Legal Counsel/Prosecutor/Defense

The Jefferson County District Attorney’s Office is requesting funding through the National Training and Technical Assistance Program for our community consortium concerned with heroin abuse and addiction. Since 2012 Jefferson County has seen over 150 heroin related deaths, which has resulted in a public health crisis for our community.

The 26th Judicial District is seeking training and technical assistance from a multi-disciplinary team to design an approach using best practices for the scheduling cases from filing to disposition and the management of the docket within the courtroom itself. Achieving buy-in from court officials with diverse perspectives is key. This effort will result in a more productive courtroom and effective utilization of courtroom time.

Requesting a study of Philadelphia's indigent defense delivery system. To date, Philadelphia has never conducted a comprehensive, professional study to determine which type of conflict counsel indigent defense delivery system best meets the needs of the City’s criminal, delinquency and dependency court systems. It is prudent for the policymakers of Philadelphia to decide for themselves the appropriate model for delivering conflict services, rather than having something imposed on it through costly litigation.

Dane County, Wisconsin ranks as the nation's highest county in racial disparities in the criminal justice system. Our pre-trial services need to learn best practices to facilitate a reduction in racial disparities and earlier resolution of cases.

Our New Orleans Task Force has been updated with new members (for the new prostitution diversion program that we will be implementing soon under the Racial Justice Improvement Project). The following critical members have been added: Henry Dean from New Orleans Police Department, Mark Burton and Ginger Miller from the DA’s Office and Charlene Larche-Mason from the City Attorney’s Office.

In April, the York County District Attorney's Office created an Intelligence Analyst position. Over the past six months, the analyst has attended a few trainings on technology and privacy issues, but has not attended a dedicated training for a civilian analyst. We are looking to acquire training that would help provide our office and our local law enforcement officers with additional benefits while hoping to jump-start our intelligence program simultaneously.

* Referral via Justice Global Information Sharing Initiative's Sheriff Michael Milstead and worked with NTTAC's Suzette McLeod *

Our program was recently featured in Miami by the Center for Court Innovation (contacts - Julius Lang and Rebecca Thomford Hauser) as one of 10 criminal justice innovation projects worth replicating nationwide. Operational for 4 years, we are currently having internal conversations about the level and delivery of accountability for our chosen repeat felony domestic violence offender population. Denise O'Donnell spoke in Miami about the HOPE probation program, led by Judge Alm, out of Hawaii.

The delivery of pretrial services in New York State appears inconsistent although the New York State Office of Probation and Correctional Alternatives has adopted a set of Pretrial Release Standards. The public safety issue is that these inconsistencies create situations where subjective and non-evidence based practices are being used to assist judges in making release/bail decisions.

Provider delivered two day training on "Characteristics of Armed Persons" to aid law enforcement in the recognition, prevention, and suppression of violent gang crimes within the requestor's jurisdiction. BJA NTTAC paid only for travel costs; the requestor paid for the trainer's time and training materials.