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State's attorneys describe large detainee population and staffing shortfalls to committee
Summary
The Department of State's Attorneys and Sheriffs told the committee that Vermont jails often hold 450–500 detainees, prosecutorial caseloads are high, and offices are requesting additional permanent deputy positions and victim-advocate/admin staff.
Kim McManus and departmental staff briefed the House Corrections and Institutions Committee on April 24 about the makeup of the pretrial detainee population and staffing needs in state's attorney offices across Vermont.
McManus said about "450 to 500" people are typically held in correctional facilities at any given time awaiting arraignment or other pretrial processes, and many cycle through within days while others remain detained for years because of the complexity and severity of felony cases. She described the timeline pressure for serious felonies: "Those felonies ... are complicated cases ... it can be one, sometimes two years, and we're still dealing with ... COVID issues where we saw three years."
On staffing, McManus told the committee prosecutors carry substantial caseloads and that workloads vary by county. "Our average prosecutor has 300, 350," she said after correcting an earlier figure; she added that victim advocates carry heavier workloads, describing a figure of about 600 cases on average. The department has several limited-term deputy positions that it wants made permanent and said it is seeking additional administrative staff and victim advocates ("somewhere around there, 4 to 6"). McManus also said the department would like a dedicated post-conviction relief attorney to pull those matters off deputies' plates.
Committee members asked why some detainees remain in custody for long periods. McManus explained that pretrial detention without bail generally corresponds to serious violent felony charges and that scheduling, motion practice, depositions and witness preparation can extend timelines. She noted that many cases reach near-trial stages and resolve by plea shortly before or even during trial, a dynamic that contributes to both detention durations and court congestion.
McManus emphasized that days served as a detainee count toward any eventual sentence: "For every day they have served every day they have been incarcerated ... that detainee gets counted towards that final sentence." Several legislators pressed for better data on detainee conviction likelihood; McManus said that detailed breakdowns exist and the department would follow up with memos with more precise numbers.
Ending: The department offered to provide the committee with a written staffing and caseload breakdown and said it would follow up with memos on hiring requests and detainee conviction/processing statistics.
