston, and to the families and loved ones they leave behind.”

The 2015 Homicide Review shows an overall homicide clearance rate this year of 61% using the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting formula, as well as an overall conviction rate of 84% for adjudicated homicide indictments. The average homicide clearance rate for cities of similar size last year was 56% according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation and prosecutors in the nation’s largest cities won convictions in 70% of their murder cases, according to the Department of Justice.

Of 14 Boston homicide convictions considered on direct appeal by the Supreme Judicial Court and Massachusetts Appeals Court this year, 13 were affirmed and one is pending retrial after reversal because of a judge’s flawed jury instruction, the report says.

“By any measure – solving cases, prosecuting defendants, or defending convictions on appeal – the Boston model is a highly successful one compared with other major cities,” Conley and Evans said of the close partnership between Boston Police detectives and Suffolk County prosecutors. Statistics show that the average big-city prosecutor’s office dismisses 17% of its cleared homicide cases, while Boston dismissed only one this year – a case in which a critical witness died unexpectedly prior to trial.

“We hold ourselves and our cases to the very highest standards,” Evans and Conley said. “As a result, pre-trial dismissals are almost unheard of in Boston, and nearly every cleared case is bound for indictment and adjudication.”

The only solved homicides not heading for a courtroom, they said, were a case of self-defense and a case in which the assailant killed himself shortly after shooting another man to death.

The report shed particular light on investigators’ results by type of homicide: Fatal shootings were solved at a rate of about 50% under the UCR standards, while all other forms of homicides were solved at a UCR rate of 100%. The challenge of gun violence presented itself at trial as well, with the year’s only homicide acquittals coming in cases of fatal shootings.

“Because gun crimes are far less likely to generate physical evidence at the scene, the critical difference between a solved case and an unsolved case is very often a cooperating witness or a well-placed security camera,” Evans and Conley said.

The report is accompanied by an interactive map showing the dates, locations, and weapons used in the 38 homicides committed this year and the 25 homicides that were solved. Seven of those cases were solved within 24 hours and 11 were committed in prior years, with the oldest dating back to 1992.

–30–

All defendants are presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.