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Show Officials Meet And Discuss Proposed "District" Attorneys Rural county prosecutors and law enforcement personnel have some questions and some doubts about a proposed new program that would create for the first time in Utah a prosecution system with full-time professional prosecutors, organized on a district basis. State Rep. Jim Yardley (Dist 73) labeled the proposal simply as an attempt to insert another level of government govern-ment and create more bureaucracy. Prosecutors, sheriffs, clerks, justice jus-tice court judges and others involved in-volved with the criminal justice system in Kane, Garfield, Sevier and Sanpete Counties met June 25 in Panguitch with members of the Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Ju-venile Justice and representatives of Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT). The commission is responsible re-sponsible for conducting a statewide survey on the proposal and commission com-mission members were in Panguitch Pangui-tch to receive input from potentially poten-tially affected officials. Local officials on hand to hear the explanation of the proposal by Paul Boyden, executive director of SWAT were Rep. Yardley, Justice Court Judge John Yardley, Garfield County Sheriff Than Cooper, County Attorney Wallace Lee, Court Clerk Dawna Barney, Justice Court Clerk Jane Excell and Lee's secretary, Pam Jarman. From nearby counties came Sevier Se-vier Commissioner Jerry Nice, Sevier Se-vier Sheriff John Mecham, and Se vier County Attorney Don Brown, Sanpete County Attorney Ross Blackham,and Kane County Attorney Attor-ney Jim Scarth. ( Currently in Utah, each county is responsible for prosecuting its own cases and functions with an elected county attorney who frequently fre-quently serves in a civil capacity for the county and accepts other civil cases on a private basis. The state's attorney general becomes involved only when a case is appealed or when a case is generated from his office. A principal concern is that potential exists for a conflict of interest in-terest to occur under the present system, that a county attorney could come under undue pressure to yield to particular interests of a county commission which controls the purse strings. The new system, advocates claim, would give the full-time prosecutor ultimate authority over the filing and disposition of criminal crimi-nal charges unencumbered by divided di-vided responsibilities, excessive administrative duties, or the distractions distrac-tions of partisan politics. A resolution of the general membership of the Statewide Association Asso-ciation of Prosecutors was adopted in November 1990 in which the group supports the concept of a state district attorney system. The system would divide function between be-tween a locally elected district attorney at-torney and a centralized administrative administra-tive system operating under a dis- trict attorneys council and administrator. adminis-trator. Proposal language says that the district attorneys council would be composed of the state attorney general, gen-eral, a district attorney from each sub-district containing a county of the first or second class (currently Salt Lake, Utah, Davis and Weber), We-ber), district attorneys one more in number than the automatic members, mem-bers, elected at-large by the district attorneys of the remaining sub-districts (currently a total of six at-large at-large members). Their proposal suggests eight sub-districts with district attorneys elected from those according to caseload, population, geographic location and other factors fac-tors and arrangement which proponents propo-nents claim would give rural counties coun-ties a slight edge. The proposal would leave resident resi-dent prosecutors where they already exist until the newly created district attorneys council is in place and able to make adjustments. It's what those "adjustments" may ultimately prove to be that worries some rural prosecutors. It was Garfield County Attorney Wallace Lee who See "District" Page 3A 'District" Attorneys Discussed From Page 1 spearheaded the language in the proposal that guarantees that resident resi-dent prosecutors will remain, and Lee and others are concerned about the wording added in the proposal that permits the council to make unspecified "adjustments." Funding for the study by the CCJJ has come from surcharges assessed along with fines in criminal crimi-nal convictions. The commission's findings will be presented to a legislative leg-islative interim committee and then brought back before the membership member-ship of the Statewide Association of Prosecutors before being submitted submit-ted to the legislature. Because each county is responsible respon-sible for funding prosecution of its own, no one presently knows what it costs overall to prosecute criminal crimi-nal cases in Utah. A study is currently cur-rently underway to determine those costs, Nash said. In some cases, when a rural county with little tax money must prosecute a homicide or other complicated criminal case, special funding must be sought from the legislature. Nash said that a district attorney system should develop quality criminal crim-inal prosecution, allowing the prosecutor pros-ecutor time to focus on criminal cases. Judge John Yardley said he sees it as "one more step toward taking local control away .from the grass roots." Sheriff Than Cooper said he feels the proposal, if adopted, could remove the close-proximity advantages advan-tages of the working relationship he now has with a local prosecutor. Kane County Attorney Jim Scarth said he currently has trouble getting any help from the state attorney at-torney general's office in complicated compli-cated cases such as Challenger, and would welcome a change that might affect that problem positively. |