Project Safe Tennessee will increase the number of prosecutors across the state to keep pace with rising caseloads.
Jackson County District Attorney Jason Lawson said the amount of time a prosecutor can devote to a single case is limited by the total number of cases they must manage within a single day. Lawson said the 15th Judicial District has seen a 14 percent drop in overall crime and a 16 percent drop in violent crime over the last ten years, but the rapid population growth means the actual number of cases is still increasing.
“Although we’re happy to see the percentage drops, we realize that before long, you know, we’re going to have prosecutors dealing with 1600 cases a year, 1800 cases a year, 2000 cases a year and there’s only so many hours in a day and so that’s really what Project Safe Tennessee is about,” Lawson said.
Lawson said each of the 15 Assistant District Attorneys in his district currently handles an average of 1,432 cases per year. Lawson said this figure significantly exceeds the statewide average of 1,134 cases per prosecutor.
“The backlog of cases that we have in our courts is caused by there just not being enough people in our judicial system,” Lawson said. “When we set a case for trial, sometimes we’re setting six or eight cases on a trial docket for a day and we know that a judge and a jury is only going to be able to try one of those cases.”
Lawson said the modern legal process requires significantly more time because of the prevalence of digital evidence, including body camera footage and business surveillance video. Lawson said prosecutors must review all of this data in real time to prepare for court and identify witnesses.
“Now all of the police officers are wearing cameras and so when they go to a scene say for instance a domestic assault, a domestic violence case right after it’s happened, they’re actually recording in real time the statements of the victim, of any of the witnesses and as we watch those video tapes we can see those statements, we can hear those, but it takes time to review that data, to review that footage and to collect that to process it and to find those people and to get those people into court to help aid the case,” Lawson said.
Lawson said the legal system is also utilizing specialized units for drug and sex crimes to improve outcomes. Lawson said having a prosecutor who can focus on a specific area of law allows them to develop expertise in tactics and changing statutes.
“Whenever you have one case that’s a theft and the next case that’s a burglary and the next case that’s a sex crime and the next case that’s a homicide and the next case that’s, you know, something very small like a simple possession case of drugs or things like that, the more different things that you have that you’re just really kind of spread across the board, it it really is a change whenever you’re have the ability to have one prosecutor who can actually specialize in an area and to learn some of the techniques and get the training and the expertise that will help them to actually develop and put in the time and resources, the ability and the skills really to make sure that that case is prosecuted as effectively as it can be to get to those right results,” Lawson said.
Lawson said the public should distinguish between arrest numbers and successful prosecutions, noting that a single event can result in four or five different charges. Lawson said a prosecution is often considered successful if a conviction is secured on the primary charge, even if minor charges are dismissed as part of an agreement.
“I think that a lot of people’s impressions is they see the things that prosecutors do in the courtroom, but they don’t see a lot of the things that we’re doing behind the scenes outside of the courtroom and all that relates to our criminal justice system,” Lawson said.
