By Michael Matza 

No one came to the door on the first sharp knock. Pounding brought no response, either. But the investigators knew someone was home on that frigid night in North Philadelphia. They saw shadows moving behind the shades.

When a gray-haired woman finally opened up, three armed warrant officers in plainclothes, bulletproof vests and navy windbreakers swept past her into the hall. They looked like police, but are employees of the court. On the street, they're known as body snatchers. Their quarry: the 25,000 people who, through fear, forgetfulness or brazen contempt, have failed to show up for criminal trials and are wanted on bench warrants.

"We're looking for Ibn Tallev. We have to see him, ma'am," said Carl, a ramrod-straight field supervisor with the Philadelphia court system's warrant unit.

Some outstanding warrants are older than the unit itself, which was founded in 1972, but Talley's were "fresh paper." Arrested in October on charges of buying and selling cocaine, and again in December on charges of carrying an unlicensed .22-caliber handgun, Talley, 21, had two trials scheduled in Municipal Court in January. When he did not appear for either, judges issued warrants for his arrest.

In Philadelphia, where the failure-to-appear rate for criminal trials is nearly three times the national average, Talley's warrants joined about 50,000 others in a system so backed up that warrant officers liken their work to "emptying the ocean with a spoon." Among the city's felony defendants with at least one prior arrest, nearly three out of five had failed to show up for court at some stage in the earlier proceedings, according to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics. Nationwide, the average is about one in five. Experts differ on why the problem is so acute here. Some blame a court-imposed prison population cap that has freed large numbers of suspects awaiting trial. And some say the city's failure to curb the problem has bred a culture of defiance.

"At some level, you want people to go to court so they feel there's a consequence for their actions," said Christopher Stone, director of the Vera Institute of Justice, a research center in New York. Too often in Philadelphia, they don't. When suspects thumb their noses at the courts, the consequences are serious, criminal-justice experts say. Witnesses grow cynical or forget important details. Some crime victims give up on the system and stop cooperating with authorities. And some of those wanted on warrants commit fresh crimes, stirring public outrage.

Of three people charged in the Halloween night slaying of a University of Pennsylvania researcher, two had outstanding warrants in theft cases. One had been at large for nine months, the other for two. The researcher, biochemist Vladimir Sled, 38, was fatally stabbed in West Philadelphia while coming to the aid of his girlfriend, whose handbag was being snatched.

In January 1996, there were 50,406 outstanding bench warrants for felonies and misdemeanors in the city courts an all-time high. Since then, for the first time in memory, the number has dropped albeit only slightly to 48,938. "Granted it doesn't look like a big bite. . . . But we're putting a dent in it," said David Preski, deputy director of pretrial services for the court system. He credited the hiring of 20 additional warrant investigators since 1995, among other factors. The figure for misdemeanor and felony warrants does not include 37,000 outstanding warrants for minor offenses, such as smoking on the subway. If a defendant in one of those less-than-threatening cases evades justice for 24 months, the warrant is simply purged from the system.

The spectacle of fugitives roaming the streets, and sometimes committing new crimes, can be embarrassing for police and politicians. "But to avoid that particular embarrassment, you'd have to go out and arrest everybody who fails to appear, to the point where it gets hugely expensive and, in fact, the public wouldn't want it," said Stone. "If you said, 'We can do that or we can patrol streets,' everyone would say, 'Patrol the streets.'"

On the night justice knocked on Ibn Talley's door, investigators found him hiding in a roach-infested bedroom guarded by a black pit bull tied to a bureau. Pushing aside a dresser Talley had set up as a barricade, they forced their way into the room, which reeked of fresh dog feces. "Oh man," said Talley as investigators slapped on the cuffs. "I was just going to sleep."

With an average of 125 people arrested in Philadelphia every day, tens of thousands of criminal suspects are free pending trial. Some are charged with petty offenses. Some, like Talley, face weapons charges or worse. Those without criminal records, or who are deemed to pose no risk of flight, are usually released on their promise to show up for court. Others post bail or are released on special conditions, such as the requirement that they call a caseworker several times a week.

Many cities rely on police to track down suspects who don't show for court dates. Philadelphia has a separate 47-member warrant unit with a budget of Sl.l million a year. Working round the clock in three shifts from a ground-floor office at Broad and Cherry Streets, three-member teams of investigators cruise the city in white Jeep Cherokees and unmarked sedans confiscated in drug cases. Their salaries start at about $24,000 a year and max out around $28,000. Many have previous law-enforcement experience in the military, county sheriff's departments, or Philadelphia Housing Authority police. They use geographically coded computer data to target the neighborhoods with the highest number of warrants. They rank cases by the number of warrants outstanding and the seriousness of the charges. They carry tattered looseleaf books containing defendants' mug shots. They "corner surf" by car, making arrests at known hangouts and drug houses, usually in the daytime. And they make house calls usually in predawn raids.

By placing the names of Philadelphia fugitives into the National Crime Information Center database, investigators alert other jurisdictions to be on the lookout, too. "Every crime you see on TV? We're the ones who get it when it's no longer front-page news," said a veteran investigator named Mays, whose short black beard is flecked with gray. Warrant officers asked not to be identified in full in order to protect their safety.

Working flat-out on one recent overnight shift, investigators cleared 17 warrants by arresting six fugitives, some with multiple warrants against them. Sometimes, the arrest goes down easily. Sometimes, it involves a dangerous foot chase through burned-out buildings and trash-strewn streets.

Investigators Tito and Powder are a wiry team, both 24. They specialize in defendants who run. Their teammate Dante looks like a bull with the eyes of an eagle. He spots; they chase. Investigators tell stories about being punched, having guns pointed at them, and being bitten by pit bulls that they've had to shoot in self-defense.

These things are like parachutes," says Rick, Powder's field supervisor, rapping on the breastplate of his body armor. "If you don't have one when you need it, chances are you won't need it again."

Each investigator is trained in the use of firearms and carries a 9mm Beretta. "There's a large number of warrants in every part of the city, but they're more concentrated over here," says Rick, driving through a notoriously dangerous stretch of Kensington and Port Richmond. "You could almost stand on the corner and make arrests without moving."

If the defendant isn't home when the unit comes knocking, investigators leave a card with instructions on how to surrender at the Criminal Justice Center. An average of 35 people a day do just that. Police also nab a lot of fugitives through car stops and other routine police work. In addition to their role as hunters, warrant investigators hook up and service the electronic ankle bracelets and monitors used when a defendant is placed on house arrest. When someone bolts, an alarm rings in their office.

In a streamlining move in October, court officials disbanded a seven-member unit in the Probation Department that had been assigned to track down convicted criminals who violate probation. Now, the warrant unit has that responsibility, too. It's a small part of their job, but a dangerous one. Probationers facing long terms of "back time" in prison take greater risks to get away.

When investigators make an arrest, they take the prisoner to the nearest police district and have the warrant unit fax a copy of the warrant to the police station. Depending on the seriousness of the charges, the defendant remains behind bars or, after a bail hearing, is released again. Not everyone who fails to appear in court is deliberately fleeing justice. It may be that their lives are so disorganized that responsibilities involving time, date and place are beyond them, said Jolanta Juszkiewicz, deputy director of the Pre-Trial Services Resource Center, a Washington clearinghouse. "We always say that some criminals know the system backwards and forwards and abuse it," she said. "But for everyone like that, there are some defendants who are just confused and don't know what's going on."

Nationally, one out of 10 defendants who miss court dates become hardcore fugitives and are still on the lam a year later. In an effort to improve the appearance rate, city court officials hold orientation sessions for defendants after they've been arraigned. Supervisor William McGettigan, who runs the half-hour sessions, says it's a bad sign if a defendant begins by asking: "How much longer will this be?"

"In at least half the cases, the reason they were in trouble in the first place is because they were mess-ups," said John Goldkamp, a professor of criminal justice at Temple University who has studied the no-show problem. Whatever the causes, mass defiance of the courts has damaging effects. Crime victims and witnesses see no point showing up if defendants don't.

"Witness noncooperation is the biggest saboteur of prosecutions," said John Stein, deputy director of the National Organization for Victims Assistance. "Inattention to bench warrants is a source of enormous stress for victims and witnesses."

In Philadelphia, where a decade-old federal court order required wholesale releases of pretrial suspects to ease prison crowding, bench warrants ballooned from about 18,000 in 1988 to the mountain investigators chip at today. The court order was lifted two years ago. But its impact is still being felt.

"The idea of emergency release under the prison cap was to let the best of the worst out when you had to," said Temple's Goldkamp. But of those granted emergency releases, 50 to 80 percent failed to appear for their next court date, his research showed. Goldkamp says new release guidelines that he helped develop as a consultant for the city in the prison-crowding case have improved the appearance rate somewhat.

Still, the revolving door spins. Swooping down on the 3300 block of Kensington Avenue two weeks ago, Dante, Tito and Powder arrested Connie Williams, 34, who had twice missed court dates on charges of prostitution and receiving stolen property. Frisking her, they found in her pockets several small metal tubes "straight shooters" that are often used to smoke crack cocaine. Twenty-four hours later, she was back on the street.

Shrouded in a cloud of his own frozen breath, Carl tiptoed behind a crack house two blocks east of Kensington Avenue. He played the beam of his heavy black Maglite across mounds of garbage and rusty wires that grabbed at his pant cuffs. Brushing back the waistband of his windbreaker, he unsnapped the holster of his black Beretta and felt for its grip. The warrant officers weren't looking for anyone in particular at this stop, but they knew the odds of finding a fugitive here were good. On this blasted-out turf, where "ready rock" cocaine and $10 sex acts are a way of life, and the murder rate is 12 times the national average, people on the lam frequently hole up inside abandoned buildings. Backed up by colleagues Bill, Joe and Al, Carl studied the boarded-up strip of rowhouses until he found a fresh hole in the plywood. Then he played a hunter's hunch.

"Come out of there. Come on out," he barked, stepping into the spongy blackness. Inching his way up broken stairs, he reached the second floor and spied his prey: three men in ragged clothes and hooded sweatshirts huddled under soiled blankets atop a rotted mattress. The investigators kicked away a steak knife that could have been used as a weapon. Wearing surgical gloves, they frisked the men, carefully emptying their pockets of cheap syringes. They cuffed them and radioed their names back" to headquarters. Sure enough, two of the three had warrants out against them. They had missed court last summer on charges of heroin possession. When last Carl checked, they were still behind bars.

—The Philadelphia Inquirer, Feb. 16, 1997