Pubdate: Thu, 08 Mar 2007 Source: Wisconsin State Journal (WI) Copyright: 2007 Madison Newspapers, Inc. Contact: http://www.madison.com/wsj/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/506 Author: Doug McLean COUNTY PROSECUTOR: SOMETHING HAS TO GIVE As an assistant district attorney in the Dane County District Attorney's Office for more than two decades, I have had the opportunity to work under five district attorneys, most recently Brian Blanchard. I write this without his knowledge to give an insider's perspective on his recent decision to drop prosecution of simple possession of small amounts of marijuana. There is not an ounce of fat to cut from the bone in the funding of state prosecutor positions. In Dane County, as in the district attorney offices throughout the state, the counties pick up the cost of equipment, supplies and support services. Dane County has, in 2007, the same number of state-funded prosecutor positions as it did when I started more than 20 years ago. Recognizing that the public doesn't want state government to grow, I don't believe anyone wants to see a diminished response to increasing crime. Crime in Dane County, as everywhere else, has gone up these last 20 years. Allowing no increase in the number of state-funded assistant district attorney positions to deal with that is socially, if not politically, irresponsible. Prosecutors in my office welcome our charge -- we carry the burden of proof, not the accused -- because that's what holds promise for having a truly just criminal justice system. But when our jobs become impossible because state politicians are willing to talk tough on crime rather than fund enough positions to get the job done, we have a problem the public needs to know about. Simply put, prosecutors in my office carry too many cases to give any one of them their due. Most of the time, most of the felony prosecutors are handling more than 100 cases at once, and misdemeanor prosecutors, up to 300. Prosecutors in the juvenile unit are equally inundated. Additional demands resulting from continuing legislative mandates -- preparing sentencing guidelines, replacing parole commissioners in reconfinement proceedings, making data entries to a recently created statewide case management system, to cite just a few examples -- add time demands on top of growing case counts. Because the judges control court calendars, we often are expected to be in three or four different courts on different cases at the same time, keeping judges, defense counsel, victims and witnesses stacked up sometimes for hours. Worst of all, the need to cut corners, move cases and compromise more and more and more means plea bargaining goes way beyond what the interests of justice can countenance. That is simply a little known reality that has been going on for too long. Blanchard has done all he can do to economize, double-up, reallocate and borrow time. It's past time for the governor and the Legislature to step up to the plate. If they fail to meet their obligation to the district attorney offices in this state to provide the minimum resources necessary to allow us to do our jobs responsibly, the prosecutors in my office will continue to urge the DA to do the only thing he can: Drop prosecution of less serious crimes. - --- MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman