The Twelfth Judicial District of Colorado requested a Prosecution System Assessment. The provider selected for this request was the Prosecutors' Center for Excellence. This request was postponed until BJA NTTAC Option Year 3.
This area has been hit particularly hard by the opiod crisis and has seen an astonishing increase in serious, violent crime. I am not certain the two are directly related by anything more than the time-frame in which the issues exploded. I have been a prosecutor in this office since January of 2009 and was sworn is as the District Attorney in 2016. I have seen drastic changes to the caseloads and case-types prosecutors are dealing with. Between 2014 and 2016 four counties experienced increases in felony filings which almost doubled. Those numbers continued to rise in 2017, and seem to have plateaued in 2018. More importantly, there was a marked increase in violent felonies. Where this district previously saw about 1 first degree murder case per year, at one point in 2015 there were 11 open first degree murder cases. In August and September of 2018 there were five homicides in five weeks throughout the district, three of which resulted in first degree murder charges against six different defendants. Serious assaults involving weapons and sex offenses have also increased in that time-frame. In addition to this increase in violent crime, there has also been an increase in drug related crime, including low-level possession cases as well as serious property crime. The entire community has committed to developing alternative approaches to combat the issues caused by heroin and methamphetamine. This office actively participates in two separate treatment courts, as well as the LEAD (Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion) pilot program. All of those programs seek to specifically address issues relating primarily to substance abuse.
This office has seen a great deal of change in the last decade, but has encountered significant roadblocks as well. There has been a transition to ediscovery, efiling, and an effort to go paperless, which has been slowed by financial limitations and the existence of the digital divide, which is very real in this area. Some of the 22 law enforcement agencies we work with are not able to utilize ediscovery due to lack of adequate equipment or internet service. We have sought out ways to creatively address the opiod crisis, but are often blocked by the high demands of our regular court dockets. We seek to mitigate and equally distribute caseloads among prosecutors, but those efforts are often thwarted by turnover within the office. Development or implementation of new programs is often put off while we deal with one staffing crisis or another. Given all of those challenges, it would be very beneficial to this office and this community to have an assessment completed. If there are ways in which this office can increase efficiencies and the manner in which we serve our community, without having to rely on outside resources to accomplish it, then I want to do so.
While the TTA is primarily requested to benefit prosecutors, if we can increase our efficiency and make changes to how we do things, then the entire community can benefit. This includes Judges, the Courts, defendants, victims, defense counsel, probation officers, law enforcement and the general public.
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Please submit a signed letter of support from your agency’s executive or other senior staff member. The letter can be emailed to or uploaded with this request. The letter should be submitted on official letterhead and include the following information:
- General information regarding the request for TTA services, i.e., the who, what, where, when, and why.
- The organizational and/or community needs specific to the request for TTA services.
- The benefits or anticipated outcomes from the receipt of TTA services.
By submitting this application to BJA NTTAC, I understand that upon approval of this application for TTA, the requestor agrees to keep BJA NTTAC informed of any circumstances that may impact the delivery of the TTA, including changes in the date of the event, event cancellation, or difficulties communicating with the assigned TTA provider.
Please call [site:phone] if you need further assistance completing this application.
After speaking with Ms. Hamann briefly about this request, I understand it may be a multi-phase process. Scheduling is flexible on my end.