Our office is considering having our Investigators on-call, when requested by local law enforcement, for major crime scenes. Please let me know if any other DA or CA departments have implemented this. If so, what is the criteria, does it work, etc.

Marletta,

We (Orange County) have a "HIT" Team (Homicide Investigation Team. It is made up of at least two Investigators from each agency in the county. Mark Ellis and I both respond to any questionable death. Sometimes of course only one of us is available. (Neither of us is required to be available, though usually one of us is around to help out. This provides the agencies with quick legal answers and speeds up the process of search and arrest warrants.

The HIT Team is a great concept and allows smaller agencies the use of a lot of resourses they would otherwise not have. Mark and I are salaried employees as I assume most DA Investigators are. We just adjust our schedules to adjust for any extra hours we have to put in.

Of course we will respond to any request for assistance from local agencies and handle the overtime the same way.

I know that this does not actually answer your question but I thought you might be interested in the HIT Team concept.

K.C.

Marletta,
We've always had an Investigator and Prosecutor on 24 hour call for major cases. It goes out to all the PD's with our home #'s. They are "on call" for a week at a time.

Ginny