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Over the next few months we will be experiencing a reduction in our attorney staff by 50%, that will remain for the foreseeable future. When fully staffed, we are an office of four attorneys, which includes the District Attorney, but soon we will be down to two. Our recruitment efforts have been constant and diligent, but have yet to yield even one resume, application, letter of interest, etc.
The truth of the matter is that we simply cannot compete with our neighboring rural counties in the recruitment process. Our applicant pool for attorneys reaches about as far south as Sacramento, with the closest law schools being in Chico and Sacramento. There are current vacancies in Modoc, Glenn, Shasta, Yuba, and Butte that we have to compete with for attorney recruitments in this area.
Butte County pays their attorneys $8/hour more to start than Lassen County, and offers a $30K recruitment bonus. Shasta County pays $5/hour more and offers a $15K recruitment bonus, same as Glenn County (which further offers $30K bonus for lateral transfers).
Neighboring Modoc tops out higher than Lassen County. Yuba County pays a senior prosecutor the same salary as the Lassen elected District Attorney salary. All of these agencies utilize online application methods, meanwhile Lassen County requires paper applications to be dropped off or mailed in – something the District Attorney has brought to Board members attention.
The salary schedule is not set by the District Attorney and it is not within our authority or control to move positions to different salaries. Over the years, the District Attorney has seen this coming and during the budget process has brought this to the Board’s attention in asking for increases in attorney salaries or an additional attorney position to avoid dropping to 50% staffing.
The District Attorney has presented to the Board several times over the years about what the effects will be if staffing levels continue to drop or reach a critical level. Actual data, statistics, and case examples were provided, however, the requests were denied.
The most recent suggestion by the Board has been to “contract out these positions”. Prosecutors are not positions that we can “contract out”. Our office is a public service agency, which means bodies need to be in the office and accessible to the public, our law enforcement partners, and, most importantly, to crime victims. That’s a service which contract attorneys are not able to provide.
We have also been directed to look for other funding sources, which we do, routinely. Even though our case fillings average around 1000/year, we dont file enough of any certain type to dedicate one whole prosecutor in order to meet most grant requirements.
For example, in larger counties you might have one prosecutor dedicated solely to DUIs or solely to domestic violence prosecutions and there are grants available for that; but those prosecutors are restricted from doing other work. Here, we experience a well-rounded case load with all sorts of different offenses, but not enough of one specific kind to qualify for a grant-funded prosecutor.
All of our prosecutors do every type of crime. In any event, the funding source does not matter when the salary is not competitive to attract applicants into the position.
What impact does staffing have on the case load?
Our regular court calendars require appearances Mondays at 9am, 1pm, 4pm; Tuesdays at 830am and 130pm; Wednesdays at 830am, 130pm, 4pm; and Fridays at 1pm. Additionally we run jury trials on any given week, last year we presented 26 cases to juries.
By way of specific example, on this past February 3, the District Attorney began a jury trial in one courtroom while another prosecutor began another jury trial in another courtroom. A third prosecutor covered the regular court calendar being heard in a third courtroom.
We were fortunate to have sufficient staffing to meet these appearances. But now imagine what happens when our office is down to only two prosecutors. How would two prosecutors cover calendars in three courtrooms?
The law provides the court with the remedy to dismiss the cases where there is a nonappearance by a prosecutor, its called “failure to prosecute”, and there is no requirement by our Superior Court to accommodate the staffing needs of the prosecutor’s office. This would mean a whole docket of cases could be dismissed, some with no ability to refile.
What else besides court appearances do prosecutors do?
We receive crime reports for review by eight different law enforcement agencies. Effective 1/1/25, all DA Offices have to utilize race-blind charging when evaluating cases. What this means is that a report is received by law enforcement and then all of the identifying information of all parties is redacted.
The reviewing prosecutor is not permitted to see the name, age, gender, race, of any party to the crime, the location of where the crime occurred, or even the name of the officer who took the report.
After a charging decision is made, the decision is reported to DOJ and Harvard, and then an unredacted copy is provided to the prosecutor. If the charging decision changes for any particular reason upon reviewing an unredacted copy of the report, that change has to be explained. This is time consuming and a function only an attorney can do, it cannot be delegated to a non-attorney position.
We also do post-conviction work: re-sentencings, parole hearings, writs of habeas corpus proceedings, sex offender petitions, etc. The list of post-conviction proceedings grows exponentially every year with legislative changes.
Also, we have weekly cases for which to prepare, discovery requests to comply with, motion work to do. The District Attorney has administrative duties to fulfill and personnel matters to attend. All of the attorneys have continuing education and training requirements to meet in order to stay licensed with the State Bar.
The District Attorney has invited the Supervisors into her office, into her courtroom, so they can see what it is that our office does, the size of our caseloads, etc., which would hopefully assist them in making informed decisions regarding our budgetary requests. The invitation remains open.
How will this impact you?
We dont yet know what the specific impact will be, but realistically, there are a finite amount of things only two attorneys can do, and unfortunately a reduction in services can be anticipated.
Our commitment to you is important to us and we will make our best efforts to provide services where we can. We also will continue to take creative steps and remain optimistic in our ability to attract quality prosecutor talent through our recruitment process.
We are happy to answer any questions or discuss your concerns by calling our office during our regular business hours.
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