Large caseloads and backlogs are stressing staff and delaying justice, prosecuting attorney says
Thurston County’s deputy prosecutors are struggling with large caseloads and a looming backlog largely caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, says Prosecutor Jon Tunheim.
Tunheim described the trying situation during an online “State of the Prosecuting Attorney’s Office” meeting with the Board of County Commissioners on Thursday. He said every criminal deputy prosecutor in his office has a caseload at or above capacity.
“It may seem counterintuitive because the activity in the courts has slowed way down during COVID-19,” Tunheim said. “Part of our challenge is the fact that we still had cases coming into the system, but we weren’t disposing of as many cases because there were no trials and a very limited ability to do hearings.”
Felony deputy prosecutors are carrying about 67 open cases set for trial but that can vary for prosecutors that focus on different kinds of crimes, Tunheim said. In all, he said his office has about 890 felony cases set for trial.
He said the average caseload of a deputy focused on misdemeanors is 476 open cases. In all, he said his office is processing over 2,300 cases that they eventually expect to go to trial in District Court.
The backlog his office is facing for felony cases has reached just over 1,400, Tunheim said. These are referrals from law enforcement that his office has de-prioritized because they are non-violent in nature, he said.
“On an average year, non-COVID-19, standard operation we would look at filing around 2,000 cases for our entire felony division,” Tunheim said. “If cases just stopped coming in, it would take us a good nine months to wade through that using every deputy prosecutor in the criminal division that I have.”
These felony cases should not include many if any cases that could be dismissed due to the Supreme Court’s drug possession ruling from February, he said. Most if not all referrals for simple drug possession have already been declined by his office, he added.
For misdemeanor cases, he said his office has yet to review about 280 referrals. He clarified that most of these do not include domestic violence or impaired driver cases as his office is prioritizing those types of cases.
More support needed
Given the size of the workload, Tunheim told the board he may need funding for an in-house investigative team. He said a prosecutor’s investigator would follow up with witnesses and take supplemental statements, a job his office is currently relying on law enforcement for.
“What we’re finding with the law enforcement capacity that’s out there right now, we’re not able to rely on law enforcement to do that kind of work for us as much as we historically have been able to do,” Tunheim said. “Or it gets de-prioritized, and we can’t get it done timely which just further delays the case.”
Additionally, Tunheim said his support staff has been increasingly burdened by increasing amounts of paperwork relating to evidence and external records requests.
Over the years, he said the types of evidence available has expanded from simple police reports to include more photography, surveillance video, text messages, geolocation data and more. He said such evidence played a key role in the latest murder trial he worked on.
Staffing problems have been compounded by the recent departure of three deputy prosecutors, Tunheim said. As a result, his office has been trying to reassign large caseloads to the deputies that remain.
All these problems have created a situation where his office is prioritizing cases that may impact public safety or people who are in custody, he said. Another key concern is the mental health of his staff.
“(Chief of staff Christy Peters) and I are spending a lot of time working with all of our staff, trying to make sure people are taking care of themselves, taking care of each other and managing the stress that they’re under,” Tunheim said. “(We’re) really trying to prioritize that with some degree of success.”
Rescue funding
The county could help address COVID-19 related backlogs with relief funds from the federal government.
The county received about $28 million in American Rescue Act Funds on Wednesday, county spokesperson Bryan Dominique told The Olympian. However, the county has yet to act on the funding besides simply accepting it.
The $28 million is the first half of $56 million the county expects to receive from the federal government. The second half should arrive in about a year, the Olympian previously reported.
Commissioner Gary Edwards said he’s in favor of using federal COVID-19 relief funds to perhaps add staffing to the Prosecuting Attorney’s Office.
“I feel that the community still deserves protection,” Edwards said, “I really would like to hear from your office or yourself about what it would take to alleviate the backlog of all those cases. … I think you’re eligible for funding from that (American Rescue Act) money to solve that problem for the community.”
Peters said she would like to present the board with a chart by June 1 that would outline different options for responding to the backlogs created by COVID-19 and the Supreme Court’s simple drug possession ruling.
“(We’ll) give the commissioners options to look at so that there’s some flexibility with the understanding that things are going to be slower if there’s less capacity, but things could be quicker if there’s more capacity,” Peters said.
Assistant County Manager Robin Campbell said the county has asked all law and justice offices estimate the cost of meeting challenges caused by COVID-19.
The county has asked the same for costs associated with the simple drug possession ruling, but relief funding for that would have to come from the state.
