Public Interest

This Time It’s Prosecutors On The Chopping Block

Budgetary shortfalls don't only hit the public defenders. Increasingly, prosecutors are feeling the pinch with unfortunate results.

By  
on

I’ve written before about the plight of public defenders — how uncertain funding can lead to low pay, unworkably heavy caseloads, and eventually layoffs. By reputation, prosecutors have it better. But does that reputation reflect reality? As states finalize their budgets this year, some prosecutors’ offices are facing major budget cuts. The result? Low pay, unworkably heavy caseloads, and eventually layoffs.

Consider Massachusetts. Recall that entry-level district attorneys in Massachusetts already make less than courthouse custodians, switchboard operators, and administrative assistants — and, for that matter, public defenders (or at least they did last year, as ATL covered in a story that’s seared itself into my memory). I mentioned in a previous post that a Massachusetts commission convened to study PD and DA compensation recently recommended upping the starting salary for both PDs and DAs by about 40%, but that an apparent budget shortfall might complicate matters.

And sure enough, complications have arisen. Unsurprisingly, it doesn’t appear that anything’s been done to raise DA salaries. Instead, the Boston Herald reports that “four Norfolk County prosecutors have been laid off due to statewide budget cuts on district attorneys.” Apparently the combination of unilateral budget cuts imposed by Governor Baker for the fiscal year that had already begun when he took office, plus the proposition of additional austerity in the coming fiscal year, led Norfolk District Attorney Michael Morrissey to make the cuts in order “to make ends meet.”

In a quote given to the Herald, president-elect of the Norfolk Bar Association Michael Szymanski summed the situation up pretty well: “It’s a terrible thing. They don’t get paid what they should, and to lose their job because of budget cuts is even more frustrating.”

Meanwhile in Alaska, “the Department of Law is cutting positions” — including at least one attorney — and these cuts “will change the type of cases the state pursues in rural districts.”

It’s not clear how many additional attorneys may be part of the Alaska layoffs, but Alaska Public Radio reports that in each of several “rural hub communities,” total staff will likely be cut from four to two. A separate Alaska Public Radio report goes into detail on one of these offices — Dillingham — and quotes Criminal Division director John Skidmore as saying that the Dillingham office “will be downsized from two attorneys and two support staff to one attorney and one support staff.” So it seems likely that attorneys will be on the chopping block in other rural Alaskan outposts.

The Dillingham office will avoid taking on some cases; other cases will likely be outsourced to Anchorage.

Sponsored

The cause of Alaska’s budget shortfall is somewhat unique. According to the L.A. Times, 88 cents of every dollar spent by the state of Alaska “comes from oil production.” Alaska Public Radio reports that the state’s prosecutorial budget was based on oil-price forecasts exceeding $100 a barrel; however, late last year oil prices plummeted and right now they’re hovering around $60 a barrel. You can imagine the resulting budgetary squeeze.

Finally, a recent article in the Wisconsin State Journal highlights what can happen as a result of these budgetary squeezes. Insufficient staff, inadequate pay, and “crushing case-loads,” are leading to significant attrition among Wisconsin prosecutors. For example, “between March 2014 and next month, the Dane County District Attorney’s Office will have lost 11 prosecutors,” which, the article points out, is “a significant proportion of the 28 full-time prosecutor positions in the DA’s office.” One departing 28-year veteran of the Dane County DA’s office, Shelly Rusch, said that working conditions there rendered everything rote and “almost eliminated thoughtfulness” altogether.

Turnover like that is bad for just about everyone involved in the justice system. So, just as with public defenders, let’s hope our purse-string-holding policymakers realize that prosecutors too serve as a vital part of the infrastructure of justice — and that prosecutors’ offices need adequate funding to do their jobs.

Sam Wright is a dyed-in-the-wool, bleeding-heart public interest lawyer who has spent his career exclusively in nonprofits and government. If you have ideas, questions, kudos, or complaints about his column or public interest law in general, send him an email at PublicInterestATL@gmail.com.

Sponsored

Topics

, ,