For the upcoming December Elected Prosecutor Course, I am working on a training that suggests the Ten Best Practices for prosecutor offices. Looking for suggestions to discuss. What practice in your office has made a positive difference in how your office operates?

Are you asking for "best practices" as to personnel issues in the office or "best practices" as to dealing with cases? Or both? The practices that I find to be effective might be so obvious to everyone else that naming them seems silly, but I will list them anyway for whatever it's worth. I think it is very valuable to have ALL staff members, including secretaries, etc., watch one or two jury trials that they have worked on. Not all offices may be able to do this, but the staff members that I have asked to do this tell me that it makes them understand the process much better, and it often makes them appreciate their roles more. And when staff understands the process better, they can catch mistakes they might not have noticed or understood before, and there is more job satisfaction. Plus it shows them that I know how important their roles are. I also believe that prosecutors should invest the majority of their time investigating each case PRIOR to filing it. This seems really obvious to me, but I was a defense lawyer for about 23 years, and it amazed me how many prosecutors just filed everything and let the defense lawyer figure it out later(or worse, the prosecutor figured it out just a few days before trial). What an inefficient way to operate! I realize that time pressures and workloads make this difficult sometimes, but I have discovered that the investment of time at the front end of the case is well worth it. As a prosecutor, you may not find out everything you need to know before filing the case, but you will cut down on the number of cases you end up having to dismiss, and you will increase your credibility with everyone involved in the system. Plus hopefully in the process you will get chances to teach your officers how to write much better reports and how to give you what you need up front. I also have found that actively monitoring cases is a good practice. We review all cases that are waiting on information from the police officer or police department on a regular basis, and we make lists of the pending cases with the specific items that we need. We send these lists to the department heads or the investigators and ask them to get these items for us as soon as possible. And we keep following up and following up, which can be time-consuming (and annoying to the police department, but hey, that department's officer made the arrest!). If we cannot get the requested items within a reasonable time, we reject the case - and we send a list of the cases that were rejected to each department on a regular basis also. When officers want to know why their cases were rejected, we gladly tell them! These suggestions might not be practical for larger offices, and as I said, they may be completely obvious for most offices, but for a small office like mine that was in shambles when I took over, they have worked wonders! I am not sure if this is the kind of thing for which you were looking, but here it is.

The suggestions can involve administration or actual prosecution. I'm just looking for some good tips for elected prosecutors to consider.

Well, sorry I couldn't be more help. I'm an elected prosecutor and that's all I had.

Your thoughts are very helpful. Thanks for taking the time to give the suggestions.

Be sure to summons or subpoena all defendants to the grand jury. Your bailiff can ask defendants who show if they wish to give their side of the story to the grand jury. Those that don't want to can leave.

But we find a few will want to address the grand jury. Usually they admit to the elements, but sometimes you learn mitigating facts that can change your plea offer. Other times you get a line of BS, but then he's stuck with that defense at trial.

Sometimes it turns out that things are not as they seem in the offense report, and upon further investigation, you realize you have the wrong man.

In any of the above scenarios, the extra time in the grand jury ends up saving a ton of time down the road, and more importantly, it results in Justice being done.

Another thing: always subpoena witnesses who have an emotional attachment to the defendant, e.g. wives, girlfriends, family members, buddies. This is especially important in domestic violence cases. Usually beat up girlfriends will tell the truth to the grand jury, and it makes it a lot harder for them to back out of case later on.

Standard plea bargain recommemdations on first offender cases to keep the docket moving and to avoid claims of favoritism or special treatment.

Monthly breakfasts with law enforcement chiefs.

Monthly "case counts" to gauge workload, prosecutor effort, and backlog.

Establish good press/media relations; use of press releases.

Be as happy with your prosecutors efforts when they lose a hard fought case as when they win one.

Our DA makes sure we know we are appreciated. It makes a big difference in our lives.

The use of a discovery agreement to eliminate motions and photcopying your entire file (except for criminal history) for the defense