Department of State's Attorneys and Sheriffs cites 23,000 pending cases, urges use of Rule 48 and proposes staffing to clear backlog

The Department of State's Attorneys and Sheriffs told the Senate Judiciary on Jan. 14 that the statewide pending caseload is about 23,000 cases and urged judges and prosecutors to use existing procedures — including Rule 48 of the Rules of Criminal Procedure — to remove aged, low-priority misdemeanors from dockets.

The issue matters because the department said the pending caseload is straining courtroom time and staff across 14 counties and that a combination of high felony trial volume and limited physical courtroom capacity makes clearing older misdemeanor dockets difficult. The department also outlined five legislative priorities it plans to pursue during the session: creating a statutory sealing system (instead of expanding expungement), a revised definition of recidivism to improve data collection, aligning Vermont’s firearms-possession prohibitions with federal categories, clarifying charging options for DUI crashes that cause both death and serious injury, and pausing phase two of the state’s “raise the age” plan to evaluate earlier changes.

An official from the department described the caseload and staffing picture in detail and recommended targeted administrative steps. "We just did our big data extraction at the year end ... there's 23,000 amount pending cases," the executive director of the Department of State's Attorneys and Sheriffs said, describing the figure as including family, post-conviction, civil and criminal matters across the 14 counties. He said a year earlier the pending total was about 26,000, and that the system's clearance rate — the rate at which filed cases are disposed — has been consistently over 100 percent, but that clearing older backlog would require substantially higher clearance rates.

The department described its staffing and structure: about 175 employees; 14 state's attorneys and 14 sheriffs across 14 counties; roughly 72 attorneys in the central office, 58 deputy state's attorneys in county offices, 24 transport deputies who assist with transporting detained people, and about 26 victim advocates. On average, the department said attorneys handle about 300–400 assigned cases; the department noted some individual caseloads well above that average and said it is working with affected attorneys. The speaker gave one example of an attorney with 728 assigned cases.

To address old misdemeanor dockets, the department urged judicial officers to consider Rule 48 dismissals where cases meet criteria for delay or dormancy. "I want to heavily encourage, neutrally, heavily encourage our judicial officers to exercise rule 48," the executive director said, adding that counties have seen successful local efforts to clear aged, low-priority misdemeanor cases. The department reported a small pilot in two counties in which staff reviewed older misdemeanor cases, identified candidates for dismissal and worked with victim advocates; that review led to dismissals but was time-consuming when completed case-by-case.

As a practical proposal, the department recommended a small, centralized docket-integrity team to help counties sort data and identify dismissal candidates. The department described a possible model of two sworn deputy state's attorneys assigned to counties and one centralized administrative staffer to perform data sorting and coordinate with court operations managers, helping move batches of eligible dismissals and related sealing/expungement work more efficiently.

Kim McManus, legislative and policy attorney for the Department of State's Attorneys and Sheriffs, presented the department's formal legislative priorities to the committee. "The department will continue to advocate moving towards a sealing system and away from an expungement system," McManus said, describing sealing as the department's preferred mechanism for long-term criminal-record management and noting continued work with House Judiciary and the House Human Services Committee.

McManus also described the department's proposal to create a statutory definition of "repeat violent offender" (to improve data collection) and said the department is not proposing sentencing enhancements as part of that definition at this time. On firearms, McManus said the department wants Vermont's prohibited-person statute to align with federal law so that people found incompetent to stand trial or found not guilty by reason of insanity would be included among those prohibited from possessing firearms under state law.

On driving-under-the-influence statutes, McManus asked for clarifying language so that, in crashes where one person dies and another suffers a serious bodily injury, prosecutors can charge and reflect both outcomes where appropriate. Regarding juvenile policy, McManus said the department opposes phase two of "raise the age" — which would extend delinquency jurisdiction to 19-year-olds — until outstanding issues from phase one are resolved.

Committee members noted related court guidance and prior work. The department pointed the committee to a recent update from the state Supreme Court (Administrative Order No. 5) that the department said acknowledges current disposition time frames are unrealistic for some complex cases. Senators on the panel said they expect further hearings, including a planned joint hearing with county state’s attorneys on Jan. 23 and additional briefings on bail and pretrial-detention processes.

No formal committee votes or actions were recorded on Jan. 14; the session was an informational briefing and exchange of questions about backlog management and the department’s legislative proposals.

The department asked the committee to consider both statutory and resourcing approaches, including small centralized staffing for docket integrity, while lawmakers prepare to take up sealing/expungement legislation and other priority bills later in the session.