No doubt the defund the police movement has been devastating for Burlington and other communities throughout Vermont, as our once safest-in-the-nation state has seen an unprecedented and undesirable rise in crime. But while “Defund the Police!” has gotten all the headlines and protest placards (cue Law & Order theme music), “In the criminal justice system, the people are represented by two separate yet equally important groups: the police, who investigate crime; AND [emphasis added] the district attorneys, who prosecute the offenders.” And, yes, this is their story.
In testimony to the House Judiciary Committee, the State’s Attorneys cited the challenge they are facing, including a rise in violent crime and homicides in the state (twenty or more homicide victims in each of the last three years), a rise in drug trafficking driven by out of state criminal networks, and rising mental health issues in the criminal class that can complicate prosecution.
There are fourteen elected State’s Attorneys in Vermont with a total staff (not just lawyers) of about 137 people. They are dealing with, according to a report submitted to the House Judiciary Committee 23,134 active cases. Not a typo.
That translates into:
Each SA [State’s Attorney] and Deputy SA is carrying a caseload of approximately 350 cases. Each SAS Victim Advocate is carrying approximately 600 cases. Between CY2023 through CY2024, SAS prosecutors cleared 3000 backlog cases, and the average clearance rate for the criminal docket (December ’23 to December ’24) was 109%, which means 9% more cases than filed during that same period. However, the backlog still remains….
In 2024, the average monthly filings of criminal cases were 1,150, and 81 pending Post Conviction Release cases….
At the end of 2024, SAS had 1,000 pending juvenile delinquency cases, 399 youthful offenders cases, and 1,158 CHINS [Child in Need of Service] cases.
To address this, the Department requested additional staff in the form of prosecutors (4), victim advocates (6), paralegals (6), administrative support (6), and ten other positions covering IT support to help transport criminals.
While these requests didn’t fall entirely on deaf ears, Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee are prioritizing something called a pre-charge diversion program, which refers those who commit low-level crimes to community providers of restorative justice rather than court. Well, that’s one way to reduce the number of cases: don’t charge people who commit crimes! That’ll work!
The State’s Attorneys also asked for help from the Attorney General’s office in picking up more of the load than the 78 cases – out of 23,134 – they are currently prosecuting. Nope! In an hour of testimony, AG Charity Clark made it clear she is too busy suing the Trump Administration to do anything about maintaining public safety in our state. (Suggestion to legislators: pass a law compelling her office to do more to reduce crime in Vermont.)
One statistic that really jumped out was regarding repeat offenders.
At the end of 2024, there were 667 individuals with 5 or more pending cases that represented 5,307 total cases – essentially 23% of the total workload. There are 17 individuals with 20 or more pending cases representing 473 pending cases, and 149 individuals with 10 or more pending cases representing 2,135 cases.
Um… Lock these people up? Maybe? That might be a start.
A serious problem we have in Vermont on many fronts, law enforcement being just one of them, is that the Left’s policies are more often than not grounded in unreality. Their underlying philosophy on crime is that if we stop enforcing the law or attaching any meaningful penalties to people who break the law, the lawbreakers will somehow conclude that society is nice and, thus, treat society nicely in return, mending their felonious ways. They believe the presence of rules is oppressive and unfair and serves as the catalyst driving the oppressed to break the rules, and if you just remove the rules and their enforcement mechanisms, well, problem solved!
This is, of course, idiotic. As it turns out, if you don’t prosecute people for stealing less than $900, worth of stuff they will steal $899 worth. If you don’t prosecute juveniles for dealing drugs, gangs will recruit juveniles and send them to your state to deal drugs, homicides resulting. (And, by the way, if you want to see even more of this, expand the Raise the Age law defining juvenile defenders as 18-year-olds to 19 — or 22 or even 25 as some have advocated for.) Anyone with a shred of common sense could have told you this without the multiple disastrous experiments in progressive cities and states across the country, including, sadly, ours, that prove it.
I know “defunding the prosecutors” doesn’t have the same alarming ring to it as defunding the police, but we better not do it. Not if we want to maintain Vermont as the safe place it has historically been. It’s time to start prioritizing the rights of law-abiding citizens and the victims of crime above the possibility that we might offend the criminals by doing so.
