Officials with the district attorney’s office acknowledged that older cases going to Justice DiMango’s court, called the “blockbuster part,” required a less rigid approach. But they said that defendants, too, were taking pleas they might have refused in the past, knowing the court would brook no more delays — which typically favor the defense — and they would face immediate trial.

Justice DiMango’s straightforward discussions with defendants, detailing their options and what a jury might do, have brought many to face reality, said Robert Dreher, executive assistant district attorney for the Bronx. “Everyone is saying the D.A. is giving these cases away,” he said. “But what makes this work is her conversations with the defendants.”

Justice DiMango’s success has caused some Bronx judges to privately complain that she was presiding over a “fire sale,” to borrow the words of one judge, that had benefited potentially dangerous defendants.

But an analysis by The Times of the first three months of dispositions in her courtroom found that in the most common charges to come before her, robbery in the first degree and attempted murder, defendants pleaded to the top charge more frequently than they had in the five years before she arrived.

Several defense lawyers praised Justice DiMango for pressing both sides to reach deals. “She pushes them,” said Harvey Slovis, who has represented several clients in the blockbuster court. “She wears them down. She’ll say: ‘I don’t think this is worth five years, I think it’s worth two and a half. Now go back to your bosses and tell them what I want, and they come back with these plea offers.’ ”

The cases show the hard compromises involved in rapidly clearing the backlog.

Troy Archibald and four of his friends were charged with multiple felonies for attacking two men walking along the Grand Concourse in the Bronx in 2010 in what prosecutors described as a vicious gang attack. After the case languished for three years, prosecutors allowed him to plead guilty to a misdemeanor. Justice DiMango sentenced him to one year in jail. Two of the others also pleaded to misdemeanors, another received the equivalent of a ticket, and the last was told his case would be dismissed if he was not rearrested.