In most Vermont counties, prosecutors are managing well over 300 cases. Officials say that has to change, and soon.

Many Vermont prosecutors are handling more cases at a time than their bosses think is reasonable, data from the state’s judiciary shows. And without more state resources, those officials said, prosecutors could resign — or could have to turn cases away.

Ian Sullivan is the Rutland County state’s attorney. According to new data shared with VTDigger, each of the eight attorneys in his office is prosecuting an average of 397 cases at a given time — far from an acceptable workload, he said in an interview.

The Vermont Department of State’s Attorneys and Sheriffs wants its county prosecutors to handle no more than 300 cases at a time. To be more in line with national standards, they should really be handling closer to 200, John Campbell, the department’s executive director, said in an interview. But he noted that the latter may not be a realistic goal.

As of March, many counties were far from those targets. In Lamoille County, the two state prosecutors were each juggling an average of 531 cases. The average caseload was 451 in Windham County, and 389 in Franklin County, judiciary data shows.

Only five counties’ state’s attorneys offices have an average workload per prosecutor below 300 cases, according to the data — and just one county, Grand Isle, is below 275 cases. 

Meanwhile, the department estimated that its victim advocates across the state were managing more than 600 cases each, on average, as of last December. The Vermont Office of the Defender General is also dealing with a significant caseload, officials have said — about 175 cases per attorney as of early January, which is twice the workload each lawyer had before the Covid-19 pandemic.

Caseloads are so high that state prosecutors often have to “triage” where to devote their time, Sullivan and others said. Sometimes, he said, that means the resolution of some more minor cases is delayed so a more major case can, for instance, go to trial.

“We're just treading water at this point,” Campbell said. “And it's not good, it’s not healthy, for anybody in the criminal justice system.” 

In Lamoille County, former state’s attorney Todd Shove stepped down last fall citing the demands of the job. He told The News & Citizen that he did not think his office had enough state resources to address the county’s crushing backlog of pending cases.

The Vermont House passed a bill last month that would give the state’s attorneys and sheriffs’ department 30 new limited-service positions: 10 prosecutors, 10 victim advocates and 10 administrative assistants. The bill, H.880, proposes to fund those positions with future revenue generated by a related plan to increase corporate taxes and fees. The legislation is now being considered in the Senate.

Campbell said those temporary positions could help the department get its average attorney caseload in more offices to below 300 cases. 

While the measure has drawn backing from Democratic lawmakers, Republican Gov. Phil Scott doesn’t support it — nor does he support proposals to create some 40 other positions elsewhere in the judicial system, pointing to the price tag in both cases. When unveiling the governor’s proposed budget in January, Scott administration officials noted that the plan would give the judicial system a larger budget increase for 2025 than many other organs of state government.

Campbell said he understands the budget pressure the state is under this year, but said the department is in crisis and needs investments beyond what the administration proposed in order to keep the criminal justice system functioning. He urged lawmakers to at least provide enough funding so the department doesn't have to cut multiple prosecutor positions — something Scott’s budget would necessitate.

“If we do not get the resources that are necessary to prosecute these cases, then it really does come down to a situation of OK, well, what cases don't you want us to prosecute?” Campbell said.

At the heart of the issue is Vermont’s stubborn backlog of unresolved court cases, which was exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic. As of March, there were just shy of 25,000 total pending cases across the state’s court system — about 4% fewer total pending cases than there were in December, the data shows.

The average workload for prosecutors in each county has also decreased slightly since December, according to the data.

Sullivan said that among criminal cases, that progress has come largely from resolutions to cases that had been pending longer than model standards adopted by the Vermont Judiciary provide. Also known as “disposition guidelines,” those are 180 days for a misdemeanor case and a year for a felony. 

But at the same time, he said the state continues to see high numbers of new criminal cases filed each month, which makes substantive progress on the backlog difficult.

He noted that prosecutors are also handling a historic number of the most serious criminal cases, which are also among the most resource-intensive: murder and attempted murder, or manslaughter and attempted manslaughter. Statewide, there are 91 active prosecutions for those charges, according to Sullivan, all of which are being staffed by state’s attorneys.

State’s attorneys offices need to have the resources, and experienced prosecutors, to manage serious cases, Sullivan said. But they also need those same things to prosecute more minor cases — such as property crimes — that nevertheless have a significant impact on how safe people feel in their communities.

“When we lose people — either because they have burnt out, or because there is no longer a budget to support them — we end up not only losing their work on that individual case, but we lose their shared experience,” he said. “So the folks who are left not only have to carry more cases, (but) the niche areas of the law that somebody might have specialized in are lost to the department.”

Sullivan and other prosecutorial leaders said they worry that their offices aren’t able to spend as much time on individual cases as they would like to. This can hinder prosecutors’ ability to use their discretion on how to handle someone’s case, Campbell said — such as sitting down with an offender to determine whether they are best suited for a court diversion program, rather than the court system.

“We're not able to do what we think our job really is,” Campbell said, adding that the state’s criminal justice system today is “working with one arm tied behind our back.”