‘A tremendous help’: Prosecutors, public defenders statewide to get extra people moving cases

When Randy Newman took office as solicitor of the Sixth Judicial Circuit in January 2015, he had some 5,000 pending cases between Chester, Lancaster and Fairfield counties.

With help from the General Assembly, which set aside nearly $8 million in this year’s budget for additional prosecutors statewide, Newman can expand his staff to divvy out some of the incoming caseload, which averages about 400 cases each year for each attorney in Chester and Lancaster counties.

“The Sixth Circuit has been a poster child for the need of additional help,” said Newman, who has nine assistant solicitors covering three counties. “We’ve been asking each of the counties; they could help when they could. It’s not as easy to fund an attorney’s salary as it would be to fund some other type of salary.”

State lawmakers approved $7.8 million in this year’s budget to provide new prosecutors across the state. Newman says his office has already hired one additional attorney and plans to hire two more, one of whom will prosecute drug cases full-time.

“It’s going to reduce the caseloads in the Sixth Circuit,” he said. “It’s going to reduce the amount of time it takes to get a case from arrest to trial. It’s going to be a tremendous help for my office and my staff.”

The average caseload in the Sixth Circuit averages around 400 per attorney in Chester and Lancaster counties, which Newman called “overwhelming.” Fairfield County is lower, around 200 per attorney.

“Our target is to get around 250 per prosecutor,” Newman said. “If we can do that, I think we’ll be closer to the national averages.”

In the 16th Judicial Circuit, which covers York County and part of Union County, Solicitor Kevin Brackett plans to bring on two additional attorneys and two investigators and convert a part-time attorney position to full-time. In the 2015-2016 fiscal year, he said, the office received 6,800 General Sessions warrants, up from 5,400 the previous year.

“That’s a significant increase by anyone’s standards,” he said.

The chief concern before hiring the new employees, Brackett says, is finding room for them in the Moss Justice Center, which is strapped for space and undergoing an expansion and security improvements. He’s been consulting with county officials about temporary arrangements while the justice center is under renovation.

One of the new attorneys will be focused on the increasing number of narcotics cases, Brackett said. The second will likely be focused on prosecuting domestic violence cases.

“The number of charges in the area of narcotics has increased,” he said. “We’re working diligently on the issue of domestic violence, so we’re going to be focusing very carefully on that and getting some resources to improve our response to that issue.”

Legislators also approved $2.9 million to hire more prosecutors specifically to deal with criminal domestic violence cases and end the practice of having police officers act as prosecutors against seasoned criminal defense attorneys in magistrate court. During the 2015 legislative session, when lawmakers passed a law that strengthened domestic violence penalties, advocates cited officers acting as prosecutors as one of the reasons cases against batterers were routinely dropped in court.

“There will no longer be any domestic violence case handled by an officer in municipal or magistrate court,” Newman said. “My staff will handle all the domestic violence cases, whether in municipal court, magistrate court – whatever. There will be a prosecutor every step of the way.”

The extra cash for more employees has long been a need across the state, and Brackett said he and several other solicitors have been talking with leadership in the General Assembly to make it happen.

“It’s not enough to just hire police; you’ve got to have the resources in place in the criminal justice system to address these cases in court,” he said. “Getting (defendants) into court and convicted is the second half. You’ve got to have people to do that, so we’re grateful for the legislature’s assistance.”

Lawmakers also gave some much-needed help to the other side of the courtroom, according to 16th Circuit Public Defender Harry Dest, who said public defenders got about $6.1 million statewide. Dest said he plans to add two assistant public defenders, a paralegal and possibly an investigator to his staff.

Like the solicitor’s office, Dest and his staff are working with limited space in the Moss Justice Center.

“This is certainly one thing we have to contend with,” he said. “But it’s a good problem to have. It’s always better to have more people and we can adjust the work space.”

Dest, who chairs the S.C. Commission of Indigent Defense, estimated the caseload in the 16th Circuit to be among the top five or six in the state.

“York County is growing significantly,” he said. “With that is going to come more cases. I think we are very fortunate to have the support of our County Council, who has been incredibly supportive of our efforts to have parity with the solicitor’s office in terms of having the same salary scale and benefits.”

Mike Lifsey, chief public defender of the Sixth Circuit, is still finalizing plans for additional staff in his office but says he plans to add full-time attorneys and convert a part-time position to full-time.

“It’s a huge help, especially in the rural areas like Chester and Fairfield in particular,” he said. “Our funding is a mix of county funding and state funding. Frankly, the larger counties generally tend to fund better than the smaller, more rural counties. Rural circuits are more dependent on state funding for a much higher portion of their operating budget.”

This story was originally published July 24, 2016 at 5:20 PM with the headline "‘A tremendous help’: Prosecutors, public defenders statewide to get extra people moving cases."