DA PUTS PROSECUTION TO PUBLIC

The voters have spoken, but Lane County District Attorney Alex Gardner
wants them to speak again.

This time, instead of hearing they don't want to pay more taxes to fight
crime, he wants to hear which crimes they prefer to fight less.

The question arises from a $425,000 cut in the district attorney's budget,
now a little over $7 million. Doug Harcleroad, the former district
attorney, announced in April that the office won't be able to handle about
2,000 nonviolent misdemeanor crimes this year among the approximately 7,800
cases it will file.

Gardner, who was appointed district attorney following Harcleroad's
retirement two weeks ago, says he wants public involvement to help set
priorities for which misdemeanor property crimes get filed, which are filed
as violations, and which simply fall through the cracks.

"At this point, we're looking for information. Once we get the data, we'll
see if we can put together a coherent policy that fits," Gardner says.

Gardner emphasizes the office will continue to handle all person-to-person
crimes and drunk driving cases, offenses that endanger public safety.

But reductions may come in prosecution of cases where the main charge is
drug possession, property theft, criminal mischief, or vice and public
disorder.

In 2003, the office did 2,130 drug possession cases, the vast majority
involving methamphetamine; 2,021 theft cases; 732 criminal
mischief/vandalism cases; and 822 cases of vice or public disorder.

Those cases covered thefts and property damage - including car break-ins
and graffiti - amounting to less than $750; prostitution; public indecency;
trespassing; disorderly conduct; resisting arrest and a list of other petty
crimes.

Facing the choices, Gardner sought The Register-Guard's assistance in
taking an informal survey of public opinion on petty crime priorities,
asking readers to rank four types of crime in order of how important it is
to prosecute them.

It's not a simple economic question, he says. Every option has a downstream
consequence.

For example, if people want fewer felony drug possession crimes prosecuted,
that means the county's share of community corrections money from the state
will be cut two years from now because state funding is based on the number
of felony prosecutions in each county.

"We're already grossly underfunded in community corrections," Gardner says.

It's not a pure yes or no vote, either.

Gardner says he will use the survey information as he continues to confer
with county commissioners, other law enforcement agencies and the private
sector to seek more efficient ways to prosecute crime or to reduce crimes
that need prosecution.

For example, the district attorney's office has long cooperated with a
private firm that collects on bad checks for merchants and helps merchants
identify bad-check writers. Gardner says he hopes to boost merchant
participation to further reduce the prosecution workload and increase
collections for merchants.

"We are vigilantly pursuing every option we can think of that's going to
reduce costs with other enforcement agencies or by involving the private
sector," he says.

In the end, it boils down to a quality-of-life question for the community,
Gardner says.

Take drug crimes for example. Gardner admits that for all the prosecution
of drug possession crimes, there is scant evidence that enforcement reduces
repeat offenses or the overall level of drug possession. But he wonders
whether easing prosecution is a viable response to a budget crisis.

The vast majority of drug possession prosecutions involve methamphetamine,
which carries a plague of other social problems from users' health to
widespread property crime.

Reducing the county's 2,000 yearly drug possession prosecutions certainly
would solve some financial problems - and not just for the DA's office,
Gardner adds.

When suspects are cited for meth possession, with no other more serious
charge, they frequently fail to appear for court. An arrest warrant is
issued. They get arrested the next time an officer contacts them. They go
to jail, often get released due to overcrowding, and frequently fail to
appear again.

"We can go through that five or six times on a possession case," Gardner
says. "In other counties (with larger jails), they would be held."

Each failure-to-appear warrant costs $500, according to a county study a
few years ago that labeled the figure "conservative." Lane County issues
900 "FTA" warrants each month, at a cost of at least $450,000 in court,
police, defense attorney, prosecution and jail costs.

If drug users were instead cited for a violation, a much lower-level crime,
a judge could enter a default judgment when they fail to appear in court
the first time. The case would be decided quickly and the fine would be
turned over to the Oregon Department of Revenue, which would attempt to
collect, Gardner says.

"The system would collect from some of those people, and we would stop
hemorrhaging money," Gardner says.

But private individuals and businesses could pay a higher price, Gardner
says, recalling one study that estimated the average drug addict does
$100,000 in property crime annually.

"If we enable them to remain active, what does that mean for the
community?" Gardner says.

Like his predecessor, Gardner says the days of looking for fat in the
district attorney's budget have long since passed.

The recent cut was so deep it eliminated the sole domestic violence
investigator and the 24-hour victims service volunteer response team, an
effort that generated thousands of hours of volunteer help at very low cost.

The district attorney's office now has 26 lawyers, with four dedicated to
child support enforcement and one assigned to juvenile court. In 1981, the
office had 37 lawyers and 10 investigators. While computers have increased
productivity over the decades, the case load has doubled as well, Gardner says.

Although district attorneys have wide discretion in handling cases, the
time has come when further discretion requires some policy choices with
broad public impact, he says.

"The public has decided they don't want to fund this. That decision has
been made repeatedly. That is a choice that takes place at the polls,"
Gardner says.

"They should appreciate the consequences. It would be nice if they helped
to find the solution to these problems. I'm trying to involve everybody to
come up with a plan that has wide-based support."