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Department of State’s Attorneys and Sheriffs cites heavy caseloads, seeks sealing law change and staffing increases
Summary
A department official told the House Judiciary Committee that county prosecutors and victim advocates are carrying high caseloads and outlined five legislative priorities: sealing records, recidivism definition, firearms possession limits for certain people, DUI statutory cleanup and pausing phase 2 of raise-the-age.
An official from the Vermont Department of State’s Attorneys and Sheriffs told the House Judiciary Committee on Jan. 10 that the department is staffing nearly all criminal and juvenile cases statewide but faces heavy workloads and wants new staff and statutory changes to reduce backlog and improve data.
The official said the department’s recent data extraction shows about 23,000 pending cases statewide (down from about 26,000 last year), roughly 72 attorneys including the 14 elected state’s attorneys, and about 300–400 cases per attorney. Victim advocates handle roughly 600 cases per advocate, the official said, and the department is staffing about 96 pending homicide matters.
“We’re roughly staffing about 99% of the criminal cases in our court system and the juvenile court cases in our system,” the official told the committee, citing the department’s recent data extraction.
Department leaders said that backlog and administrative work — including roughly 70,000 sealing/expungement orders over five years and the management of large volumes of digital discovery such as body-cam footage — have created pressure for more administrative staff, paralegals, victim advocates and additional deputy state’s attorneys. The department said it will request those positions in the budget process.
Kim McManus, the department’s new legislative attorney, summarized five legislative priorities the department plans to pursue this session:
- Sealing: move from an expungement-based system toward a sealing-based system. - Recidivism: improve the statutory definition of recidivism/repeat violent offender to capture better data. - Firearms: amend Title 13, section 4017, to align state law with federal prohibitions and restrict firearm possession by certain people, including people found incompetent to stand trial or found not guilty by reason of insanity (details to be narrowed in drafting). - DUI: clarify motor-vehicle sentencing language when driving under the influence causes death or serious bodily injury so sentencing enhancements apply appropriately across multiple victims. - Raise the age: the department urged pausing Phase 2 of the juvenile “raise the age” implementation until issues from Phase 1 are resolved.
McManus told the committee the sealing measure may be taken up first in the Senate this session. The department also said it has fielded stakeholder interest in reviewing bail and repeat-offender policies though that was not in the department’s submitted priorities.
Committee members asked for more specific data on competency findings and the portion of repeat-offender cases involving people found incompetent to stand trial; the department said it would work with judiciary staff to produce targeted datasets for future hearings, including a joint House–Senate hearing on public safety and disposition timing in mid-to-late January.
The department noted that it is unique in Vermont for operating a central office that supports elected state’s attorneys and sheriffs — including budget, IT, policy development and grant distribution for Special Investigation Units (SIUs) — and that some funding sources (technology funds derived from fines and fees) are shrinking while tech costs rise, prompting budget requests to the general fund.
