Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office
FY 2021 Informational Budget Packet
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...... 4
UNIT A/B...... 7
MULTNOMAH COUNTY JUSTICE REINVESTMENT PROGRAM DESCRIPTION...... 19
UNIT C...... 21
UNIT D...... 30
DOMESTIC VIOLENCE UNIT...... 39
MULTIDISCIPLINARY CHILD ABUSE TEAM...... 48
PRETRIAL UNIT...... 58
MISDEMEANOR TRIAL UNIT...... 70
STRATEGIC PROSECUTION AND SERVICES UNIT...... 82
JUVENILE UNIT...... 94
SUPPORT ENFORCEMENT DIVISION...... 102
VICTIM’S ASSISTANCE PROGRAM...... 109
RECIDIVISM...... 120
OUR WORK TO REDUCE RACIAL AND ETHNIC DISPARITIES IN THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM...... 124
CONTINUING LEGAL EDUCATION AND THE DA’S EQUITY DIGNITY AND OPPORTUNITY COUNCIL...... 183 INTRODUCTION Today, we find ourselves in a vastly different position than we were exactly one year ago. The global pandemic resulting from the coronavirus is having a drastic and significant impact on our criminal justice system. This office quickly and responsibly implemented sweeping operational changes to protect the health and well-being of our employees and community. As a result of those prudent and intentional changes, we have minimized – to the best of our ability – any resource and service interruptions. We continue to stridently serve our community in the midst of this pandemic because our mission and dedication remains unchanged. I can only describe the efforts of our team as remarkable. They adapted quickly and professionally to ensure our justice system remained open and fair to all individuals as we balanced and continued to support the needs of public health, public safety and crime victims.
This informational budget packet for FY21, will give you an understanding of the work we do each day. It will also highlight our programs and initiatives that continue to provide positive outcomes for justice involved individuals and for our community. Our programs – working collaboratively with system and community-based partners – strive to lessen the impacts of the criminal justice system. The benefits of these efforts, as demonstrated through the Multnomah County Justice Reinvestment Program (MCJRP), continue to position our jurisdiction as a national leader for the responsible use of jail and prison beds, among other issues.
During FY20, we continued to prioritize our commitment to protecting the rights of vulnerable and underserved populations. Multnomah County was the first jurisdiction in Oregon to issue and then secure a conviction under the state’s new bias crime law. We know these crimes have a profound impact on not only the victim but on the community as well. In one of our cases this year, the victim, an immigrant and restaurant owner, was threatened, subjected to hate speech, mocked and assaulted all because she spoke Spanish. Our victim advocates work closely with the restaurant owner to support, guide and provide her resources. When it came to sentencing, the victim shut down her restaurant – her only source of income – so she could come downtown and address the court in person. In moments like this I am reminded of the importance of supporting crime victims.
To that end, in FY20, our victim advocates assisted more than 3,000 crime victims. In the Domestic Violence Unit alone we had more than 1,500 cases that were assigned a victim advocate.
The Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office is committed to the open and balanced administration of justice – one that honors and respects diversity in all of
4 5 its forms – and works diligently to protect children and victims of crime.
We face considerable challenges in the immediate and long-term future as a result of the coronavirus. These demands will strain and test our entire criminal justice system. I am confident, however, that the staff of the district attorney’s office will be able to overcome these hardships with the professionalism and unwavering commitment to public service that I have seen firsthand over the last seven years as your district attorney. A lot has changed in the criminal justice system since I first joined the district attorney’s office more than 30 years ago. I am proud of the work we have accomplished and the work that we will continue to achieve. With continued support and resources, this office will remain a national leader when it comes to effecting positive and meaningful change within the criminal justice system while being deeply rooted in supporting crime victims and their families.
Respectfully,
Rod Underhill
4 5 Photo: Unit A/B Deputy District Attorney Leslie Wu
6 7 Unit A/B UNIT DESCRIPTION
Unit A/B Deputy District Attorneys (DDAs) review, issue and prosecute felony property crimes, felony traffic offenses, and felony drug crimes. The unit also coordinates all drug overdose death investigations.
DDAs designated to the District Attorney’s Human Trafficking Team and the White Collar Crimes/Elder Abuse Team are assigned to Unit A/B. These DDAs also maintain a general caseload and regular trial schedule.
Unit A/B DDAs are assigned to participate in a number of treatment/specialty courts including the Multnomah County Sanctions Treatment Opportunities Progress (STOP) Drug Court, DUII Intensive Supervision Program (DISP) Court, Success Through Accountability, Restitution and Treatment (START) Court and Multnomah County Justice Reinvestment Program (MCJRP).
The Human Trafficking Team is comprised of two FTE DDAs who are responsible for managing all human trafficking and commercial sex trafficking-related cases in Multnomah County. The DDAs are active participants of specialty courts including the First Offender Program, Sex Buyers Accountability and Diversion Program, and Community Court.
Both members of the Human Trafficking Team are involved with extensive community outreach and attend and conduct training on a local and national level, are assigned to multiple task forces, and are on-call around the clock for law enforcement.
The two DDAs assigned to the White Collar Crimes/Elder Abuse Team work directly with detectives throughout Multnomah County to investigate and prosecute high-dollar embezzlement cases and to investigate and prosecute crimes, such as abuse, neglect and financial exploitation against people older than 65.
Other specialty in-unit designations: Felony DUII DDA: This DDA is responsible for prosecuting all felony DUII cases. This caseload includes managing all cases and hearings in the DUII Intensive Supervision Program (DISP) Court, which is a program for high-risk repeat DUII offenders.
Organized Retail Theft DDA: This DDA is responsible for prosecuting organized retail theft cases, which continues to be a problem for businesses of all size in Multnomah County.
6 7 START Court DDA: This DDA is responsible for representing the State of Oregon in the Success Through Accountability, Restitution and Treatment (START) Court, which is a long-standing drug treatment court in Multnomah County.
Stolen Vehicles DDA: This DDA is responsible for reviewing cases that involve stolen cars and works with law enforcement to strategically build cases for prosecution on repeat offenders. The DDA assigned to this position often provides regular training to law enforcement on Oregon case law surrounding stolen cars.
Restitution DDA: This DDA is responsible for facilitating unpaid restitution matters.
Unit A/B DDAs participate in a variety of specialty units such as the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office Special Investigations Unit; the Portland Police Bureau’s Drug and Vice Unit and Street Crimes Unit; the Port of Portland Police Department’s Interdiction Team; the Gresham Police Department’s Special Enforcement Team and Neighborhood Enforcement Team.
Each specialty law enforcement group is assigned a DDA. On average, each specialty unit uses an estimated 8-20 hours each month of the assigned DDA’s time. There are six specialty drug units assigned to eight Unit A/B DDAs. Each assigned DDA commits resources to respond to law enforcement questions, reviewing arrest and search warrants, conducting legal research and writing and preparing for pretrial motions. Each DDA participates in law enforcement investigative briefings and case reviews. The vast majority of this work requires an immediate response, often after normal business hours, because narcotics investigations typically involve people conducting illicit behavior in real-time and across jurisdictional lines.
CASE WORK Unit A/B DDAs are responsible for prosecuting the following crimes:
• Aggravated Theft I • Bribery I, II • Burglary II (non-residential burglaries) • Child Neglect I, II (when associated with drug charges) • Compelling Prostitution • Computer Crime • Criminal Mischief I • Criminal Possession of a Forged Instrument/Forgery I • Delivery of Controlled Substances • Domestic Violence Crimes (when associated with human trafficking) • Elder Financial Abuse • Felony Attempt to Elude • Felony Driving under the Influence of Intoxicants
8 9 • Felony Driving while Suspended/Revoked • Fraud, Embezzlement • Fraudulent Use of a Credit Card • Identity Theft • Import/Export Marijuana • Luring • Manufacture of Controlled Substances • Money Laundering • Perjury • Possession of Controlled Substances • Promoting Prostitution • Purchasing Sex with a Minor • Sex Crimes (when associated with human trafficking) • Theft I • Unauthorized Use of a Vehicle/Possession of a Stolen Motor Vehicle • Violent Crimes (when associated with human trafficking)
UNIT DEMOGRAPHICS For FY 2019, Unit A/B received 2,916 case referrals from law enforcement agencies across Multnomah County. Of those, 60.3% (1,756) were issued.
Individuals prosecuted by Unit A/B were identified as 64.9% White, 17.7% Black, 12.4% Hispanic, 2.8% Asian or Pacific Islander (API), 0.7% Native American, and 1.5% Unknown. Males comprised 79.6% of the individuals prosecuted by Unit A/B, while women made up the remaining 20.4%.
Victims of Unit A/B crimes were identified as 58.2% White, 6.9% Black, 10.3% Hispanic, 3.6% API, 0.4% Native American and 20.6% unknown/missing. Victims were 56.0% male, 34.8% females, 0% transgender and 9.1% unknown/missing.
8 9 For FY 2019, no juveniles were prosecuted by Unit A/B.
For FY 2019, Unit A/B handled 3.0% person crimes and 97.0% non-person crimes. Of the non-person crimes, 48.6% were property crimes, 22.0% were drug crimes, 20.6% were vehicular crimes, 1.9% were crimes involving a weapon and 3.9% were other crimes.
UNIT STAFFING Unit A/B has 14 total FTE – consisting of 12 FTE DDAs and two (2) FTE Supervisory Senior Deputy District Attorneys (SDDA).
At any given moment, the average number of cases being prosecuted by a Unit A/B DDA is approximately 80-90.
In FY 2019, Unit A/B reviewed 2,916 cases.
Each referred case requires an average of eight working hours to reach a full resolution.
After reducing for standard annual leave time and accounting for dedicated time for community involvement and training, each FTE DDA has 1,304 hours available to work referred cases.
10 11 Therefore, Unit A/B has 18,256 working hours (1,304 x 14 FTE) in a year to accomplish 23,328 hours of work (2,916 x 8), resulting in a deficit of 5,072 working hours or 3.8 FTE attorney positions.
[Source: 2018 weighted case analysis conducted by the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office]
UNIT QUALITY Unit A/B has a practice of staffing all Ballot Measure 57 (BM 57) and Multnomah County Justice Reinvestment Program (MCJRP) matters before any pretrial resolution. These cases and the pretrial offers are reviewed by the unit’s Chief Deputy District Attorney (CDDA) and SDDA before resolution. The cases are customarily reviewed at a weekly meeting. All members of Unit A/B participate in the review process. Considerations in review include, among other things: comparable cases, criminal history, mitigation, aggravation, a risk and needs analysis of the offender, if available and victim input and cooperation.
Before a case is discussed at the unit’s weekly review, DDAs participate in at least one, often times more, Judicial Settlement Conference (JSC). A JSC is a process where a judge actively facilitates a discussion so all parties may potentially reach a mutually satisfactory case resolution. The conferences usually last one hour, but may go longer depending on the complexity of the case. Victims are notified of all JSCs. Some victims choose to attend the conference and participate depending on the style of the judge and consent of the person charged with a crime. DDAs will speak with the victim(s) prior to the JSC and conduct a summary analysis with them after each conference.
10 11 UNIT SPECIFIC TRAINING In addition to weekly unit trainings and regular office-wide training on a variety of prosecutorial best practices in Continuing Legal Education courses (CLEs), Unit A/B DDAs are provided specialized training in the following areas:
• Appellate law updates • Child Abuse reporting • Drug Court best practices • Elder Abuse/Neglect (Physical and Financial) • Human trafficking • Overdose death investigations • Prosecuting DUII and Drugged Drivers • Search and seizure law • Sentencing laws
UNIT OUTCOMES For FY 2019, 139 cases were diversion eligible and nearly 80% of those cases (110) were diverted.
Any Unit A/B case that is subject to Ballot Measure 57 is automatically eligible for the Multnomah County Justice Reinvestment Program (MCJRP), which is a program designed to increase public safety and reduce the demand for costly Oregon Department of Corrections (DOC) resources.
Every MCJRP participant agrees to participate in testing and a comprehensive background investigation to assist in determining what type of case resolution would best serve the interests of the individual and community. After the evaluation is turned into a report, a Judicial Settlement Conference is held. The evaluation report, the wishes and desires of crime victims and often law enforcement and the results from the Judicial Settlement Conference are always taken into consideration while Unit A/B DDAs collaborate a pretrial offer.
253 Unit A/B case were presumptively eligible for a prison sentence based on the charge and the criminal history of the accused. However, 183 of those who, under Oregon’s statutory and sentencing guideline laws, were presumptively eligible for a prison sentence received a probation sentence. To reiterate, 72% of the individuals who presumptively would have received a prison sentence instead received probation. The overwhelming majority of which occurred because of plea offers extended by Unit A/B DDAs.
Unit A/B resolved 20 cases by trial.
12 13 INVESTIGATORS Unit A/B has two assigned District Attorney Investigators who help DDAs in locating and personally serving subpoenas for victims and witnesses for grand jury proceedings, motion hearings and trial.
In addition, the investigators identify and obtain recorded jail phone calls at the request of DDAs, retrieve evidence and help edit audio and video evidence for trial and other pretrial matters. Unit A/B DA Investigators often attend investigative briefings, proffers, and conduct witness interviews at the request of the DDAs. They also spend significant time transporting witnesses and evidence for court for Unit A/B and for other units, when requested.
COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT Unit A/B DDAs engage with the community and system partners at the following meetings and forums:
• Law Enforcement & Adult Protective Service staffing: The Elder Abuse ADD participates in this monthly meeting and provides essential legal advice on a weekly basis.
• Multnomah County Interagency Committee for Abuse Prevention: The Elder Abuse DDA meets with multiple community partners quarterly.
• Northwest Organized Retail Crime Alliance (NWOCRA): Meets every other month, and is attended by the Organized Retail Crime DDA, local police and big box store loss prevention representatives.
• Victim Services Meeting: A monthly meeting attended by a Unit A/B DDA, the Department of Community Justice, and Multnomah County Circuit Court staff. This meeting addresses issues of properly identifying and recovering restitution for victims.
• DUII Intensive Supervision Program (DISP) Weekly Advance Meeting (WAM): Attended by a Unit A/B DDA, the Multnomah County Circuit Court, defense attorneys, treatment coordinators and treatment providers.
• START Court monthly policy meetings: Attended by a Unit A/B DDA, the Multnomah County Circuit Court, defense attorneys, treatment coordinators and treatment providers.
12 13 • STOP Court monthly policy meetings: Attended by a Unit A/B DDA, the Multnomah County Circuit Court, defense attorneys, treatment coordinators and treatment providers.
• Corrections Grand Jury (CGJ): Oregon law requires that, annually, a CGJ be convened to review the conditions and management of all correctional facilities in the county. The CGJ, comprised of seven Multnomah County community members, tour the facilities, question witnesses, and publish a detailed report of their findings. The GJC is in session four days a week for approximately a month and a half and is required to be assisted by a DDA.
• Overdose task force: Initiated and coordinated by the District Attorney’s Office, this task force meets monthly to discuss cases and trends involving fatal overdose cases. Members include local, state and federal agencies, including the Oregon State Police Forensic Crime Laboratory.
• Additionally, the two DDAs assigned to Human Trafficking Team spend considerable time engaging with law enforcement agencies and non-governmental offices involved in combatting sex trafficking. These DDAs are frequent presenters at educational institutions. They work closely with groups that are dedicated to spreading awareness about the human trafficking that occurs daily in our community. The Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office demonstrates its commitment to combating human trafficking, and increasing public awareness, by participating in educational media, as evidenced in their participation in/coordination with:
• The National Advisory Committee on the Sex Trafficking of Children & Youth in the United States: Unit A/B Senior Deputy District Attorney J.R. Ujifusa is the chair of this national organization that advises the Attorney General of the United States and the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services on the nation’s response to trafficking. The Committee was created in consultation with the Department of Justice and the National Governor’s Association per the Preventing Sex Trafficking and Strengthening Families Act.
• Multnomah County Sex Trafficking Collaborative: This is Multnomah County’s comprehensive community response to trafficking, which is victim-centered to ensure the survivor receives all available community and system based resources. This meeting is chaired by Multnomah County Commissioner Susheela Jayapal and meets monthly.
• Oregon Foreign-Born Human Trafficking Task Force: Chaired by the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Oregon, this meeting allows the District Attorney’s Office to work with both law enforcement and system partners to identify, investigate and discuss foreign born human trafficking cases that involve both sex trafficking and labor trafficking.
14 15 • Oregon Department of Justice Trafficking Intervention Advisory Committee: SDDA J.R. Ujifusa sits on this committee, which meets monthly and discusses statewide policy and procedures regarding human trafficking.
• Oregon Legislative Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children Workgroup: SDDA J.R. Ujifusa attends these meetings regarding future and pending Oregon legislation.
• Oregon Department of Human Services (DHS) Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children (CSEC) meeting: Initiated by the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office, this bi-weekly meeting focuses on bringing law enforcement, prosecutors and DHS together to review cases that involve minors who are being trafficked or who are at risk to be trafficked.
• Monthly law enforcement human trafficking meetings: Initiated and run by the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office, this monthly meeting includes local, state and federal law enforcement, prosecutors, parole and probation, child welfare and victim advocates from the Portland metro. The purpose of this meeting is to discuss and collaborate with local agencies to identify victims, traffickers and launch investigations regarding human trafficking in the metro.
• Sex Buyer Accountability Diversion (SBAD) class: The DDAs assigned to the Human Trafficking Team attend frequent meetings and the eight hour class itself, which is held every eight weeks for people charged with commercial sexual solicitation.
• Lifeworks New Options for Women (NOW) Program meeting: A collaborative meeting working with service providers, law enforcement and prosecutors to help victims who have been commercially or sexually exploited receive resources and support.
• Human trafficking national listserv: Initiated and administered by the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office, this email listserv is a way to keep apprised of national trends affecting prosecutors and law enforcement around the country. At this time, there are roughly 400 prosecutors and law enforcement personnel who participate.
14 15 SPECIALTY COURTS The DUII Intensive Supervision Program (DISP) is a specialty court that requires the full-time staffing of a Unit A/B DDA. This intensive supervision and treatment court is designed for repeat, high-risk DUII offenders. Participants are required to attend frequent meetings with court-based case managers and engage in random alcohol and drug testing, electronic monitoring, and the 12-step program. The DISP DDA handles all felony DUII cases, attends all DISP court hearings and the weekly DISP meeting.
Veterans Court and Justice Outreach Project is a specialty docket for veterans who are charged with certain offenses. Through coordination of the District Attorney’s Office, defense attorneys, the Multnomah County Circuit Court, Veterans Justice Outreach staff, and the Department of Community Justice, veterans receive an early assessment and are referred to specialized services through the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) and community. Participants are placed on probation and work with specialized probation officers who are knowledgeable about working with veterans and the available community resources.
STOP Court is the highest level of treatment and supervision Multnomah County offers for people charged with drug possession. Through weekly court appearances, the STOP Court team monitors the progress of individuals throughout their efforts as they work to obtain housing, attend community meetings such as Narcotics Anonymous and Alcoholics Anonymous, attend individualized sessions with their primary counselor, attend group meetings and obtain additional treatment services they may need such as mental health services and medically assisted treatment such as methadone or Suboxone.
Individuals who score in the ‘middle quadrants’ (“Low Risk/High Need” or “High Risk/ Low Need”) are given a field probation officer and are put on supervision for 18 months. During that time they are expected to participate in a drug evaluation and complete any treatment that is ordered.
Individuals who score in the ‘lowest quadrants’ (“Low Risk/Low Need”) are put on reduced supervision for 12 months. There is no treatment requirement for “Low Risk/ Low Need” individuals as our primary concern is lessening the impact of the criminal justice system.
16 17 POLICE AND AGENCY ASSISTANCE Once a year, every DDA in Unit A/B is on the office-wide on-call list and is required to spend one week being available around the clock to review warrants and respond to general law enforcement questions that come in outside of traditional business hours.
The on-call DDA is responsible for attending court proceedings on Saturdays (for an average of 2-3 hours) at the Multnomah County Detention Center to participate in probable cause reviews with a judge, law enforcement and pretrial release staff.
Unit A/B provides around the clock response to law enforcement to review search and arrest warrants and to support law enforcement when investigating time-sensitive cases such as drug overdose deaths and human trafficking cases.
Unit A/B DDAs often attend the execution of warrants that they have reviewed.
CHALLENGES & OPPORTUNITIES In FY 2019, “Unit A” and “Unit B” consolidated into a single unit (Unit A/B) in an attempt to maximize efficiencies. In addition to losing two staff members, the unit lost one FTE DDA as a result of ongoing budget constraints.
GAINING DDA POSITIONS In the future, the District Attorney’s Office hopes to expand the resources available within Unit A/B to better serve our community. With additional DDAs, Unit A/B would increase efficiency internally and positive outcomes for members of our community. With additional DDAs, caseloads would become more manageable and DDAs would have more time devoted to individual cases, to focus on crime victims and to work on implementing strategic crime prevention policies.
If Unit A/B gained additional DDAs, it could dedicate efforts to proactive case management with a community-based response.
Consideration for a new DDA role includes:
Assign a third fulltime DDA to the Human Trafficking Team. This misdemeanor-level DDA would handle commercial sexual solicitation cases and to assist with undercover child luring cases. Furthermore, the new position would allow to two current felony- level DDAs in the Human Trafficking Team to focus more attention on assisting law enforcement.
16 17 Assign a fulltime DDA to handle felony computer crimes cases. This DDA would receive specialized training to handle complex computer-based crimes. Many of the crimes occurring in our community today have a direct nexus to technology. As that technology advances, the District Attorney’s Office must be able to respond. The ADD in this position would establish a task force with local, state and federal law enforcement to works with local, state and federal law enforcement agencies to prosecute cases involving computer hacking, theft of high-tech computer components, counterfeit computer software, theft of trade secrets, internet auction fraud, and other internet- related crimes.
Establish a fulltime Appeals and Post-Conviction Unit with one felony level DDA and an additional misdemeanor level DDA. After being convicted of a crime and sentenced, a person has the right to file an appeal, asking the state or federal appellate courts to examine the trial and determine whether the person was properly convicted. The two DDAs assigned to this unit would be responsible for reviewing appeals, collecting case materials, conducting legal analysis for the District Attorney’s Office and working with the Oregon Department of Justice on any appeals brought before an appellate court.
18 19 MULTNOMAH COUNTY JUSTICE REINVESTMENT PROGRAM DESCRIPTION:
JUSTICE REINVESTMENT Invest in what works MULTNOMAH COUNTY JUSTICE REINVESTMENT PROGRAM As prison costs increase nationwide, communities try to find effective ways to reduce spending on prison andincrease public safety. Multnomah County’s Justice Reinvestment Program (MCJRP) is designed to reduce the use of state prisons for offenders who can safely be supervised in the community. MCJRP holds offenders accountable by providing the structure, supervision and services necessary for success in the community. The program addresses the root causes of crime and increases services to victims. POSTIVE RETURN ON INVESTMENT For a $15.7 million investment between FY2015-2019, Multnomah County’s Justice Reinvestment Program (MCJRP) has reduced prison operating costs by $42.3 million1. Increased use of Short Term Transitional Leave (STTL) for eligible Multnomah County offenders has allowed the Department of Corrections (DOC) to avoid spending another $7.9 million in operation costs. Subtracting the MCJRP investment of $15.7 million from the total of $50.2 million in DOC costs avoided, the MCJRP program has resulted in the state spending $34.5 million less over four years and has bolstered the statewide effort to avoid the immediate cost of constructing an expensive new prison.
PROMISING RESULTS Multnomah County saw a 40% reduction in sentences to prison since 2013. Placing more offenders on probation has not compromised community safety, as demonstrated by MCJRP’s lowered recidivism rates.
cases have participated in the MCJRP informed sentencing process, MCJRP significantly 4,725 6% resulting in 3,576 sentences. helped Oregonians reduction in avoid the high cost of reoffense rate long prison stays and cases were diverted from over 2 years* new prisons* prison and remained in the 2,396 community on supervision.
*MCJRP Evaluation Report | Jan. 2019 of eligible defendants sentenced to community supervision 67% Analysis: MCJRP Data Team | 7.01.14 - 6.30.18
18 19 In 2018, there were LOCAL INVESTMENT revocations among defendants who either: * Received social services pre-adjudication, or Your investment at work * Were supervised by the Gender Specific 0 Probation Unit
“I’m just really thankful for this 1,183 program and I’m thankful to participants on MCJRP and STTL MCJRP for trusting in me and supervision received outpatient 638 treatment with recovery mentor believing me and giving me support at Volunteers of America have finished Oregon between: a chance.” –MCJRP Participant MCJRP Theresa D. supervision July 2016 - December 2018 to date
MCJRP participants completed the obtained intensive phase of employment employment 358 services from Career Coaches 256 500+ HOUSING: Bridges to Change victims MCJRP participants were provided 1,289 an average of received defendants entered the Inverness free legal Jail Treatment Readiness Dorm assistance bed-days per consultation 577month in FY18 since May 2016
Since Nov 2015, the MCJRP Law Enforcement Detail provided assistance to probation officers 1,561 times, including home visits, transportation to treatment/housing, and grocery delivery to MCJRP participants
of sentenced parents who Victim parent/child engaged with the pre-trial services therapy social worker are actively provided sessions 100% 873 parenting their children
1 July 1 2014- June 30 2018, 788 fewer offenders sent to prison than would have pre-MCJRP. 788 x $96.48 (Department of Corrections local control rates 2015- 2017) cost per prison day x 556.3 days = $42.3 million + $7.9 million (saved from Short Term Transitional Leave) = $50.2 million. 556.3 days (18.4 months) LOS per CJC Dashboard for 2012. $21.59 (Multnomah County Department of Community Justice Community Daily Supervision rate) + $10.96 (State Department of Corrections daily rate) = $32.55 (roughly one-third of the costs compared to $96.48 Department of Corrections local control rate 2015-2017.) STTL: 82,050 (Criminal Justice Commission prison bed days saved July 2014 to June 2018) x $96.48 (Department of Corrections Local Control Rates 2015-2017) = $7.9 million.
20 21 Unit C
UNIT DESCRIPTION Unit C Deputy District Attorneys (DDAs) review, issue and prosecute major felonies, serious vehicular crimes and criminal offenses that have either a gun and/or gang nexus.
The unit works closely with federal, state and local law enforcement agencies to prosecute serious person and property crime cases; and to reduce the illegal use, possession and transfer of firearms. This coordinated effort results in hundreds of weapon-related cases each year and a much safer community.
Many of the cases handled by Unit C have high visibility in our community. As such, Unit C DDAs are deeply involved in our community, and they are a part of our community outreach efforts throughout Multnomah County. Unit C DDAs attend public forums to provide updates and to listen to concerns our community has regarding gun and gang violence, particularly when these crimes occur in schools and in our neighborhoods.
Unit C is responsible for prosecuting all felony cases that result from an unintentional, reckless or reckless with extreme indifference, vehicular collision where either serious physical injury or death occur.
Unit C DDAs are all assigned to the vehicular crimes team and are assigned an on-call rotation. Each DDA is on-call approximately seven weeks a year. When responding to a major crash investigation, on average, DDAs spend approximately six hours on scene, at the hospital or with law enforcement assisting with the initial investigation.
20 21 CASE WORK Unit C is responsible for prosecuting the following crimes:
• Aggravated Animal Abuse • All of level of homicides, including murder, manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide • Animal Abuse • Animal Neglect • Arson I, II • Burglary I, II • Felony Weapons Offenses • Reckless Vehicular Assault • Reckless Vehicular Homicides • Robbery I, II, III
UNIT DEMOGRAPHICS
22 23 For FY 2019, Unit C received 924 case referrals from law enforcement agencies across Multnomah County. Of those, 66% (610) were issued.
Individuals prosecuted by Unit C were identified as 46.1% White, 36.4% Black, 12.4% Hispanic, 3.4% Asian or Pacific Islander (API), 0.8% Native American, and 0.8% unknown/missing.
Males comprised 86.2% of the individuals prosecuted by Unit C, while women made up the remaining 13.8%.
Victims of Unit C crimes were identified as 60.0% White, 11.9% Black, 7.1% Hispanic, 6.4% API, 0.4% Native American, and 14.0% unknown/missing. Victims were 60.0% male, 31.9% female, 0% transgender, and 8.0% unknown/missing.
For FY 2019, 22 juveniles were prosecuted by Unit C. These juveniles were identified as 59.1% Black (13 individuals), 18.2% Hispanic (four individuals), and 22.7% White (five individuals). Males were 86.4% of the juvenile individuals prosecuted office-wide, while females comprised 13.6% of juvenile indicted cases.
Of all of the cases Unit C handled in FY 2019, 45.3% were person crimes, 21.9% were property crimes, 15.1% were weapon crimes, 11.6% were vehicle crimes, 2.6% were drug crimes, and 3.5% were other crimes.
22 23 UNIT STAFFING Unit C has nine (9) total FTE – consisting of seven (7) FTE DDAs and two (2) FTE Supervisory Senior Deputy District Attorneys (SDDAs).
At any given moment, the average number of cases being prosecuted by a Unit C DDA is approximately 43.
In FY 2019, Unit C reviewed 924 cases.
Each referred case requires an average of 19.9 working hours to reach a resolution.
After reducing for standard annual leave time and accounting for dedicated time for community involvement and training, each FTE DDA has 1,382 hours available to work referred cases.
Therefore, Unit C has 12,438 working hours (1,382 x 9 FTE) in a year to accomplish 18,387 hours of work (19.9 x 924), resulting in a deficit of 5,949 working hours or 4.3 FTE.
[Source: 2018 weighted case analysis conducted by the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office]
UNIT QUALITY Unit C has a practice of staffing all Ballot Measure 11 (BM 11), Ballot Measure 57 (BM 57) and Multnomah County Justice Reinvestment Program (MCJRP) matters before any pretrial resolution. These cases and the pretrial offers are reviewed by the unit’s Chief Deputy District Attorney (CDDA) and SDDAs before resolution. The cases are customarily reviewed at a weekly meeting. All members of Unit C participate in the review process. Considerations in review include, among other things: comparable cases, criminal history, mitigation, aggravation, a risk and needs analysis of the offender, if available, and victim input and cooperation.
It is office policy that only the District Attorney may accept a pretrial offer on a homicide case.
Before a case is discussed at the unit’s weekly review, DDAs participate in at least one, often times more, Judicial Settlement Conference (JSC). For more information on the JSC process, please refer to Unit A/B’s “Unit Quality” section.
UNIT SPECIFIC TRAINING In addition to weekly unit trainings and regular office-wide training on a variety of
24 25 prosecutorial best practices in Continuing Legal Education courses (CLEs), Unit C DDAs are provided specialized training in the following areas:
Arson investigations Calendar and case management Cell phone search warrants Debriefs/proffers & cooperation agreements Local gangs Vehicular crash investigations
UNIT OUTCOMES In FY 2019, Unit C DDAs resolved a total of 19 cases in trial. In 17 of those trials, a jury found the accused guilty of at least one charge. In two of those trials, a jury acquitted the person of all charges. Nine of the trials involved at least one Ballot Measure 11 offense. DDAs spent 63 days in trial.
For FY 2019, Unit C resolved 291 by pretrial offer. Of those, 51% were presumptively eligible for a prison sentence based on the charge and the criminal history of the accused.
However, 58.7% of those who were presumptively eligible for a prison sentence received a probation sentence. To reiterate, more than half of the individuals who could have received a prison sentence instead received probation. The overwhelming majority of which occurred because of plea offers extended by Unit C DDAs.
INVESTIGATORS Unit C has two assigned District Attorney Investigators who help DDAs in locating and personally serving subpoenas for victims and witnesses for grand jury proceedings, motion hearings and trial.
For more information on the investigators, please refer to Unit A/B’s “Investigators” section.
COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT Unit C DDAs are involved in numerous law enforcement agency meetings and community engagements.
These events focus on educating the public and seeking solutions to gun and gang violence in Multnomah County.
24 25 DDAs assigned to Unit C are frequently asked to speak at schools and community organizations. They also participate in panel discussions in our community to discuss issues that include: (a) the impacts of gun and gang violence, (b) the measures taken by the District Attorney’s Office to combat such violence, (c) juveniles and the criminal justice system and (d) the measures taken to reduce racial disparities and recidivism.
Unit C engages our community and its system partners at the following meetings and forums:
• Community Peace Collaborative (CPC): Bi-weekly meeting attended by multiple Unit C DDAs, the City of Portland Mayor’s Office, health and social services providers, crime prevention and security organizations, law enforcement agencies, neighborhood associations, state and county juvenile justice and adult organizations, clergy, housing organizations, treatment providers, and community members. The purpose of this meeting is to develop solutions, interventions and prevention strategies to reduce violence and crime in Multnomah County.
• East Metro Gang Enforcement Team roll calls: A weekly meeting to discuss violent crimes investigations in East Multnomah County with the Gresham Police Department and the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office, and to discuss violence prevention strategies through community outreach.
• Eleven 45 Meeting: Eleven 45 is a faith-based group with both secular and faith- based mentors. Low- level criminal offenders who are gang-involved agree to meet with their Eleven 45 community mentor to counteract an emerging problem with gang recruitment and serious gang violence. The program has expanded to include other non-gang affiliated offenders.
• Gang Impacted Family Team (GIFT) Meeting: GIFT is a collaboration to provide outreach services to the most entrenched gang-involved individuals who pose the highest risk to our community, and to provide services to their family in an effort to break the intergenerational cycle associated with gangs. The meetings are held bi- weekly within the City of Portland.
26 27 • Local Public Safety Coordinating Council (LPSCC) Youth and Gang Violence Subcommittee: A monthly meeting attended and co-chaired by Chief Deputy District Attorney Kirsten Snowden who oversees Unit C. The subcommittee is tasked with implementing the Multnomah County Comprehensive Gang Assessment and Implementation Plan. The purpose of this subcommittee is to seek policy and practice changes that reduce youth and gang violence and to lessen the disproportionate negative impacts of gang violence on communities of color.
• LPSCC Youth and Gang Violence Mentor Networking workgroup: Subgroup focused on connecting at-risk youth to mentors and improving coordination among mentors.
• LPSCC Youth and Gang Violence Parent Partnership workgroup: Subgroup focused on educating parents of criminally justice involved youth.
• Metro Gang Task Force Meetings: A monthly meeting with Unit C representatives, Portland Police Bureau, Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office, Gresham Police Department, Vancouver (Washington) Police Department, the Washington County Sheriff’s Office, Oregon Department of Corrections, Multnomah County Department of Community Justice, The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, U.S. Attorney’s Office and the Oregon State Police Forensic Crime Laboratory to discuss shootings that had a gang motive or nexus. Parties discuss active investigations, areas disproportionately impacted by gun and gang violence, and formulate intentional strategies to prevent retaliatory violence.
• Portland Area Gun Initiative Meetings (PAGI): The Portland Area Gun Crime Initiative works with its partners to prevent violent crime by identifying perpetrators, linking criminal activities, and identifying sources of gun crimes for immediate disruption, investigation, and prosecution.
• Portland Police Bureau (PPB) Tactical Operations Division (TOD) Meetings: A meeting with Unit C representatives and TOD officials to assess current trends in gun and gang violence.
• PPB Bi-weekly shooting review: Inter-agency meeting attended by Unit C representatives, law enforcement and U.S. Attorney’s Office to discuss intervention strategies for shootings occurring within the past two weeks.
• PPB Gun Violence Reduction Team (GVRT) Roll Calls: Weekly collaboration with law enforcement members of the Gun Violence Reduction Team to discuss gun-related investigations and prosecutions.
• Project Safe Streets Meeting: A meeting with Unit C representatives, law enforcement partners and probation officers to discuss the highest at-risk youth in the county, to closely monitor their supervision, to discuss current trends in youth violence, and to provide youth access to services.
26 27 • Rockwood RENEW Meeting: The Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office created and co- facilitates a monthly meeting in Rosewood/Rockwood called RENEW, which acts as a gathering place for law enforcement agencies, non- profits, governmental organizations and concerned community members. It is an opportunity for attendees to exchange ideas and address areas of particular concern in the neighborhood, as well as make connections to address community safety issues.
• Violence Prevention Coordination Team: A monthly meeting attended by Unit C representatives, the STRYVE collation, Multnomah County Youth and Family Services Division and Portland Opportunities Industrialization Center (POIC). This is a grant- funded collaboration to address co-occurring forms of violence that contribute to childhood trauma and subsequent mass incarceration.
• Youth and Gang Violence Reduction Coordinators Meeting: Meeting for all the LPSCC Youth and Gang Violence Reduction sub-committee chairs to report on progress, collaborate with system partners, and coordinate efforts to implement the Multnomah County Comprehensive Gang Assessment Plan.
POLICE AND AGENCY ASSISTANCE Once a year, every DDA in Unit C is on the office-wide on-call list and is required to spend one week being available around the clock to review warrants and respond to general law enforcement questions that come in outside of traditional business hours.
For more information about the District Attorney’s general on-call procedure for DDAs, please see the “Police and Agency Assistance” section in Unit A/B.
In addition to the office-wide on-call duties, each Unit C DDA is scheduled to be on-call approximately seven weeks per year for major vehicular crimes investigation.
In FY 2019, Unit C DDA’s responded to the scene of 11 vehicular homicides or serious physical injury crashes and 15 homicide crime scenes.
CHALLENGES & OPPORTUNITIES Toward the end of 2019 and the beginning of 2020, the Portland Police Bureau reported an alarming increase in gun violence. Often, these shootings are retaliatory in nature. An increase in gun violence, among other things, directly impacts the workload of DDAs assigned to Unit C. Shooting investigations and subsequent prosecutions are rarely ever isolated. They require a significant commitment from Unit C DDAs.
28 29 GAINING DDA POSITIONS The Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office looks to expand, when available, resources to Unit C. With additional DDAs, Unit C would increase efficiency internally and positive outcomes for members of our community. Caseloads would become more manageable and DDAs would have more time to focus on strengthening cases, focus on crime victims and working to implement strategic methods that prevent crime.
Additional DDA positions would allow Unit C to expand its community engagement and implement specific and highly improved crime prevention strategies such as:
• Developing training for all members of the criminal justice system;
• Engage community stakeholders to gather input on changes needed to the criminal justice system, specifically pertaining to youth gang violence and juvenile justice;
• Provide legislative reform that examine penalties for gun and gang-related violent crimes.
28 29 Photo: Unit D Deputy District Attorney BJ Park
30 31 Unit D
UNIT DESCRIPTION Unit D Deputy District Attorneys (DDAs) are some of the most experienced attorneys within the office. In addition to their caseload, many of the attorneys serve as mentors to other DDAs within the office. The cases reviewed by Unit D often have significant public and media interest.
Unit D DDAs review, issue and prosecute all felony physical assault cases that are not domestic violence in nature, gang related or reckless vehicular assaults. The unit also handles all child sexual abuse cases where the accused and victim are not related, and reviews the vast majority of cases involving child pornography and the solicitation of intimate images of children.
Unit D DDAs review all bias crime cases and almost always, even if issued at the misdemeanor level, maintain the case within their caseload.
DDAs in Unit D will handle nearly all cases when a peace officer is listed as a crime victim. Furthermore, the attorneys will review all internal affairs investigations submitted by law enforcement for potential criminal prosecution.
The unit also handles all felony criminal cases that may result from a sex offender failing to register and handle all civil matters involving a person’s petition for relief from sex offender reporting obligations.
The attorneys in this unit regularly appear, either by phone or in person, at parole hearings held by the Oregon Department of Corrections.
Unit D also includes the Untested Sexual Assault Kit (USAK) Project where a team comprised of a DDA, forensic consultant and victim advocate manage the District Attorney of New York (DANY) Grant. Under the DANY grant, Multnomah County coordinated the testing of nearly 3,000 sexual assault kits from around the state of Oregon. The USAK DDA reviews every Multnomah County case arising from a previously untested SAFE kit, evaluates whether the case can be reopened for further investigation, and handles any resulting prosecution. For more information on the DANY grant, click here.
30 31 CASE WORK Unit D is responsible for prosecuting the following crimes:
• Aggravated Harassment • All levels of felony sex crimes, such as rape, sodomy, unlawful sexual penetration and sex abuse • All levels of homicide • Assault I, II, III, IV • Assault of a Public Safety Officer • Attempted Murder • Bias Crimes • Child Pornography • Invasion of Personal Privacy • Kidnapping I, II • Official Misconduct • Private and Public Indecency
UNIT DEMOGRAPHICS
32 33 For FY 2019, Unit D received 759 case referrals. Of those, 64.8% (492) were issued.
Individuals prosecuted by Unit D were 54.9% White, 29.7% Black, 8.9% Hispanic, 3.3% Asian or Pacific Islander (API), 1.0% Native American, and 2.2% unknown/missing. Males were 87.6% of the individuals prosecuted by Unit D, females were 12.2%, and transgender individuals were 0.2%. Victims of Unit D crimes were 47.7% White, 12.2% Black, 6.9% Hispanic, 2.4% API, 0% Native American, and 5.9% unknown/missing. The remaining 24.9% of victims were peace officers whose races were not provided. Victims were 42.9% male, 31.8% female, 0.3% transgender and 4.5% unknown/missing. The remaining 20.4% of victims were peace officers whose genders were not provided.
For FY 2019, 13 juveniles were prosecuted by Unit D, which equates to nearly 2% of the unit’s total case referrals.
These juveniles were 7.7% API (one individual), 38.5% Black (five individuals), 23.1% Hispanic (three individuals), 7.7% Native American (one individual), and 23.1% White (three individuals). Males were 92.3% of juvenile individuals prosecuted by Unit D, while females comprised the remaining 7.7% of juvenile prosecutions.
For FY 2019, Unit D handled 87.5% person crimes and 12.5% non-person crimes. Of the non-person crimes, 4.8% were property crimes, 1.0% were drug crimes, 0.7% were weapon crimes, 0.6% were vehicular crimes, and 5.3% were other crimes.
For FY 2019, Unit D DDAs had eight trials and spent 53 days in trial.
UNIT STAFFING Unit D has six (6) total FTE – consisting of five (5) FTE DDAs and one (1) FTE Supervisory Senior Deputy District Attorney (SDDA).
At any given moment, the average number of cases being prosecuted by a Unit D DDA is approximately 45.
In FY 2019, Unit D reviewed 759 cases.
32 33 Each referred case requires an average of 18.4 working hours to reach a full resolution.
After reducing for standard annual leave time and accounting for dedicated time for community involvement and training, each FTE DDA has 1,356 hours available to work referred cases.
Therefore, Unit D has 8,136 working hours (1,356 x 6 FTE) in a year to accomplish 13,965 hours of work (18.4 x 759), resulting in a deficit of 5,829 working hours or 4.3 FTE.
Note: Due to the understaffing of this unit coupled with the serious nature of the crimes prosecuted by Unit D, a managerial decision was made to temporarily add another unfunded position to this unit.
[Source: 2018 weighted case analysis conducted by the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office]
UNIT QUALITY Like other felony units, Unit D has a practice of staffing all Ballot Measure 11 (BM 11), Ballot Measure 57 (BM 57) and Multnomah County Justice Reinvestment Program (MCJRP) matters before any pretrial resolution. This process is described in more detail in the “Unit Quality” section of Unit A/B.
34 35 UNIT SPECIFIC TRAINING In addition to regular MCDA training on a variety of prosecutorial best practices in Continuing Legal Education courses (CLEs), Unit D attorneys are provided specialized training in the following areas:
• Appellate case law updates • Child Abuse reporting • Homicide investigations • Sentencing laws • Sex Crimes • Working with vulnerable victims
UNIT OUTCOMES Any Unit D case that is subject to Ballot Measure 57 is automatically eligible for the Multnomah County Justice Reinvestment Program (MCJRP), which is a program designed to increase public safety and reduce the demand for costly Oregon Department of Corrections (DOC) resources.
As described earlier in this document, every MCJRP participant participates in testing and a comprehensive background investigation to assist in determining what type of case resolution would best serve the interest of the individual and community. After the evaluation is turned into a report, a Judicial Settlement Conference is held. The evaluation report, the wishes and desires of crime victims and law enforcement and the results from the Judicial Settlement Conference are always taken into consideration while Unit D DDAs collaborate a pretrial offer.
Of the cases resolved by Unit D, 73.1% were presumptively eligible for a prison sentence based on the charge and the criminal history of the accused. However, 50.8% of those who were presumptively eligible for a prison sentence received a probation sentence. To reiterate, more than half of the individuals who could have received a prison sentence instead received probation. The overwhelming majority of which occurred because of plea offers extended by Unit D DDAs.
Unit D resolved eight cases by trial.
34 35 INVESTIGATORS Unit D has one assigned District Attorney Investigator who helps DDAs locating and personally serving subpoenas for crime victims and witnesses.
Many of Unit D cases involve crimes that are committed by, witnessed by or actually committed upon individuals who are homeless. This can make it potentially difficult to get witnesses and crime victims to court for grand jury proceedings, release hearings and even trial. As such, the assigned Unit D DA Investigator is regularly tasked with finding those people, serving them with court papers and when needed, transporting witnesses and crime victims to court.
For more information on the investigators, please refer to Unit A/B’s “Investigators” section.
COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT Unit D DDAs are frequently called to present on a variety of topics, including speaking with trained mental health professionals, nurses, child abuse prosecutors, high school students, college students, law students, interpreters, legislators and legislative committees. Unit D DDAs are also involved in various law enforcement agency meetings and community engagements.
Unit D engages the community and its system partners at the following meetings and forums:
• Alliance for Safer Communities meeting (ASC): A monthly meeting at the Portland Police Bureau attended by the SDDA of Unit D. The mission statement of the ASC is “to continue to enhance the relationship and cooperation between the law enforcement community and the sexual minority community; to foster an environment of mutual respect; to improve the dialogue between the communities; to find solutions to issues related to public safety and law enforcement training; and to help improve policies, procedures and recruitment.”
36 37 • Major Crimes Task Force meetings: Monthly meetings attended by Unit D DDAs that typically consist of either investigative case reviews or trainings held at Gresham City Hall or the Rockwood Community Policing Center. The East Multnomah County Major Crimes Team is a multi-agency collaboration whose goal is to pool experience and resources in investigating major crimes that occur within Multnomah County but outside the jurisdiction of the Portland Police Bureau. Member agencies include the Gresham Police Department, the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office, Port of Portland Police, Oregon State Police and the District Attorney’s Office.
• Multnomah County’s Adult Disability Multidisciplinary Team: A quarterly meeting coordinated by the District Attorney’s Office. The goal of the Adult TMD is a coordinated multidisciplinary approach to the prevention and investigation of abused individuals with disabilities. Team members include a representative from Unit D, Oregon Department of Human Services, Multnomah County Department of Human Services, Disability Rights Oregon, Portland Police Bureau, Gresham Police Department and the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office.
• Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner (SANE) trainings: The District Attorney’s Office provides training to SANE candidates several times a year. Twice a year, Unit D DDAs accompany SANE candidates to an actual trial featuring Sexual Assault examination testimony and evidence. At least once a year, the District Attorney’s Office puts on a mock trial for SANE candidates, highlighting issues relating to SANE testimony and evidence.
• Multnomah County’s Sexual Assault Response Team (SART): A collaboration of first responders in sexual assault cases that meets every other month.
• Untested Sexual Assault Kit Project Initiative (SAKI) meeting: This team meets weekly to review cases and the DDA also assists law enforcement agencies around the state to ensure all sexual assault kits are tested. The District Attorney’s Office works closely with law enforcement partners on the Portland Police Bureau’s Sexual Assault Kit Initiative team.
36 37 POLICE AND AGENCY ASSISTANCE Once a year, every DDA in Unit D is on the office-wide on-call list and is required to spend one week being available around the clock to review warrants and respond to general law enforcement questions that come in outside of traditional business hours.
For more information about the District Attorney’s general on-call procedure for DDAs, please see the “Police and Agency Assistance” section in Unit A/B.
The Unit D DDA assigned to Untested Sexual Assault Kit Initiative (SAKI) is always on call to review search warrants, discuss active investigations, and meet with victims.
Members of law enforcement rely on Unit D to provide assistance early on in investigations of serious assaults and homicides. This includes reviewing search warrants at all hours of the day.
DDAs in Unit D are routinely called upon to respond to homicide scenes, officer- involved shootings and other major crime scenes. These assignments can occur at any time without warning.
In FY 2019, Unit D DDAs responded to 21 homicides and/or officer involved shooting scenes and attended approximately 19 autopsies.
CHALLENGES & OPPORTUNITIES Depending on the type of crime committed, a Unit D case, such as a homicide, may remain under active litigation for up to, and potentially longer than, a year. Unit D DDAs may have one or more homicide/officer involved shooting case open at any given point. These time-intensive cases are in addition to other matters – such as parole violation hearings and parole release hearings – that Unit D DDAs have on their caseloads.
GAINING DDA POSITIONS In the future, the District Attorney’s Office looks to expand resources within Unit D. With additional DDAs, Unit D would increase efficiency internally and positive outcomes for members of our community; caseloads would become more manageable and DDAs would have more time devoted to individual cases, to focus on crime victims and to work on implementing strategic crime prevention policies.
Although Unit D DDAs currently engage in collaborative efforts to prevent or mitigate crime, with additional DDAs, the unit could significantly increase those efforts and strengthen our role in community development.
38 39 Domestic Violence Unit
UNIT DESCRIPTION Deputy District Attorneys (DDAs) assigned to the Domestic Violence Unit review, issue and prosecute all crimes of domestic violence between family or household members as defined in ORS 135.240(4). The DV Unit handles both felony and misdemeanor level criminal cases.
The relationships between the victim and offenders are both intimate partner violence (IPV) and non-intimate partner violence (NIPV). The DV Unit is also responsible for reviewing, issuing, negotiating, and prosecuting allegations of contempt of court for violations of a Family Abuse Prevention Act (FAPA) restraining order.
The DV Unit is committed to ending family abuse. The DV Unit engages in evidence- based prosecution of domestic violence. It emphasizes the importance of victim advocacy services for all victims and their children. Even when the prosecutor decides to proceed with a case without a victim’s participation, every effort is made to offer the victim advocacy services from available resources.
The Felony Mental Health DDA position is contained within the DV Unit. This Mental Health DDA is responsible for handling all Aid and Assist (A&A) issues that can occur in a case. The Mental Health DDA coordinates the efforts of the Multnomah County Mental Health Court and all Civil Commitment proceedings, whether the case has a DV nexus or not.
38 39 CASE WORK The Domestic Violence (DV) Unit prosecuting the following crimes:
• All levels of sex crimes • Arson I & II • Assault I, II, III, IV • Burglary I and II • Coercion • Criminal Mischief • Harassment • Kidnapping I & II • Manslaughter • Menacing • Murder I • Murder II • Other crimes that occur during an incident of domestic violence • Recklessly Endangering Another • Strangulation • Unlawful Use of a Weapon
UNIT DEMOGRAPHICS
40 41 For FY 2019, the DV Unit received 2,776 case referrals. Of those, 56.6% (1,571) were issued.
Individuals prosecuted by the DV Unit were identified as 53.5% White, 26.6% Black, 13.4% Hispanic, 3.1% Asian or Pacific Islander (API), 0.9% Native American, and 2.4% unknown/ missing. Males were 85.6% of the individuals prosecuted by the DV Unit, while females comprised the remaining 14.4%.
Victims of DV crimes were identified as 59.2% white, 17.8% Black, 11.9% Hispanic, 3.2% API, 0.5% Native American, and 7.5% unknown/missing. Victims were 18.8% male, 77.9% female, 0% transgender and 3.3% unknown/missing.
For FY 2019, one juvenile was prosecuted in DV. This juvenile was a White male.
Of all of the cases the DV Unit handled in FY 2019, the 82.7% were person crimes and 17.3% were non-person crimes.
UNIT STAFFING The DV Unit has seven (7) total FTE – consisting of six (6) FTE DDAs and one (1) FTE Supervisory Senior Deputy District Attorney (SDDA).
At any given moment, the average number of cases being prosecuted by a DV Unit DDA is approximately 67.
In FY 2019, the DV Unit reviewed 2,776 cases.
Each referred case requires an average of 4.1 working hours to reach a conclusion.
After reducing for standard annual leave time and accounting for dedicated time for community involvement and training, each FTE DDA has 1,168 hours available to work referred cases.
Therefore, the DV Unit has 8,176 working hours (1,168 x 7 FTE) in a year to accomplish 11,381 hours of work (4.1 x 2,776) resulting in a deficit of 3,205 working hours or 2.7 FTE.
[Source: 2018 weighted case analysis conducted by the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office]
40 41 UNIT QUALITY DDAs assigned to the DV Unit prosecute cases to enhance victim safety and community safety while holding abusers accountable. In some instances, DV cases are prosecuted without the support of the primary witness. These cases pose unique and difficult challenges. They are similar in complexity to gang or human trafficking cases.
Special care is always taken to successfully prosecute a DV case with a reluctant or recanting victim. DDAs exercise discretion to issue cases that are consistent with proof and in the best interest of the victim, the community and criminal justice system.
Like other felony units, the DV Unit has a practice of staffing all Ballot Measure 11 case before any pretrial resolution. This process is described in more detail in the “Unit Quality” section of Unit A/B.
It is office policy that only the District Attorney may accept a pretrial offer on a homicide case.
Also, like in other felony units, before a case is discussed at the unit’s weekly review, DDAs participate in at least one, often times more, Judicial Settlement Conference (JSC). For more information on the JSC, see the “Unit Quality” section of Unit A/B.
UNIT SPECIFIC TRAINING In addition to weekly unit trainings and regular office-wide training on a variety of prosecutorial best practices in Continuing Legal Education courses (CLEs), Unit C DDAs are provided specialized training in the following areas:
• Appellate case law updates • Child abuse reporting • Domestic violence case dynamics • Lethality in Intimate Partner Relationships • Prosecution without a cooperating victim • Sentencing laws • Victim-informed care
42 43 COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT The DV Unit engages our community and its system partners at the following meetings and forums:
• The Justice Jammers Program: A multi-jurisdictional effort to address domestic violence. This group of five counties, including Multnomah, Clackamas, ashington,W Columbia and Clark (Washington), which meets quarterly to identify gaps in the criminal justice system and create effective ways of providing better response for VD victims. The Justice Jammers Program has been involved in identifying and passing legislation to support victims of domestic violence. Additionally, the program conducts domestic violence training.
• DV Fatality Review Team: This team conducts assessments on DV-related homicide cases to better understand what preventative measures could be established to avoid a similar scenario. The project team reviews two homicides each year. The participants include members from every sector of our community including this office, judges, law enforcement, parole and probation representatives, system and community based advocates, service providers, the Oregon Department of Human Services representatives, CARES Northwest representatives and a member of the Multnomah County Board of Commissions. As a result of the DV Fatality Review Team case analysis, best practices and statewide policies are developed to educate and inform our community and community partners who strive to end domestic violence.
• The Family Violence Coordinating Council: Members include the Multnomah County Office of Domestic Violence, the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office, judges, law enforcement, service providers for both victims and offenders, faith-based organizations, and a member from the Multnomah County Board of Commissioners. The executive committee meets monthly to develop an agenda for the larger board meeting. Members meet monthly to address specific needs identified in our community and to provide training and education to all members.
• Multnomah County DV Workgroup: This group meets monthly to identify structural issues within the court system and how they blend with misdemeanor DV cases. The group consists of Multnomah County Circuit Court judges, MCDA, defense bar managers, the parole and probation DV manager, a victim’s rights lawyer, and court staff. The flow of cases in Multnomah County is examined and changes are made to address barriers identified by the workgroup.
• Multnomah County DV Pre-Trial Safety Workgroup: This group meets monthly to address pre-trial safety concerns for DV victims. The group studies best practices and is working to develop better methods to include the victim’s perspective and risk assessment to the release decision.
42 43 SPECIALTY COURTS The Felony Mental Health DDA is a full-time position encompassing Mental Health Court, the Aid and Assist Docket, and, when available, Civil Commitment Hearings, as well as working with community partners and agencies on cases involving the intersection of mental health and the criminal justice system.
Between 50 and 60 individuals participate in Mental Health Court, which takes place every Thursday.
This is a high-risk and high-needs population and requires a very high level of supervision and specialized services in order to be successful in our community. To qualify for Mental Health Court, a person must be medically diagnosed with a major mental disorder (such as schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, bi-polar disorder, and major depressive disorder). Due to the seriousness of their crimes, combined with significant criminal histories, many individuals have been diverted from prison as a result of the Mental Health Court program.
While in Mental Health Court, individuals receive intensive supervision from specialized probation officers and the court. Participants benefit from wrap-around services including a court monitor and peer support specialists. The goal is to reduce recidivism and to promote healthy behaviors, which is achieved by working to keep participants housed, increasing routine access to mental health medication and treatment, and providing access to drug and alcohol treatment when appropriate. For more information, click here.
The Aid and Assist docket is held every Tuesday at the Multnomah County Justice Center. All felony and misdemeanor cases in which a person’s competency to stand trial is in question are on this centralized docket. The number of cases varies.
The Mental Health DDA covers contested aid and assist hearings for most cases, which can take between four and eight hours. All cases are staffed on the Monday before the Aid and Assist hearing. The meeting typically takes about an hour, and includes Multnomah County Circuit Court Judge Nan Waller, defense counsel, the Mental Health DDA, representatives from the Multnomah County Forensic Diversion Program (FDP), and a representative psychologist from Northwest Forensic Institute. During this meeting, the team collectively analyzes cases for the Rapid Evaluation Process, which can help identify acutely mentally ill individuals who are in custody in order to address their cases more quickly.
This expedited process allows the accused to receive a comprehensive forensic psychiatric evaluation so that he or she can be transitioned out of custody and into a therapeutic environment, which may include the Oregon State Hospital, local hospitals, or connecting with other local services.
44 45 Civil Commitment hearings are held Monday through Friday at different hospitals. There are typically three hearings per day. The Felony Mental Health DDA covers civil commitment hearings, whenever available, and typically, on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and a Certified Law Student or other DDA covers the hearings on Tuesday and Thursday. Civil Commitment hearings involve a judge, judicial assistant, defense attorney, DDA, two mental health examiners, and representatives from the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office. Hearings are held at all the major hospitals with inpatient psychiatric units as well as some Secured Residential Treatment Facilities (SRTFs). Hearings are frequently held in multiple hospitals on the same day. This requires a significant amount of travel time for all participants. The Felony Mental Health DDA also represents the State of Oregon in commitment hearings for Extremely Dangerous Persons with Mental Illness, pursuant to ORS 426.701, before the Psychiatric Security Review Board (PSRB) in Salem, Oregon.
44 45 POLICE AND AGENCY ASSISTANCE Once a year, every felony-level DDA in the DV Unit is on the office-wide on-call list and is required to spend one week being available around the clock to review warrants and respond to general law enforcement questions that come in outside of traditional business hours.
For more information on the general office on-call responsibilities, see the olice“P and Agency Assistance” section in Unit A/B.
In addition to general on-call duties, the SDDA and any Level III DDA assigned to the DV Unit are on-call around the clock to respond to any homicide with a DV-nexus.
The Domestic Violence Reduction Unit (DVRU) is a special program within the Portland Police Bureau’s Special Victims Unit. All DV police reports, where the accused is not located or arrested, are forwarded to DVRU supervisors for review. The supervisors triage cases according to several factors involving risk. DVRU maintains officers and detectives to conduct follow-up investigations and locate and arrest the DV offenders. The DV Unit works closely with DVRU officers and detectives to assist in search warrant reviews and other investigative work to prepare case for prosecution upon arrest. Work may include identifying and interviewing witnesses, re-interviewing the victim and referring children to CARES Northwest, Multnomah County’s child abuse assessment center, for a forensic interview regarding the alleged abuse. DDAs assigned to the DV Unit work with the law enforcement members assigned to DVRU to identify items of evidentiary value that can further prosecution efforts, and when appropriate, forward those items to the Oregon State Police Crime Lab for analysis.
The Domestic Violence Enhanced Response Team (DVERT) is a specially trained team co- located with DVRU. DVERT consists of detectives and officers and response advocates who work with DV victims to assess their safety needs in high lethality cases of domestic violence. This unit works closely with the Portland Police Bureau, Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office and Oregon Department of Human Services to provide an assessment geared toward victim safety. DVERT cases are staffed bi-weekly with DVERT and a DDA of the DV Unit to assess progress toward arrest and prosecution.
The Felony Mental Health DDA engages with law enforcement and other system partners and agencies, to provide trainings on the intersection of mental health and the criminal justice system. The DDA attends meetings with community partners including Civil Commitment systems meetings, and Mental Health Court system meetings; Portland Police Bureau’s weekly Threat Assessment Team meeting and the Portland Police Bureau’s Behavioral Health Unit (BHU) weekly case staffing meeting.
In FY 2019, the DV Unit responded to two death investigations and attended two autopsies.
46 47 CHALLENGES & OPPORTUNITIES Domestic violence continues to harm our community and in order to hold offenders accountable, the District Attorney must be able to dedicate resources that are specifically trained at being victim-centered and trauma-informed. With additional resources to the DV Unit, we can ensure survivors receive the best possible services; that they feel comfortable coming forward knowing their cases will be prioritized.
GAINING DDA POSITIONS The District Attorney’s Office would like to expand the unit in the future. With additional DDAs resources, the DV Unit would be able to further dedicate a DDA to serve the most vulnerable members of our community such as the elderly, non-English speaking, the homeless community, and individuals with disabilities. These populations face unique challenges and barriers to the criminal justice system already, and are among the first to be exploited by abusers.
Additional resources would allow the DV Unit to interact proactively to prevent domestic violence from even occurring through increased advocacy and outreach including education on prevention to our community partners and community at large.
This would be accomplished by creating a model similar to the Multnomah County Multidisciplinary Child Abuse Team model. The focus would be on the total family, working with Oregon Department of Human Services, family courts, CARES Northwest and Multnomah County’s Department of Community Justice to address holistically all impacts of domestic violence on the family.
46 47 Photo: MDT Child Abuse Team Senior Deputy District Attorney Amity Girt
48 49 Multidisciplinary Child Abuse Team (MDT Child Abuse Team)
UNIT DESCRIPTION Nearly every victim in cases handled by MDT Child Abuse Team is younger than 18 years old. Many of the crimes prosecuted are subject to Ballot Measure 11 (BM 11), Ballot Measure 73 (BM 73) and Jessica’s Law. The investigation and discovery in a MDT/CAT case is vast and time consuming. Cases that do not result in the death of child can be more complicated than some murder cases prosecuted by other units.
The MDT Child Abuse Team has three primary functions:
• Coordinating child protection efforts and policy with community partners to make and keep children safe.
• Prosecute felony crimes involving child victims including homicide, physical abuse, abandonment and neglect and prosecute sexual exploitation and sexual assault of children where the suspect is not considered a stranger to the victim.
• Protect children by participating as a party in dependency cases in juvenile court.
The MDT Child Abuse Team has a variety of other responsibilities that include providing a discussion forum for interagency issues, facilitating training for agencies involved in child abuse and neglect, participating in policy meetings regarding child abuse and neglect, preparing and updating protocols for MDT/CAT DDAs and advising and consulting on child abuse legal issues on a state and national level.
48 49 CASE WORK The Multnomah County District Attorney’s Multidisciplinary Child Abuse Team (MDT Child Abuse Team) is responsible for prosecuting the following:
• All child homicides except vehicular homicides and gang-related homicides. This includes all attempted homicides as well, such as attempted murder in the first or attempted murder in the second degree.
• All felony sex crimes where the victim is currently under age 18 and the perpetrator is considered “family” as defined by statute
• Custodial Interference I and II where the Oregon Department of Human Services (DHS) is custodian
• Felony child abandonment cases
• Felony child physical abuse cases
• Dependency cases handled by the MDT Child Abuse Team DDAs include:
• Juvenile court dependency cases that correspond with an adult court criminal prosecution of one of the crimes listed above
• Juvenile court dependency cases that have been designated as “red flag,” or high risk cases pursuant to the MDT/CAT protocol
• Juvenile court dependency cases that correspond with a criminal investigation of one of the crimes listed above and the decision to decline prosecution is made after the case is accepted by a MDT DDA to handle
Beginning in July of 2019, all dependency cases are now litigated by the Oregon Department of Justice on behalf of their client, DHS. The role of the MDT Child Abuse Team DDA has changed to become a party in the case as contrasted with the attorney in charge of prosecuting the petition.
50 51 UNIT DEMOGRAPHICS
For FY 2019, the MDT Child Abuse Team received 150 case referrals. Of those, 43% (65) were issued.
Individuals prosecuted by the MDT Child Abuse Team were identified as 53.8% white, 15.4% Black, 26.2% Hispanic, 3.1% Asian or Pacific Islander (API), and 1.5% Native American. Males were 89.2% of those prosecuted by the MDT Child Abuse Team and females were 10.8%. Victims of MDT Child Abuse Team cases were identified as 56.3% White, 17.2% Black, 18.8% Hispanic, 3.0% API, 0.0% Native American, and 4.7% unknown/missing. Victims were identified as 23.4% male, 76.6% female, 0% transgender and 0% unknown/missing.
For FY 2019, one juvenile was prosecuted by the MDT Child Abuse Team. This juvenile was a White male.
50 51 For FY 2019 the MDT Child Abuse Team handled 94.3% person crimes and 5.7% non- person crimes. Of the non-person crimes, 4.2% were drug crimes and 1.5% were other crimes.
UNIT STAFFING The MDT/CAT has four (4) FTE – consisting of three (3) FTE Deputy District Attorneys (DDAs) and one (1) FTE Supervisor Senior Deputy District Attorney (SDDA).
At any given moment, the average number of cases being prosecuted – to include dependency cases – by an MDT DDA is approximately 42.
In FY 2019, the MDT Child Abuse Team reviewed 150 cases.
Each referred case takes an average of 43.5 working hours to complete.
After reducing for standard annual leave time and accounting for dedicated time for community involvement and training, each FTE DDA has 1,512 hours available to work referred cases.
Therefore, MDT has 6,048 working hours (1,512 x 4 FTE) in a year to accomplish 6,525 hours of work (43.5 x 150), resulting in a deficit of 477 working hours or .3 FTE.
[Source: 2018 weighted case analysis conducted by the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office]
QUALITY The MDT Child Abuse Team recognizes the extreme responsibility it has to our community, victims and the accused.
Like other felony units, the MDT Child Abuse Team has a practice of staffing all Ballot Measure 11, Ballot Measure 73 and Jessica’s Law case before any pretrial resolution.
For more information, please see the “Unit Quality” section in Unit A/B. With regard to a Jessica’s Law case, the MDT Child Abuse Team will be to discuss any pretrial resolution with the Chief Deputy District Attorney and the SDDA.
It is office policy that only the District Attorney may accept a pretrial offer on a homicide case.
52 53 UNIT SPECIFIC TRAINING In addition to weekly unit trainings and regular office-wide training on a variety of prosecutorial best practices in Continuing Legal Education courses (CLEs), MDT DDAs are provided specialized training in the following areas:
• Appellate case law updates • Child Abuse reporting • Family Violence • National and Regional Child Abuse conferences • Prosecuting Child Sexual Abuse • Shaken Baby/Abusive Head Trauma Summit
OUTCOMES For FY 2019, the MDT Child Abuse Team resolved 14 cases by trial for a total of 68 days in trial. As of the end of FY 2019, the MDT Child Abuse Team had a total of 162 open cases (criminal and dependency).
INVESTIGATORS The MDT Child Abuse Team has one dedicated DA Investigator who helps DDAs in locating and personally serving subpoenas for victims and witnesses for grand jury proceedings, motion hearings and trial.
When preparing for trial, the MDT Child Abuse Investigator will spend hours redacting exhibits in accordance with Oregon law.
For additional information, see the “Investigators” section in Unit A/B.
COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT The MDT Child Abuse Team DDAs are expected to be available for public speaking engagements and are required to train others in areas of child abuse prosecution and child abuse/neglect reporting.
They also routinely involve themselves in community activities that reflect positively upon the office while having an active trial caseload.
In FY 2019, MDT Child Abuse Team DDAs presented at, or facilitated, multiple meetings and forums or participated in other areas of community involvement as listed below:
52 53 • Association of Prosecuting Attorneys’ Child Abuse Prosecution Project • CARES Northwest Annual Conference (Presenting on “Taking the witness stand: How to prepare for court and be an effective witness”) • Mentors to younger DDAs within the office • Facilitated job shadow opportunities for college and high school students • Facilitated or presented at every MDT Monthly Meeting • Facilitated tour to federal judicial externs • Presented at WomenStrength/GirlStrength Program Trainings • Presented for MBA CLE on Child Abuse Reporting • Presented to a Daycare facility on Child Abuse Reporting • Presented to MCDA in CLE on Trial Basics • Presented to Summit Learning Charter School • Presenting at DHS East Branch (With CAT regarding child abuse investigations) • Sunset High School Mock Trial (Assistant coach to team)
POLICE AND AGENCY ASSISTANCE Once a year, every MDT Child Abuse DDA is on the office-wide on-call list and is required to spend one week being available around the clock to review warrants and respond to general law enforcement questions that come in outside of traditional business hours.
For additional information about the general office on-call policy, see the olice“P and Agency Assistance” section in Unit A/B.
Additionally, all members of the MDT Child Abuse Team are expected to be on-call to respond to any child abuse/neglect homicide scene. While on-call, DDAs are responsible for answering calls from medical, law enforcement or Oregon Department of Human Services or other MDT partners. These calls can come at any given point throughout a day and delays are not acceptable. When a DDA is called to respond to an unexpected death that involves a child, they work closely with law enforcement from the onset of the investigation.
In FY 2019, MDT Child Abuse Team DDAs were assigned to a total of 18 child death investigations. The DDAs attend nearly every associated autopsy.
CHALLENGES & OPPORTUNITIES Given the complexity and sensitivity of the nature of MDT work, losing even a single DDA will impact the unit’s ability to effectively prosecute complex child homicides case. The MDT Child Abuse Team is responsible for directing all child death investigations. Given the small size of the unit (only four DDAs), losing a single DDA would be a 25% reduction of these critical resources.
54 55 A reduction in any DDA position would result in a compromise to child death investigations. Many MDT Child Abuse Team cases can involve multiple suspects, complex medical issues and require DDAs to work closely with the investigative team, DHS and the medical community. These cases are not solved quickly and are very time intensive. If one DDA is in trial and another is on vacation, this leaves only one DDA to run the day-to-day operations of the unit while attempting to coordinate a homicide investigation.
The MDT Child Abuse Team is known to be a statewide leader of child abuse prosecutions. DDAs are known for their knowledge of the law, trial ability and input on statewide policy matters. MDT Child Abuse Team DDAs are frequently asked to participate in regional and statewide trainings, such as the CARES Northwest yearly training event, Oregon Department of Public Safety Standards and Training (DPSST) seminars, DHS training, Oregon Department of Justice (DOJ) trainings, Oregon District Attorneys Association (ODAA) conferences.
Photo: MCDA employees and their families take a group photo at the 2019 Race Against Child Abuse event in St. Helens, Oregon.
54 55 GAINING DDA POSITIONS The District Attorney’s Office wishes to expand the MDT Child Abuse Team with additional resources in the future. Gaining additional MDT Child Abuse Team resources would have a significant impact on the unit’s productivity and secure Multnomah County as a national leader in child abuse prosecution. An additional DDA would result in numerous benefits, including:
• Communicate with Multnomah County’s Department of Community Justice to improve monitoring of individuals on supervision for MDT Child Abuse Team cases, particularly those in which there is also an open dependency case;
• Dedicate time to improve the organization of the dependency case files and strengthen the review of court reports in anticipation of upcoming hearings;
• Develop expertise and increase the number and speed of international extraditions for the MDT Child Abuse Team cases. Currently, there are cases in warrant status where the accused has likely fled the jurisdiction. We simply cannot currently prioritize these cases because we do not have the resources. These outstanding warrants deny justice to child victims.
• Have more time to dedicate to managing criminal investigations on cases;
• If the MDT Child Abuse Team had additional DDAs, we would become more involved with law enforcement on non-homicide investigations at an earlier stage. Often, the MDT Child Abuse Team DDAs are not made aware of a physical abuse investigation until the case is already several days old. At this point, valuable investigative tactics, including the ability to apply for a warrant in some situations, are no longer available;
• Increase the number of times that we are able to make thoughtful proposals to resolve juvenile dependency cases and circulate those proposals to the other parties far enough in advance of JSCs to afford the parents’ attorneys an opportunity to discuss those proposals with their clients and thereby increasing the odds that dependency cases will resolve more expediently and with less churning of court dates;
• Increase and improve communication with law enforcement to provide legal guidance. The MDT Child Abuse Team would have a greater capacity to attend roll call with law enforcement and present updates on case law;
• Increase time to communicate and check in with victims/victims’ families while criminal cases are pending trial;
56 57 • Participate more frequently in Family Decision, Child Safety and other meetings on open dependency cases;
• Participate more frequently in search warrant executions;
• The MDT Child Abuse Team would be able to review cases faster and set those matters for grand jury.
The Oregon Department of Justice began appearing on all dependency cases representing DHS in July of 2019. To further enhance child safety MCDA feels compelled to remain involved in dependency work.
Despite recent state and federal resource reductions, the MDT Child Abuse Team DDAs continue to appear on these cases as a party to the proceedings because of our continued commitment to child safety.
While the dependency work performed by the MDT Child Abuse Team is critical in ensuring the safety of children in Multnomah County, to be able to continue this high quality work, we must continue to review our policy regarding what types of dependency cases the MDT Child Abuse Team can remain involved in.
56 57 Photo: Pretrial Unit Deputy District Attorney Chelsea Sandbloom
58 59 Pretrial Unit
UNIT DESCRIPTION Misdemeanor Charging Decisions: The Pretrial Unit is responsible for reviewing all misdemeanor cases that do not involve domestic violence. The unit receives cases from law enforcement agencies in three ways: 1) a full custody arrest, which are commonly referred to as “custodies,” 2) citations and 3) arrest warrants. A Pretrial Unit DDA will review each case to determine if: 1) a crime was committed, 2) if the case can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt with admissible evidence and 3) if the case should be dealt with via the criminal justice system. All custody cases must be reviewed before 1:00 pm the day they are received, this usually involves between 20 and 30 custodies each day, but can exceed 80 after a weekend. The goal is to review all other cases within 30 days of receipt. The Pretrial Unit received 12,391 non-domestic violence misdemeanor cases for review in FY 2019.
Felony Arraignments: A Pretrial Unit DDA is responsible for appearing in felony arraignment court, which happens twice a day. During these hearings, the DDA will make release recommendations that take into account the safety of the victim(s) and public, the severity of the offense, and a person’s score on the revised Virginia Pretrial Risk Assessment tool. The risk assessment tool consists of objective questions that are empirically validated to ensure consistent release decisions in Multnomah County.
Set Aside Applications: The Pretrial Unit has the responsibility of representing the State of Oregon in proceedings when people petition to set aside their arrests and convictions. The state will object to set aside requests if the applicant does not qualify under Oregon law or if a countervailing reason – such as continued violations of the law – is apparent. Applicants who qualify to have their arrest and/or conviction set aside are able to overcome obstacles that have previously prevented them from such things as obtaining employment and/or housing. In FY 2019, the Pretrial Unit reviewed 2,218 expungement requests compared to 1,806 in FY 2018, a 36% year-over-year increase.
Grand Jury Assistance: The Pretrial Unit provides orientation and general assistance for all three grand jury panels in Multnomah County. The Senior Deputy District Attorney (SDDA) of the unit works with the Chief Criminal Presiding Judge to ensure all grand jurors are provided the support necessary for their four week term.
58 59 Review of Indictments: A Pretrial Unit DDA is responsible for reviewing and signing any indictment issued by a Multnomah County Grand Jury. The DDA will sign an indictment only after reviewing it for factual errors and after ensuring that the charges reflect the vote of the Grand Jury.
Fugitive and Extradition cases: The Pretrial Unit represents the State of Oregon in all Multnomah County fugitive and extradition matters. The SDDA consults with representatives of Oregon’s Governor in all extradition and fugitive matters. The SDDA communicates with demanding states to ensure fugitives held in Oregon receive a Governor’s Warrant within 45 days of their arrest.
Public Records Requests: A DDA experienced in public records law reviews all public records requests made to this office. Consistent with the District Attorney’s commitment to responsible transparency, the public records DDA promptly complies with the letter and spirit of the public records law. In certain cases, it is necessary to withhold portions of a record to protect a crime victim or the integrity of an ongoing investigation, but the goal is to release as much as possible as quickly as possible.
Public Records Appeals: The SDDA of the Pretrial Unit serves as the District Attorney’s public records advisor. This involves preparing public records orders that resolve disputes between members of the public and local governmental agencies relating to access to the agency’s records.
Post-Conviction Litigation: The Pretrial Unit is responsible for representing the State of Oregon in post-conviction proceedings initiated by persons not in custody. The adequacy of counsel is a bedrock principle of the criminal justice system. Petitions are reviewed to determine whether individuals were represented according to appropriate standards. The case will proceed to a hearing and trial if the DDA determines that the petition has no merit.
Identification Issues: The Pretrial Unit assists community members who believe their criminal record may be incorrect due to misidentification. The unit works expeditiously to ensure that any misidentification is promptly corrected.
Appeals Coordination: The SDDA of the Pretrial Unit acts as the appeals coordinator and provides an appeals memorandum to management to determine whether an appeal is appropriate. Once an appeal is approved, the SDDA works with the Oregon Department of Justice (ODOJ) to facilitate the appeal.
Dissemination of Appellate Decisions: A DDA in the unit reviews and circulates a concise weekly summary of criminal appellate court decisions to ensure that all DDAs throughout the office are aware of changes in law.
60 61 Restitution DDA: The Pretrial Unit Restitution DDA assists in the responsibility of ensuring victims are compensated for their loss. The DDA works with victims, restitution clerks, other DDAs in the office, victim advocates and court staff to collect the documents necessary for the court to impose restitution. The DDA maintains and disseminates an updated summary of all appellate decisions relating to restitution issues. The Restitution DDA partners with other agencies such as Multnomah County’s Department of Community Justice (DCJ) to seek positive outcomes for restitution recovery. As an example, the Multnomah County Restitution Work Crew is a program that empowers individuals with little to no financial resources to pay back restitution by working for participating local organizations. The program benefits both probationers and victims.
Probation Violation Matters: A .6 FTE DDA appears in court on the three docketed days that expedited probation violation matters are addressed in Justice Center Courtroom #2. This DDA is responsible for reviewing recommendations and advocating the State’s position regarding appropriate sanction on probation cases that do not fit within a specialty program or unit.
Out-of-State Subpoena Requests: All requests under the Uniform Act to Secure the Attendance of Witnesses from Without a State in Criminal Proceedings are overseen by a Pretrial DDA who will assist any state in serving a subpoena for a pending criminal matter. The DDA will appear on behalf of another state if a witness requests a hearing.
General Advice: Each Pretrial Unit DDA, excluding entry-level DDAs, fields legal and procedural questions from other DDAs in the office on a regular basis.
Special Projects: The Pretrial SDDA routinely prepares research memoranda and policy recommendations or litigates issues of import to the office.
UNIT DEMOGRAPHICS The Pretrial Unit reviews all misdemeanor charges for prosecution and forwards all issued cases to the Misdemeanor Trial Unit for prosecution. For prosecution statistics, please see the Misdemeanor Trial Unit section.
60 61 UNIT STAFFING The Pretrial Unit has 8.6 total FTE - consisting of 7.6 FTE Deputy District Attorneys (DDAs) and one (1) FTE Supervisor Senior Deputy District Attorney (SDDA).
QUALITY The Pretrial Unit SDDA is a member of the local Multnomah County Circuit Court Pretrial Reform Committee. The SDDA engages with the court, the Multnomah County Department of Community Justice, the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office, the defense bar, the Legal Director of the Oregon Crime Victims Law Center and others committed to responsible pretrial reform. The purpose of the local committee is to assist in the development of a pretrial risk assessment protocol that ensures the safety of victims and public and allows the release of individuals who score low on the appropriate pretrial risk assessment tool.
Misdemeanor issuing is tracked closely and has established criteria for program eligibility to ensure consistent treatment of similarly situated defendants across all demographic categories. Training materials educate new lawyers on the wide array of applicable law to ensure that legally supportable charging decisions are made at the beginning of a case.
UNIT SPECIFIC TRAINING In addition to weekly unit trainings and regular office-wide training on a variety of prosecutorial best practices in Continuing Legal Education courses (CLEs), Pretrial Unit DDAs are provided specialized training in the following areas:
• Appellate case law updates • Child Abuse reporting • Courtroom procedure • Detailed review of indictments for legal sufficiency • Grand Jury presentation • Grand Jury recordation • How to use our case management software • Misdemeanor case review • Post-conviction law • Public records law • Search and seizure law
62 63 OUTCOMES The Pretrial Unit performs all felony arraignments and is responsible for a myriad of other non-trial related tasks including extraditions, fugitive complaints, post-conviction work, public records appeals, the grand jury process, and misdemeanor case review. The metrics for this unit cannot be tracked like other units in the office. Pretrial AsDD do not usually have criminal trial caseloads because the nature of their work supports all of the trial units. The work of those DDAs assigned to misdemeanor case review, however, can be quantified more readily.
For FY 2019, the Pretrial Unit processed 226 extradition matters, 194 public record requests, 56 public record appeals, 2,218 set aside motions, and 13,762 misdemeanor cases.
Of the misdemeanor cases reviewed, the Pretrial Unit issued criminal charges in 7,918 cases. Of those, 2,482 were immediately eligible for a diversion program.
Out of the diversion eligible cases, 570 cases were dismissed due a successful diversion.
From FY 2017 to FY 2019, the Pretrial Unit has seen an 8.5% increase in incoming misdemeanor cases for review (953 additional cases); a 37% increase in incoming set aside motions (596 additional motions); and a 65% increase in public records requests (121 additional requests). Extradition matters and public records appeals have remained relatively stable over that same period.
Incoming Case Numbers
Fig. 1 - Cases Received Fig. 2 – Monthly Average
62 63 Fig. 3 - Cases Received FY 2017 – FY 2019
Below is a snapshot of the general types of misdemeanor cases received by intake. The cases are categorized by their primary charge:
The substantial increase in misdemeanor drug prosecutions in FY 2018 is a direct result of this office’s policy determination to treat user-level drug possession offenses as misdemeanors in April 2017. These offenses were charged as felonies prior to this point.
64 65 COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT The Pretrial Unit DDA responsible for public records duties regularly engages with members of the public seeking to vindicate their rights to access public records from other agencies, or requesting records from this office. The SDDA of the unit also participates in the Open Oregon organization, which advocates governmental transparence and has provided training when requested to interested groups in the area of public records law.
Pretrial Unit DDAs are experiencing a higher volume of calls from community members who are dissatisfied with the system response to chronic nuisance behavior, such as Disorderly Conduct, Criminal Trespass and Theft. The source of their dissatisfaction does not seem to emanate from a sense of retaliation, but rather from a sense of concern and frustration. Community members are acutely aware of the difficulties most repeat offenders are experiencing, but have come to the realization that voluntary engagement in remedial services by individuals is not working. The public seems to favor controlling the individual’s environment in a way that prevents them for gaining access to substances they use, which results in poor decision making.
SPECIALTY COURTS The Pretrial Unit coordinates DUII Diversion cases. The unit is responsible for appearing in DUII Division Court once a week as well as monitoring program participants for compliance. Diversion Court allows members of the community who have been charged with their first DUII to have the case dismissed after successfully completing the diversion program. More information about DUII Diversion can be found here.
64 65 POLICE AND AGENCY ASSISTANCE Once a year, every felony-level DDA in the Pretrial Unit is on the office-wide on-call list and is required to spend one week being available around the clock to review warrants and respond to general law enforcement questions that come in outside of traditional business hours.
For more information, see the “Police and Agency Assistance” section in Unit A/B.
The public records DDA fields daily inquiries from members of the media, the public, and various governmental agencies seeking information on the public records law and discussing whether or not a formal appeal makes sense in a particular case. Informal advice and discussion reduces the number of frivolous appeals. We also frequently assist in analyzing public records issues unique to law enforcement and provide guidance to partner agencies.
Additionally, Pretrial Unit DDAs are routinely asked to provide assistance to law enforcement partners regarding criminal charges and cases that may be more effectively dealt with in an alternative manner, such as a police officer hold.
The Pretrial Unit SDDA has not historically maintained a criminal caseload due to substantial other responsibilities; but nonetheless during FY 2019, due to high volume of work in the trial units, the unit SDDA responded to two death investigations and attended one autopsy.
CHALLENGES & OPPORTUNITIES On the case review side, the Pretrial Unit is largely meeting its goal of reviewing misdemeanor cases within 60 days of receipt with current staffing. Through FY 2018 we experienced understaffing in the then-Intake Unit, which resulted in an unacceptable response time to individuals seeking criminal prosecution. At its peak, more than 700 cases were pending review, some of which had been waiting more than 10 months for an attorney to screen.
Right now, with the reorganization of the Misdemeanor Intake Unit into the Pretrial Unit, we are maintaining parity with incoming work; the loss of an attorney would send us back to the previous, unacceptable state.
The Pretrial Unit is exclusively responsible for handling all public records appeals received by the District Attorney’s Office.
The SDDA has only a seven day time period, pursuant to Oregon law, to evaluate and prepare a response to these requests.
66 67 On average, a public record appeal takes six hours to complete.
The Pretrial Unit has continued to experience a heavy increase in the workload in the area of motions to set aside old convictions and arrests with no staffing increases to manage the additional work. The unit’s legal assistant is routinely working overtime just to keep pace with preparing incoming motions for review.
The chart below shows the dramatic increase in set asides over the past 18 years. In FY 2001, we received 551 motions to set aside criminal convictions. In FY 2019, we received 2,218, a four-fold increase with no corresponding change in staffing.
In the last three years alone, the number has almost doubled. Even more alarming, the rate of increase has continued to escalate. FY 2019 saw 412 more motions than FY 2018, a 23% increase.
The District Attorney’s Office recognizes the importance of these matters but must have the appropriate staffing levels to meet the demands and expectations of the community while achieving the other duties of this unit.
GAINING DDA POSITIONS If an additional DDA was assigned to the Pretrial Unit, the unit would be able to decrease its time-to-review for both misdemeanor case review and set-aside matters.
Ideally, a 30 day turn-around would better serve both crime victims and those accused of crimes, but is not realistically attainable with current staffing.
With additional staffing, the Pretrial Unit would also be able to reduce or eliminate our reliance on certified law students to cover criminal arraignments in misdemeanor matters.
66 67 Finally, with additional staffing, misdemeanor DDAs would be able to assist with major cases being handled by the District Attorney’s Office. The ability to work on major cases, and be trained by experienced DDAs, serves as an effective retention opportunity for the District Attorney’s Office.
Photo: Misdemeanor Trial Unit Deputy District Attorney Jesse Neilson
68 69 68 69 Photo: Misdemeanor Trial Unit Deputy District Attorney Maggie Burgess
70 71 Misdemeanor Trial Unit
UNIT DESCRIPTION Misdemeanor Trial Unit (MTU) DDAs review, docket, prepare, negotiate and prosecute non-domestic violence misdemeanor criminal offenses. Specifically, MTU does the following with respect to misdemeanor criminal cases:
Docketing: Once the Pretrial Unit reviews and issues a misdemeanor case, the case is sent to MTU for all future litigation matters. When a case arrives at MTU, it is “docketed” by a MTU DDA. The “docketing” process is extremely time consuming and requires an entire re-review of the case and all associated files. Misdemeanor DDAs review all issued cases to verify the legal pleadings are accurate and to ensure the case is appropriately charged. The MTU DDA reviews the case to verify all witnesses have been added into the Data Management System (DMS) and are given subpoenas. The MTU DDA must verify all involved victims are located, contacted and sent victims’ rights notifications and restitution information. The MTU DDA does a hand re-review of all law enforcement or other reports in the file against the law enforcement databases to ensure all discovery obligations are met. The MTU DDA will order any evidence, such as photos, videos or audio lodged into evidence, medical records, Oregon Department of Motor Vehicle (DMV) suspension packets, and lab work from the Oregon State Police (OSP) Crime Lab, DMV documents, Sex Offender Registry information, 9-1-1 calls, and certified copies of admissible prior convictions, be prepared for trial. The MTU DDA will conduct a third review of the entire case materials to determine whether any investigatory follow-up is needed and coordinates with DA Investigators or law enforcement to complete these tasks.
Plea Offers/ Negotiations: DDAs prepare pretrial offers that are provided to defense attorneys on all misdemeanor cases. DDAs aim to convey these offers within 45 days of case issuance, or before a trial readiness hearing is scheduled. Drafting plea offers generally requires a thorough review of a case file to include: any previously conducted evaluations, current probationary status, public safety checklist information, victims’ requests and input, restitution documentation, relevant criminal history and any mitigating information sent by defense counsel.
70 71 Trial Preparation: All cases sent to the MTU are presumed to be trials until otherwise stated. For this reason, all files have to be prepared for actual litigation. In addition to the work duties outlined above in the “docketing” section, DDAs must also prepare jury instructions, exhibit lists, witness lists, and direct and cross examination for all anticipated witnesses and for all evidence. DDAs will contact all witnesses and victims to discuss the case and anticipated testimony. DDAs must also review, research and respond to all written motions as part of their trial preparation. These motions include, but are not limited to, discovery and evidentiary motions, motions against charging instruments, and constitutionally-based challenges to evidence or criminal process.
Trial: Misdemeanor trials usually last an average of two days. There are, generally, 15 bench and jury trials litigated by MTU each month. Many more cases are sent to trial, but resolve after legal motions are heard or resolve with a guilty plea just before trial for various reasons.
Ex Plea: One DDA on “B Docket” handles admissions and supervision of probationers in the DUII Expedited Plea Program. Entry into the program, and status checks, takes approximately three hours per week, and this does not include time spent on file preparation and pretrial negotiations.
Treatment First Program: All misdemeanor Possession of Controlled Substance (PCS) cases are eligible for the Treatment First Program. The Treatment First program requires plea offers be issued on all PCS cases in advance of the docket being prepared. It can take four hours to get through a Treatment First Program docket, and this does not account for file processing time. Reconciling, reviewing and preparing the files for this docket takes an additional three hours per week of a DDA’s time. This program also requires monthly meetings attended by program-associated DDAs.
Gresham Courthouse: One full-time DDA and support staff handle the screening, issuing, arraignment and resolution of all misdemeanor cases in the East County Courthouse. The DDA assigned to this rotation covers Community Court and diversion dockets, in addition to case management, trial readiness and actual trials.
Criminal Procedure Court (CPC): One full-time DDA spends four hours per day, three days a week in court handling the misdemeanor call docket and further proceedings matters. The average docket runs about 50 cases. The CPC DDA must prepare all files and reconcile matters prior to the docket each morning and report on trials for MTU. This position also requires the DDA to handle unplanned case negotiations and motion arguments on a regular basis in court.
Probation Violation (PV)/Show Cause Hearings: All MTU DDAs handle a variety of probation and show cause hearings that arise each week. Each hearing takes approximately 30 minutes of preparatory work and the average hearing lasts 30 minutes. The number of hearings per day varies, but there are typically three to four misdemeanor show cause or PV hearings per day.
72 73 Plea Hearings: Most misdemeanor cases resolve through a pretrial offer. The change of plea hearings themselves are handled by all misdemeanor DDAs on an ad hoc basis. Each plea hearing takes approximately 30 minutes per hearing, and there are roughly four to 10 plea hearings per day.
Restitution Hearings/Economic Damages Hearings: Many misdemeanor cases involve contested restitution hearings. These hearings can be very complex and time consuming. Due to the short life span of a misdemeanor case, it is often impossible to resolve restitution issues when the criminal case is resolved, which subsequently requires a contested hearing. There is an entire docket on Fridays for contested restitution issues on misdemeanor cases.
Civil Commitments: Two days per week, and on an as needed basis, MTU DDAs handle civil commitments within Multnomah County. There are commitments hearings almost every day, and attending these matters requires traveling to one or more hospitals. These hearings typically last all day.
As a result of the FY 2018-2019 budget, two pre-existing units (Pretrial and Intake) were combined into one. This resulted in additional workload being added to the Misdemeanor Trial Unit. The new duties assumed by the Misdemeanor Trial Unit include:
AM /PM Misdemeanor Arraignments: Newly issued misdemeanor cases, and cases brought back for show cause and probation violations are initially arraigned at the Justice Center at 9 a.m. and then again at 2 p.m. The MTU DDAs appear and represent the State of Oregon at these hearings. This is the initial stage for most misdemeanor cases and arguments regarding release and release conditions are heard at this time. Certain offenses are also eligible for expedited pleas/resolution at this time. The morning arraignment docket usually lasts two hours, and the afternoon arraignment docket usually lasts two to three hours.
Uncontested Diversion Entry: MTU DDAs now also appear all afternoon, once weekly on the uncontested diversion docket. Individuals flagged as eligible for DUII diversion appear at this docket and enter into Diversion programs. This is also the last stage wherein a DDA can and will screen a case for DUII Diversion eligibility.
AM / PM Community Court: Many misdemeanor cases are eligible for expedited reduced sanctions or dismissals in the Community Court Program. Defendants are extended plea offers that involve community service and social service contacts, and the court checks in with defendants at varying intervals. Over 300 cases are heard in Community Court each month. The court itself is split into an AM and PM docket, and runs almost all day, four days per week. An MTU attorney staffs both the AM and PM Community Court dockets each day.
72 73 UNIT CASE WORK The Misdemeanor Trial Unit (MTU) is responsible for prosecuting all misdemeanor cases, except those involving domestic violence. The unit receives cases from the Pretrial Unit, which conducts the review and issuing of all non-felony, non-domestic violence or non- bias crime case.
UNIT DEMOGRAPHICS The Pretrial Unit issues all misdemeanor charges that are then forwarded to this unit for prosecution. As such, please see the “Unit Demographics” section in the Pretrial Unit for case referral information.
Individuals, whose cases were received from law enforcement, and then prosecuted by the Misdemeanor Trial Unit were identified as 63.5% White, 22.3% Black, 9.3% Hispanic, 2.6% Asian or Pacific Islander (API), 0.9% Native American, and 1.4% unknown/missing.
Males were 74.1% of the individuals prosecuted by the Misdemeanor Trial Unit. Females were 25.7%, transgender individuals were 0.1%, and 0.1% were unknown/missing.
Victims were identified as 63.4% White, 8.3% Black, 5.1% Hispanic, 3.5% API, 0.6% Native American, and 19.0% unknown/missing. Victims were 50.1% male, 35.8% female, and
74 75 0.1% transgender and 14.0% unknown/missing.
For FY 2019, referred charges in the Pretrial Unit were 11.9% person crimes and 88.1%, 28.5% were vehicular crimes, 9.9% were drug crimes, 2.4% were weapon crimes, and 15.4% were other crimes.
UNIT STAFFING MTU has eight (8) total FTE – consisting of six (7) FTE DDAs and one (1) FTE Supervisory Senior Deputy District Attorney (SDDA).
At any given moment, the average number of cases being prosecuted by a MTU DDA is approximately 70.
In FY 2019, 7,802 cases were issued and received for prosecution for the MTU.
Each referred case requires an average of 3.9 working hours to reach a full resolution.
After reducing for standard annual leave time and accounting for dedicated time for community involvement and training, each FTE DDA has 1,476 hours available to work referred cases.
Therefore, MTU has 11,808 working hours (1,476 x 8 FTE) in a year to accomplish 30,427 hours of work (3.9 x 7,802), resulting in a deficit of 18,619 working hours or 12.6 FTE.
It is important to note: The MTU must rely on Certified Legal Students (CLS) to perform the work of DDAs thus accounting for how the unit could be so significantly understaffed and still maintain some viability.
[Source: 2018 weighted case analysis conducted by the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office] UNIT QUALITY All misdemeanor cases are resolved pursuant to the written policies in the Misdemeanor Procedures for the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office (AKA: Amber’s List) and the general guidelines set out in the Misdemeanor Negotiation Guidelines Manual. Written policies of the District Attorney’s Office govern the specific treatment of crimes involving firearms, controlled substances and certain DUII and reckless driving charges.
All MTU DDAs, CLSs and interns are instructed to refer to the written policies when engaged in any pretrial negotiated settlements.
Misdemeanor Negotiations Manual: This manual contains all frequently charged
74 75 misdemeanor offenses and outlines suggested negotiation ranges for individuals based on conduct and prior criminal history.
Firearms Offenses: All firearms offenses are negotiated in keeping with the policies and guidelines previously discussed. All pretrial offers on firearm offenses are personally reviewed by the MTU SDDA prior to issuance to defense counsel.
Controlled Substances/Treatment First: The Treatment First Program policy manual outlines the charging decisions and contemplated sentencing for all misdemeanor controlled substances cases. This manual also outlines suggested case resolution for controlled substances cases that involve other misdemeanor charges.
DUII and Reckless Driving: DUIIs cases are resolved pursuant to the statutes governing DUII Diversion and the joint agreements covering eligibility for the Multnomah County Expedited DUII Plea Program. A separate written policy governs resolution of charges linked to a DUII, including Reckless Driving and Hit and Run.
UNIT SPECIFIC TRAINING In addition to regular MCDA training on a variety of prosecutorial best practices in Continuing Legal Education courses (CLEs), MTU DDAs are provided training in the following areas:
• Animal Abuse prosecution • Appellate case law updates • Basic District Attorney Training Course (court room procedure, opening statements, direct examination of witnesses, cross examination, closing arguments, docketing procedures, voire dire) • Bias Crime prosecution • Child abuse reporting • DUII/Drugged Driver prosecution • How to use CRIMES (case management software) • Search and seizure Law • Weekly meetings to discuss upcoming cases and address a legal education topic
UNIT OUTCOMES For FY 2019, MTU resolved 162 cases by trial and 2,086 by plea offer. A large number of misdemeanor cases are dismissed pursuant to pretrial negotiations, successful completion of diversion, or because the State was unable to proceed to trial. In FY 2019, MTU DDAs, combined, spent approximately 324 days in trial.
76 77 INVESTIGATORS The MTU relies on a DA Investigator for subpoena service and assistance in obtaining items placed in evidence. DA Investigators may also assist with witness interviews. A fair amount of investigator time is spent collecting evidence because the MTU has a high volume of cases sent to trial.
COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT By sheer volume of case numbers, the MTU interfaces with the most community members out of any unit in the office due to available resources. The MTU receives no dedicated victims’ assistance services. With rare exception, all interaction with crime victims and witnesses is done by the individual DDA. Each MTU DDAs spends several hours per week speaking with crime victims and witnesses about their cases, explaining victims’ rights, explaining proposed negotiated settlements, and gathering and preparing restitution information.
The MTU engages the community and its system partners at the following meetings and forums:
• Community Court Technical Operations Meeting: The SDDA of the MTU meets on a monthly basis with two social workers, members of the Portland Business Alliance, defense bar and the bench to strategize ways to improve Community Court. This meeting focuses on ways to best maximize services offered through this court, and maximize participation in Community Court. At this time, the group is looking to re- tool the overall system to include a dedicated evaluator for all entering participants.
• Community Education Functions: Intermittently, the DDAs of MTU attend community functions such as the victim’s impact panel and speaking events held at local educational institutions. The SDDA of the unit regularly speaks at local high schools and law schools regarding criminal prosecution and trial work and is currently working on a volunteer basis with the weekly instruction of the Mock Trial class at Lewis and Clark Law School.
• Local Public Safety Coordinating Council (LPSCC) Failure to Appear Reduction Meeting: The SDDA of the MTU meets on a monthly basis with LPSCC, community members and members of the bench to discuss strategies to reduce instances of a person failing to appear for court and the consequential warrants that result. The goal of this work is to achieve significant reductions in warrant issuance and jail bed usage and to improve court efficiencies.
76 77 • Local Public Safety Coordinating Council (LPSCC) Mental Health Diversion Meeting: The SDDA of the MTU meets monthly with the LPSCC to discuss efforts to divert mentally ill individuals away from the criminal justice system. This workgroup involves members of the bench, treatment providers and the Portland Police Bureau. Collectively, this group seeks to divert individuals at a post-arrest, but pre-booking phase to prevent the person from entering the criminal justice system.
• Mental Health Court Meetings: The MTU routinely comes into contact with individuals with a mental illness. That contact may be through Civil Commitment hearings, the Aid and Assist docket, or case resolutions via Guilty Except for Insanity change of plea. Someone from the MTU regularly attends meetings for both civil commitments and aid and assist dockets. The SDDA of the unit weighs in on case resolution for many individuals who are found to be unable to aid and assist. The DDAs within the unit work to support mental health services through structured pretrial resolutions involving community services work to support efforts to divert cases out of the criminal justice system.
• Misdemeanor Meeting: The SDDA of the MTU meets twice each month to discuss court operations issues with defense bar and the bench. The purpose of these meetings is to create uniform supplemental rules that ensure accused and victim rights accountability. This workgroup has re-written the local court rules for the misdemeanor Criminal Procedure Court.
• Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office Navigator Meeting: The SDDA also attends a meeting with Cascadia Behavioral Healthcare treatment providers, members of the Department of Community Justice and members of the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office regarding post-booking diversion of mentally ill misdemeanants to appropriate treatment services. This workgroup involves a specially designated “navigator” at jail booking, and does not involve the Portland Police Bureau. The SDDA continues to receive positive feedback from the community regarding the thoughtful treatment of people experiencing mental health issues within the criminal justice system. New programs in place have significantly reduced the overall time spent in custody by people with a mental illness and more people are receiving offender-specific services.
• The SDDA of the MTU attends monthly Mental Health Court meetings and civil commitment operations meetings aimed at reduction of jail bed usage and diversion of people with mental illness.
• Treatment First Operations Meeting: The SDDA and other members of the MTU regularly attend operations meetings with the bench and defense bar to review the ongoing progress of the Treatment First alternative drug treatment court. This meeting provides system partners a venue to discuss issues, solutions and outcomes of this new drug treatment court model.
78 79 Photo: Branden J. Meadows is sworn in as a Multnomah County Deputy District Attorney assigned to the Misdemeanor Trial Unit
78 79 POLICE AND AGENCY ASSISTANCE The SDDA of the MTU regularly meets with the Portland Police Bureau’s Traffic Division to coordinate cross trainings for the two organizations. In these trainings, officers are apprised of new case law and emerging trends. New DDAs are educated on traffic investigations. The SDDA also reviews the majority of the day-time traffic blood draw/ DUII warrants in Multnomah County spending on average two hours per week reviewing warrants.
The SDDA of the MTU regularly meets with the Portland Police Bureau’s Behavioral Health Unit to discuss treatment services for people involved in the criminal justice system. These meetings also provide a venue for law enforcement to provide information about individuals in our community to the District Attorney’s Office so that targeted resolutions can be achieved.
The SDDA of the MTU meets with members of law enforcement and the Portland City Attorney’s Office regularly on matters of mass arrest and free speech.
In FY 2019, the MTU SDDA responded to three homicides scenes and attended three autopsies.
CHALLENGES & OPPORTUNITIES Given that MTU already operates at an extreme deficit of 12.6 FTE, losing a single DDA will impact the unit’s ability to effectively prosecute the number of cases that the unit customarily prosecutes each year. Members of the public who come into contact with the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office are most likely to interact with it at the misdemeanor trial court level as a victim, witness, defendant or juror. Handling these cases professionally, ethically and with appropriate vision toward the reduction of implicit racial and ethnic bias go a long way to improving public faith in the rule of law and criminal justice system.
At the current staffing levels, the DDAs in the MTU work more than 50 hours per week per attorney and are still unable, due to sheer resource constraints, to dedicate the level of attention to any individual case that the public would and should desire.
GAINING DDA POSITIONS The District Attorney’s Office, in the future, wishes to increase resources for the Misdemeanor Trial Unit. The addition of two DDAs in the unit would immediately significantly reduce the workload of the other trial DDAs.
80 81 There are currently six misdemeanor DDAs who staff all of the downtown trial courtrooms. Increasing that number to eight would dramatically increase the amount of time a DDA could spend preparing a case for trial or appropriate resolution.
With the additional DDA resources, the unit could continue staffing civil commitments with DDAs on all days, not interns, which is currently occurring.
DDAs could also attend more trainings and better develop their skills as trial attorneys.
Furthermore, with additional staffing, the District Attorney’s Office will be able to create a Misdemeanor Mental Health Unit within its Misdemeanor Trial Unit. This team would further assist all DDAs across the office to identify and provide expanded treatment and other community-based services for people whose untreated mental illness historically has resulted in longer periods of incarceration. The unit would work with law enforcement, Multnomah County Circuit Court and community-based partners to develop a comprehensive mental health diversion protocol.
80 81 Photo: Strategic Prosecution and Services Unit t Deputy District Attorney Adrienne Anderson
82 83 Strategic Prosecution and Services Unit
UNIT DESCRIPTION The Strategic Prosecution and Services Unit reviews cases that stem from neighborhood- specific concerns. The unit is responsible for interfacing with the community on many specific issues. This is a unit with complex cases, which handles a broad range of matters that span the criminal justice spectrum from issuing and prosecuting all types of misdemeanors, stolen motor vehicle cases, high-volume burglary cases, serial robbery cases, multi-victim assault cases to homicide cases. The unit’s focus is on identifying people or areas in Multnomah County that experience high-volume crimes or calls for law enforcement service. Two DDAs within the unit work on the Multnomah County Justice Reinvestment Program (MCJRP) and handle all issues related to the administration of the program and continued prosecution of probation violation matters.
The SPSU model is to employ data-driven, informed prosecution and wrap-around services for individuals identified as high-volume system users in accordance with national best practices. Prosecutions developed through the collaborative use of data, business and other community engagement, social services, and criminal justice system partnerships.
The SPSU is dedicated to a long-term vision of transforming high-volume system users from individuals generating repeated complaints and calls for service to more productive and contributing members of our community. Since the creation of SPSU about a year ago, there are many success stories of high volume system users who previously, for example, generated hundreds of calls to PPB’s Central Precinct to zero calls after focused and collaborative efforts by SPSU and our partners.
Additionally, the SPSU maintains some of the traditional “Neighborhood Deputy District Attorney” functions. However, this area of work has been greatly reduced because of ongoing budget constraints.
Despite this hardship, when possible, SPSU DDAs participate in community meetings, work with special neighborhood-based law enforcement groups, handle protest-related cases and events, and provide training to law enforcement on current criminal law topics.
82 83 UNIT CASE WORK The types of cases prosecuted by the Strategic Prosecution and Services Unit (SPSU) include:
• Chronic criminally-involved offenders • Criminally impacted neighborhoods • High-volume burglary cases • Multi-victim assault cases • Serial robbery cases • Stolen motor vehicle cases • Multnomah County Justice Reinvestment Program
UNIT DEMOGRAPHICS The Strategic Prosecution and Services Unit reviews and litigates cases that, for data collection purposes and to effectively utilize legal assistant resources, are included in the case demographic information for the Misdemeanor Intake Unit, Misdemeanor Trial Unit, Unit A, Unit B, Unit C, and Unit D.
UNIT STAFFING The SPSU has six (6) total FTE – consisting of five (5) FTE DDAs and one (1) FTE Supervisory Senior Deputy District Attorney (SDDA).
At any given moment, the average number of cases being prosecuted by a SPSU DDA is approximately 35.
In FY 2019, SPSU reviewed 550 cases.
Each referred case requires an average of 14.3 working hours to reach a full resolution.
After reducing for standard annual leave time and accounting for dedicated time for community involvement and training, each FTE DDA has 735 hours available to work referred cases.
Therefore, the Strategic Prosecution Unit has 4,410 working hours (735 x 6 FTE) in a year to accomplish 7,865 hours of work (14.3 x 550), resulting in a deficit of 3,455 working hours or 4.7 FTE.
[Source: 2018 weighted case analysis conducted by the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office]
84 85 UNIT QUALITY Like other felony units, specifically Unit A/B, the SPSU has a practice of staffing all Ballot Measure 11, Ballot Measure 57 and MCJRP cases before any pretrial resolution.
For additional information, please see the “Unit Quality” section of Unit A/B.
It is office policy that only the District Attorney may accept a pretrial offer on a homicide case.
SPSU also manages and uses the Misdemeanor Procedures for the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office(AKA: Amber’s List), which outlines the policies for issuing and resolving misdemeanor cases through Community Court. The purpose of the list is to create uniformity throughout the issuing of misdemeanors thus reducing the potential of any form of bias in the issuing process.
UNIT SPECIFIC TRAINING In addition to regular MCDA training on a variety of prosecutorial best practices in Continuing Legal Education courses (CLEs), Strategic Prosecution DDAs are provided specific training in the following areas:
• Appellate case law updates • Child Abuse reporting • Civil law intersection with criminal law • Identifying chronic offenders • Probation Violation best practices • Sentencing laws • Triaging offender-specific needs • Working with community and system partners
84 85 UNIT OUTCOMES SPSU includes a MCJRP Second Sentence DDA who monitors people placed on MCJRP probation through increased communication and collaboration with the Multnomah County Department of Community Justice, the defense bar, the court, and victims. The goal is that through the added consistency of a dedicated DDA to monitor MCJRP probationers, the probation violation process will become more efficient and consistent, and people at risk of violation sanctions will be identified and provided interventions sooner. To that end, the MCJRP Second Sentence DDA prepares files in advance of the probation violation hearings, covers as many hearings as possible, reviews administrative warrant returns with a designated MCJRP probation officer, attends meetings, reviews MCJRP files for earned discharge eligibility, and acts as a resource to other DDAs, probation officers, defense attorneys, and court personnel.
Since the position began on January 2, 2018, there have been approximately 1,496 MCJRP probation violation hearings, 851 of which (57%) were covered by the MCJRP Second Sentence DDA. For the majority of the other hearings, the Second Sentence DDA also prepared the file for the original DDA unit to cover.
Legal Services Day is a program launched by SPSU with tremendous success. This collaborative program offers individuals the opportunity to have court fees and fines waived with proof of time spent performing community service or attending treatment. Since Legal Service Day’s establishment in June of 2017, millions of dollars in court fines and fees have been waived in exchange for nearly 100,000 hours of community service.
2019 SUMMARY & TOTALS:
Approximate value of volunteer time: $5,708,600 Total amount of fines and fees absolved: $3,725,794 Total number of community service acts performed: 57,086 Total number of cases: 5,895 Total number of community service required: 30,315 Total number of events: Six Total number of people helped: 645
86 87 COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT The SPSU works on a county, state, and regional level to advance criminal justice reform. This occurs on a street-level through the daily contact that SPSU DDAs have with law enforcement and members of the community. DDAs have served, and will continue to serve when invited, as board members on various organizations dedicated to the advancement of the community and the criminal justice system. SPSU DDAs regularly work with a wide variety of partners to address everything from individual crimes to systematic issues.
Through community involvement and feedback, our office has improved communication with victims and community members, identified the types of crimes that are having disparate impact on local businesses and residents. The unit continues to explain aspects of the criminal justice system that are not well understood by the public and corrects misinformation about cases or crimes and our response to them.
SPSU DDAs are available to answer questions from victims and community members and are often the resource to whom law enforcement refers those questions. The SPSU consistently receives calls from community members asking about case status. Our close ties to the community led to the formation of Legal Services Day because we identified an enormous need for this service in Multnomah County. This program continues to improve community members’ abilities to contribute positively to their neighborhood. Community engagement has allowed our office to improve our relationships with nonprofits, governmental organizations, and law enforcement agencies. It ensures that the purpose of our job – improving public safety and accountability in Multnomah County – remains tied to the community we serve. Finally, it empowers people to give feedback to our office in a meaningful way and get a timely response.
SPSU regularly engages the community and its system partners at the following meetings and forums:
• Albina-King Safe Neighborhood Commission: A meeting with the District Attorney’s Office, Portland Community College and other community partners in the Albina- King neighborhoods to deter crime, discuss solutions, and be proactive with respect to law enforcement in that community.
• Central Precinct Commanders Problem Solving Meeting: This meeting is hosted by the Commander of Central Precinct and brings together various law enforcement agencies and city bureau employees that deal with public safety issues in the downtown area.
• Community Peace Collaborative (CPC): Bi-weekly meeting attended by multiple DDAs, the City of Portland Mayor’s Office, health and social services providers, crime prevention and security organizations, law enforcement agencies, neighborhood
86 87 associations, state and county juvenile justice and adult organizations, clergy and housing organizations treatment providers, law enforcement and community members. The purpose of this meeting is to develop solutions, interventions and prevention strategies to reduce violence and crime in Multnomah County.
• Downtown Public Safety Action Committee (PSAC): PSAC meets at Portland City Hall and is comprised of residents, business people and law enforcement. The group seeks to improve safety in the downtown commercial area of Portland.
• Downtown Safety and Security Network (DSN) Meeting: DSN provides a direct link between the criminal justice system, local businesses, and security providers in the downtown commercial district of Portland.
• East Metro Gang Enforcement Team roll calls: A weekly meeting to discuss investigations in East Multnomah County with Gresham Police and the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office and to talk about crime prevention through community outreach and trying to connect gang impacted families with community partners and services.
• Eleven 45 Meeting: Eleven 45 is a faith-based group with both secular and faith- based mentors. Low- level criminal offenders who are gang involved agree to meet with their Eleven 45 community mentor to counteract an emerging problem with gang recruitment and serious gang violence. Recently the program has expanded to include other non-gang affiliated offenders.
• Fare Enforcement Workshop Meetings: System partners meet to review and assess current practices involving fare enforcement at TriMet.
• Gang Impacted Family Team (GIFT) Meeting: GIFT is a collaboration to provide outreach services to the most entrenched gang-involved individuals who pose the highest risk to the community and to provide services to their family in an effort to break the intergenerational cycle associated with gangs. The meetings are held bi- weekly within the City of Portland.
• Lloyd Loss Prevention Meeting: Monthly meeting hosted by the District Attorney’s Office and the Portland Police Bureau to facilitate problem solving for criminal investigations derived from retail stores in the Lloyd District. Attended by law enforcement, Lloyd Mall general management, store managers, and store internal investigators, including retailers outside of the mall.
• Lloyd Security Representatives Meeting: Monthly meeting hosted by the District Attorney’s Office and the Portland Police Bureau with individuals with offices or security responsibilities, large employers, building complexes, including the Convention Center, almost all the hotels, federal and state government building representatives, and private building managers.
88 89 • Local Public Safety Coordinating Council (LPSCC) Youth and Gang Violence Subcommittee: A monthly meeting attended chaired by the CDDA assigned to Unit C. The subcommittee is tasked with implementing the Multnomah County Comprehensive Gang Assessment and Implementation Plan. The purpose of this subcommittee is to seek policy and practice changes that reduce youth and gang violence and lessen the disproportionate negative impacts of gang violence on communities of color.
• LPSCC Youth and Gang Violence Mentor Networking workgroup: Subgroup focused on connecting at-risk youth to mentors and improving coordination among mentors.
• Metro Gang Task Force Meetings: Monthly meeting with District Attorney’s Office, PPB, Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office, Gresham Police Department, Vancouver (Washington) Police Department, the Washington County Sheriff’s Office, Oregon Department of Corrections, Multnomah County Department of Community Justice, The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, U.S. Attorney’s Office and the Oregon State Police Crime lab to discuss the previous months’ shootings that had a gang motive or nexus. Parties discuss active investigations, areas disproportionately impacted by gang violence and shootings, and strategies to prevent retaliatory violence.
• National Justice Institute Grant Advisory Board: This advisory group supports the launch of a new research study entitled, “Disrupting the Pathways to Gang Violence for Youth of Color.” This is a three-year study funded through the National Institute of Justice, WEB Du Bois Program on Race & Crime.
• Oregon Homicide Investigators Board: The SDDA of SPSU serves as a board member of the Oregon Homicide Investigators Association. The Oregon Homicide Investigators Association is a non-profit educational corporation dedicated to improving investigative and prosecution outcomes in murders, serious assaults, and missing persons investigations.
• Pearl District Safety Forum: The SDDA serves as a panel member for this community based neighborhood group. The group is comprised of residents and business owners in the Pearl District who have questions and concerns about public safety.
• Portland Police Bureau (PPB) Bi-weekly shooting review: Inter-agency meeting attended by the District Attorney’s Office, law enforcement and U.S. Attorney’s Office to discuss intervention strategies for shootings occurring within the past two weeks.
• PPB Tactical Operations Division (TOD) Meetings: A meeting with the District Attorney’s Office and TOD commanders to assess current trends in gang violence and suggest approaches to enforcement.
• Project Safe Streets Meeting: A meeting with the District Attorney’s Office, law
88 89 enforcement partners and probation officers to discuss the highest at-risk youth in the county, to closely monitor their supervision, to discuss current trends in youth violence, and to provide youth access to services.
• Rockwood RENEW Meeting: The Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office created and co-facilitates a monthly meeting in Rosewood/Rockwood called RENEW, which acts as a gathering place for law enforcement agencies, non- profits, governmental organizations and concerned community members. It is an opportunity for attendees to exchange ideas and address areas of particular concern in the neighborhood, as well as making connections to begin addressing community safety issues.
• Transient Boaters Meeting: This group meets at Portland City Hall with residents and associations that are based around the rivers in Portland. The goal of the group is to address issues problems and issues associated with transients who live on the water on abandoned, and oftentimes hazardous, watercrafts.
• Transit Division Investigations Meeting: Weekly meeting discussing current crimes on the transit system.
• Transit Division Police Partners Luncheon: These meetings are with command-level executive from all agency partners in the Tri-County area that are connected to TriMet to discuss matters as they relate to public transportation.
• TriMet Continuous Improvement Team Meeting: TriMet employees discuss standard operating procedures, access to the criminal justice system, victim advocacy, and crime prevention as it relates to working at TriMet.
• TriMet Monthly Leadership Team Meeting: These meetings are with command-level executive from all agency partners in the Tri-County area to discuss approaches to transit system problems.
• Youth and Gang Violence Reduction Coordinators Meeting: Meeting for all the LPSCC Youth and Gang Violence Reduction sub-committee chairs to report on progress, collaborate with system partners, and coordinate efforts to effectuate implementation of the Multnomah County Comprehensive Gang Assessment Plan.
90 91 POLICE AND AGENCY ASSISTANCE Once a year, every DDA in SPSU is on the office-wide on-call list and is required to spend one week being available around the clock to review warrants and respond to general law enforcement questions that come in outside of traditional business hours.
For more information on the general office on-call policy, please see the olice“P and Agency Assistance” section in Unit A/B.
In addition to the on-call duties, when a mass demonstration is expected within Multnomah County, DDAs from SPSU are tasked with staffing the police command center throughout the duration of an event, frequently occurring over many hours and on weekends. Even after an event is concluded, DDAs will have to spend hours working with law enforcement if any arrests or use of force matters need to be addressed. In the recent past, protests in the City of Portland have occurred, sometimes, on a weekly basis.
Additionally, SPSU DDAs are on on-call for any law enforcement-related matter that comes up outside of traditional business hours. The DDA who is tasked with handling the unauthorized use of a motor vehicle project has provided every law enforcement official in Multnomah County his contact information and has instructed them to call him 24 hours a day with questions about stolen vehicles. DDAs regularly receive phone calls from Neighborhood Response Team officers and precinct patrol officers during non-working hours including weekends.
Given the nature of the work in which this particular unit engages, crime scene responses are a regular part of the job responsibilities. In addition to responding to homicides, DDAs regularly respond to search warrant scenes, mass demonstrations, and, at times, other crime scenes. These responses can occur as often as 2-3 times per week.
CHALLENGES & OPPORTUNITIES The reduction of Strategic Prosecution and Services Unit in the last budgetary cycle caused the unit to completely restructure and change its core functions. The SPSU has tremendous potential for expansion which would have a significant positive impact upon the community and the criminal justice system.
EXPANSION OF SPU: The expansion of the Strategic Prosecution and Services Unit (SPSU) will improve community livability and the lives of the individuals identified as HVSU by connecting
90 91 them to resources such as the Behavioral Health Unit, the Service Coordination Team, existing specialty courts, such as MCJRP, START, DISP, and Veterans Court, and other community service providers, when available and appropriate.
WHO ARE HIGH VOLUME SYSTEM USERS? They are individuals that generate multiple calls for service from the community and are often arrested following a law enforcement response, complaint and investigation. Police, fire, and medical services often respond to these individuals multiple times in a single day or week. Individuals identified as HVSUs frequently slip through the criminal justice system cracks. This is in part due to the HVSUs frequent involvement in property and livability crimes. These are often considered low-level crimes and have historically resulted in cases improperly identified or prioritized and subsequently resulting in release of the HVSU without having been offered services that could meet the needs of HVSUs.
GOAL: Get to zero! The SPSU is dedicated to a long-term vision of transforming HVSUs from individuals generating repeated complaints and calls for service to more productive and contributing members of our community. Since the creation of SPSU about a year ago, there are success stories of HVSUs who previously, for example, generated hundreds of calls to PPB Central Precinct to zero calls after focused and collaborative efforts by SPSU and our partners.
DATA DRIVEN PROSECUTION: SPSU promotes effective and informed prosecution efforts by utilizing data and community coordination to better focus resources to best serve the citizens of our community. This specialized unit works to effectively solve community livability issues and reduce crime. The SPSU currently utilizes available resources primarily in downtown Portland. Enhanced efforts to obtain, analyze, understand and respond to data will lend itself to even better outcomes with a broader policy-based and geographic impact.
SPSU EXPANSION: The SPSU will expand its focus outside of downtown Portland to increase community safety in the entire county by using historical data to focus resources in three areas: 1) Because a small number of individuals commit a disproportionate amount of crime, identifying and addressing the needs of these individuals will likely produce an important and necessary effect on livability and public safety. This process will be implemented by using objective data to identify those individuals and then appropriately respond to those cases and individuals. 2) Any prosecution will involve identifying the root cause of the criminal activity, such as housing challenges, mental health issues or substance abuse or addiction, and connecting the individual to the suitable social service providers. 3) Typically, calls for a law enforcement response come from community members who are often crime victims. Our SPSU efforts will include a more effective response to the identifying and meeting the needs of our community’s crime victims in this area. MCDA victim advocates have a long and rich history of doing great work to assist crime victims by meeting their needs as they navigate a sometimes complicated and confusing criminal justice system.
92 93 By directing prosecutorial and other resources toward individuals that generate a disproportionate amount of calls for service, SPSU will be more efficient in addressing business, neighborhood, crime victims and other parts of our community’s concerns surrounding the impact of criminal behavior. These cases will result in a win-win for the individual, the crime victim and the community.
LAW ENFORCEMENT AND COMMUNITY COORDINATION: SPSU, by working closely with law enforcement, criminal justice system partners involvedSPSU, by working closely with law enforcement, criminal justice system partners involved in specialty court programs such as MCJRP, START, Treatment First and the Mental Health Court, will connect individuals identified as HVSUs with the services and support they need to avoid future criminal justice system involvement. SPSU currently works very closely with the Service Coordination Team which provides housing, case managers, peer support groups, and treatment services to individuals who have drug abuse or addiction, mental health illness, housing challenges and criminal justice involvement.
The Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office would like to enhance our work in downtown Portland and expand the concepts, practices and great work county-wide.
STRATEGIC PROSECUTION AND SERVICE UNIT NEEDS FOR IMPROVED RESPONSE AND OUTCOMES: Five additional Level-2 DDAs, two staff members, one Research & Evaluation Analyst Sr. and one victim advocate.
92 93 Photo: Juvenile Unit Deputy District Attorney Ivan Morales
94 95 Juvenile Unit
UNIT DESCRIPTION The Juvenile Unit is responsible for delinquency prosecutions and reduced proactive dependency. The purposes of the Oregon juvenile justice system are: (1) to protect the public; (2) to reduce juvenile delinquency; and, (3) to provide fair and impartial procedures for the initiation, adjudication and disposition of allegations of delinquent conduct. A delinquency case involves a minor committing a crime, which had it been committed by a person older than 18, would be prosecuted in adult court. DDAs in this unit screen all cases where a youth is referred to Multnomah County’s Juvenile Services Division, a part of the county’s Department of Community Justice. The intergovernmental agreement with Juvenile Services requires that the District Attorney’s Office screen a case for legal sufficiency within 15 days. The DDA decides whether to issue the case or return it to Juvenile Services Division.
The DDA attends the preliminary hearing for all issued delinquency cases. Juvenile cases are docketed to determine trial readiness and to schedule cases for trial or plea. Juvenile DDAs work to promote community safety and youth reformation. During a delinquency case, these lawyers engage in sophisticated, complex legal motion practice to move these matters to a just resolution. Unit DDAs also appear on behalf of the state in all probation violations and probation review hearings to ensure victim and community safety while safeguarding an adjudicated youth’s constitutional rights.
Dependency involve parents that have made decisions that harm their children or place them at risk of harm. The Oregon Department of Human Services (DHS), via their lawyers at the Oregon Department of Justice, petition the court to impose requirements on families to keep their children safe. Due to reduced funding, MCDA’s role in protecting children and strengthening families via dependency has been limited. Judicial officers, in order to make the correct decisions, however, seek MCDA expertise and information which is always focused on child protection rather than client protection. A DDA from the Juvenile Unit screens cases at shelter hearings where judges make critical decisions regarding child safety. Cases matching certain criteria are assigned to a Juvenile DDA; others proceed without the expertise of MCDA. Once a case is assigned to an individual DDA that attorney attends the Judicial Settlement Conference (JSC) approximately 35 days after the preliminary hearings. If a case does not settle at the JSC or a subsequent JSC, it is set for trial. During a trial, DDAs assist in proving that children have been harmed or are at risk of harm and the court needs to intervene to protect these children. The DDA also makes recommendations to the court for services aimed at children thriving and to increase a parent’s capacity to better parent their children.
94 95 UNIT CASE WORK The Juvenile Unit seeks protection of the community and reformation of juveniles through delinquency cases (misdemeanors and felonies) and safeguards children and strengthens families through reduced dependency. This unit is now also responsible, under SB 1008, for prosecuting extreme violent criminal conduct of individual’s aged 15, 16, and 17 who among other things, assault, rape and murder community members.
UNIT DEMOGRAPHICS For FY 2019, the Juvenile Unit screened about 1,300 delinquency referrals (felonies and misdemeanors). For FY 2019, the Juvenile Unit received 405 dependency cases.
UNIT COST AND STAFFING The Juvenile Unit has a total of five (5) FTE – consisting of four (4) FTE DDAs and one (1) FTE Supervisor Senior Deputy District Attorney (SDDA)
At any given moment, the average number of cases being handled by a DDA assigned to the Juvenile Unit is approximately 60.
About 1,300 delinquency cases were reviewed for prosecution in FY 2019.
Each referred case requires an average of 10.8 working hours to reach a full resolution.
After reducing for standard annual leave time and accounting for dedicated time for community involvement and training, each FTE DDA has about 1,670 hours available to work referred cases.
Therefore, the Juvenile Unit has 8,350 working hours (1,670 x 5 FTE) in a year to accomplish 14,234 hours of work (10.8 x 1,318), resulting in a deficit of 5,884 working hours or 3.5 FTE.
[Source: 2018 weighted case analysis conducted by the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office]
96 97 QUALITY For FY 2019, Juvenile DDAs reviewed all referrals for legal sufficiency. The Juvenile Services Division (JSD) has requested that MCDA continue this practice. JSD believes that having Juvenile Unit DDAs review all referrals for legal sufficiency results in a reduction of disproportionate treatment of youth in the juvenile justice system.
If a case is legally sufficient, the DDA reviews the interagency agreement to see if the unit should issue a delinquency petition or if the matter should be referred to the Juvenile Department.
Per the interagency agreement with Juvenile Services, first time and low-level delinquency matters are handled through the Community Healing Initiative (CHI) Early Intervention and Diversion Program, which is a community based and family- focused effort designed to prevent and reduce delinquency, address root causes and augment community safety and connection. Cases assigned to this diversion program are appointed an outreach worker to contact the family and offer services. If a case is not eligible for the CHI program, it is referred to Juvenile Services who will send all delinquency referrals to the DA’s office. Per the agreement, the District Attorney’s Office shall review all delinquency referrals within 15 days.
UNIT SPECIFIC TRAINING In addition to regular office-wide training on a variety of prosecutorial best practices in Continuing Legal Education courses (CLEs), Juvenile DDAs are provided unit-specific training in the following areas:
• Appellate case law updates • Child Abuse reporting • Dependency and TPR case law • Dependency casework • Prosecuting juvenile delinquencies
OUTCOMES For FY 2019, the Juvenile Unit resolved 19 delinquency cases by trial and eight dependency cases by trial for a total of 31 days spent in trial.
INVESTIGATORS The Juvenile Unit shares the use of an investigator with the MDT Unit.
96 97 COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT The Juvenile Department has two programs for first time and low level juvenile offenders: Community Healing Initiative (CHI) and the Early Intervention and Diversion Program and Formal Accountability Agreements, which may be used to document consequences for moderate and serious probation violations. These programs keep juveniles out of the court system and strive to seek rehabilitation.
Juvenile Unit DDAs are involved in numerous cross-system committees, workgroups and meetings. These focus on system improvements and enhancing outcomes for families, children and youth in the system. All of these efforts include measures taken to reduce racial disparities and recidivism.
Juvenile DDAs engage our community and its system partners at the following meetings and forums:
• Alternative Placement Committee: This committee is a product of Multnomah County’s JDAI initiative. The committee meets each week and reviews cases of youth who need out-of- home placements and to discuss the child’s needs. In attendance are the Juvenile Department, OYA, DHS, county mental health, county drug and alcohol, a DDA, the defense attorney if they chose to attend, and family of the youth.
• Child Welfare Council Executive Committee and Child Welfare Council: Each meets one time a month. The Child Welfare Council is a cross agency meeting intended to be a forum for identifying, discussing and addressing issues, gaps and barriers in child welfare and juvenile court. It establishes, and tracks, workgroup efforts related to juvenile court and child welfare system improvements via collaborations with other agencies and committees attendance at the Council meetings include Judge Amy Holmes Hehn, who chairs the committee, various family law Judges and Referee’s, Department of Human Services, Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA), defense attorneys, a representative of the Juvenile Court Improvement Project (JCIP) and various other system partners. The executive committee consists of the SDDA for the Juvenile Unit, a Juvenile Judge, DHS, a defense attorney and recently the Oregon Attorney General’s office. The executive committee plans the agenda for the Child Welfare Council meetings.
• Transforming Juvenile Probation Certification Program through Georgetown’s Center for Juvenile Justice Reform and the Annie E. Casey Foundation: In November of 2019 a team from Multnomah County joined seven other teams from around the country in Georgetown for a weeklong program sponsored by Georgetown’s Center for Juvenile Justice Reform. This is a yearlong effort to look at best practices for Juvenile Probation. The Multnomah County team consists of a Judge, the JSD Sr. Manager, MCDA SDDA, a defense attorney, a PPB representative and two community providers. Multnomah County is focusing its efforts on understandable and
98 99 attainable conditions of probation with an equity lens.
• Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative assessment workgroup and subcommittees: Multnomah County has been involved in the Juvenile Detention Alternative Initiative for more than 25 years. This initiative seeks to keep youth out of juvenile detention and in appropriate alternative placements/programs. In 2015 the Anne E. Casey Foundation did an assessment of Multnomah County looking at our fidelity to the Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative (JDAI) model. This assessment had 44 rec- ommendations. In response to this assessment, and the recommendations, a work- group was formed and several subcommittees. The workgroup is currently meeting twice a year. The subcommittees meet monthly or bi-monthly. The workgroup sets the priorities for the subcommittees. The workgroup (and subcommittees) are com- prised of Juvenile Services (JSD) Division management and staff, Judicial Officers, law enforcement, the DA’s Office, defense bar, community service providers, community members, and other system partners. All of this work includes an equity lens.
• Juvenile Justice Council Executive Committee and Juvenile Justice Council: Both meet monthly, the executive committee plans the agenda’s for the council meet- ings. The council consists of representatives from local police agencies, schools, the Multnomah County Board of County Commissioners, the judiciary, juvenile defense attorneys, Multnomah County’s Department of Community Justice (DCJ)’s Juvenile Services Division, the District Attorney’s Office, law enforcement, the Oregonouth Y Authority (OYA) and youth service providers. JJC is committed to ensuring commu- nity support for justice system reform. The mission of the Juvenile Justice Council is to provide a forum for the development and implementation of policies, procedures, and practices to improve the juvenile justice system. The Council engages system stakeholders within Multnomah County to improve the juvenile justice system by promoting public safety, responding to the needs of victims and assuring the equita- ble and effective delivery of services to youth and their families.
• Model Court Summit Day: This is sponsored by the Juvenile Court Improvement Proj- ect (JCIP) and is a state wide conference occurring once a year to discuss issues in Child Welfare Cases. System partners from around the state attend, including Judges, DHS, DDAs and defense attorneys.
• Model Court workgroup: This group was recently formed and has not set a regular meeting schedule yet. The group is associated with the Juvenile Court Improvement Project out of Salem, Oregon and is going to focus on barriers to timely resolution of dependency cases. Participants include the SDDA, Judge Holmes Hehn, defense attorneys, CASA, a Juvenile Court Improvement Project (JCIP) representative, DHS, and a representative of the court. Timely resolution of dependency cases can short- en a child’s length of stay in foster care and when unable to be returned to a parent, shortens the time to permanency.
98 99 • Restitution workgroup: This workgroup does not have a set schedule for meetings but meets 2-4 times a year. This is a workgroup chaired by Judge Amy Holmes Hehn, attendees include the SDDA, Juvenile Services Management, OYA, the court and defense attorney’s to discuss system barriers to collecting restitution and to increase restitution to victims of juvenile delinquent acts.
• Restorative dialogue committee: This committee meets approximately every three months discussing the Juvenile Departments ongoing work with Restorative Dialogue. It is attended by JSD, Judge Holmes Hehn, SDDA and defense bar representatives.
• Sex Offender Staffing Committee: A Juvenile DDA meets weekly with the sex offender Juvenile Court counselors to review youth on probation for sex offenses.
• Expunction Interim Legislative Workgroup: This group is focusing on legislation aimed at making expunction for Juveniles more accessible while also focusing on victims’ rights.
POLICE AND AGENCY ASSISTANCE The Juvenile Unit DDAs provide multiple trainings including the twice yearly training for DHS workers on court proceedings. DDAs also hold interview panels for DHS supervisors and program managers, SIRN, which is a training for new police offices regarding Juvenile Justice, and Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative (JDAI) training as a model site.
Once a year, every felony-level DDA in the Juvenile Unit is on the office-wide on-call list and is required to spend one week being available around the clock to review warrants and respond to general law enforcement questions that come in outside of traditional business hours.
For more information on the general on-call policy, see the “Police and Agency Assistance” Program in Unit A/B.
GAINING DDA POSITIONS Gaining a DDA at the Juvenile Unit would allow DDAs to engage more with community partners to identify and craft solutions to prevent juveniles from entering the court system. Although unit DDAs engage in collaborative efforts to prevent or mitigate crime, with an additional attorney the unit could significantly increase efforts and strengthen our role in community development.
An additional attorney would allow the unit to increase efficiency and positive outcomes
100 101 for juveniles and the community.
100 101 Support Enforcement Division
UNIT DESCRIPTION The Support Enforcement Division (SED) is comprised of three areas:
Intake: where staff review new applications, prepares files, calculates past due support amounts, and initiate reciprocal petitions for other states.
Enforcement: where support agents have responsibility to screen for appropriate enforcement action, monitor delinquencies, resolve disputed issues and collect support.
Legal: which is staffed by three (3) DDAs (1FTE, .80FTE, .80FTE) who handle all legal matters associated with the cases including negotiations, hearings and trials.
Per ORS 25.080, the District Attorney’s Office provides support services by application to 1) a child support recipient who lives in Multnomah County; 2) a child support recipient who lives out of state but the obligating party lives in Multnomah County; or 3) both the obligating party and support order are in Multnomah County. Matters may remain on a DDA’s caseload for the duration of the support order and until all debts are paid in full.
102 103 UNIT CASE WORK The Support Enforcement Division (SED) is responsible for representing the State of Oregon in establishing, modifying, and enforcing child and spousal support orders.
UNIT DEMOGRAPHICS For FY 2019, SED received 553 new case referrals. The total SED caseload is approximately 7,896. Total yearly collections of child support were approximately $30 million.
Of the 7,896 cases currently assigned to SED, approximately 81% are active support order cases for families with children under the age of 18, or 21, if the individual is attending school.
Approximately 19% of cases are debt-only cases, which require enforcement action on unpaid child support where the child(ren) has reached legal age, which under Oregon law is 18 or if attending school then 21.
UNIT STAFFING SED has 2.6 FTE Attorneys – consisting of two (2) .8 FTE DDAs and one (1) FTE Supervisor Senior Deputy District Attorney (SDDA).
Average DDA Caseload: 2,632 cases per DDA with the SDDA assuming additional administrative and leadership responsibilities.
In FY 2019, 553 new cases were reviewed for contempt of court proceedings for disobeying a support order to pay child support.
Each referred case takes an average of 15 working hours to complete.
After reducing for standard annual leave time and accounting for dedicated time for community involvement and training, each DDA has 1,802 hours available to work referred cases.
Therefore, SED has 4,685 working hours (1,802 x 2.6 FTE) in a year to accomplish 8295 hours of work (15 x 553), resulting in a deficit of 3610 working hours or 2 FTE.
[Source: 2018 weighted case analysis conducted by the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office]
102 103 UNIT QUALITY Review of child support cases is exclusively dependent upon the services being requested. Oregon law requires the use of the Oregon Child Support Guidelines when establishing child support orders.
These guidelines include an income formula to establish fair, reasonable and appropriate child support orders. When addressing the modification of support order cases, Oregon law allows for regular, three-year reviews of child support orders. The law also permits a substantial change of circumstance request to ensure support orders are reasonable and appropriate.
In enforcement of support orders, a variety of remedies are applied starting with standard collection practices, which include phone calls and letter notification followed by in-office judgment debtor examinations and leading to potential contempt of court charges, if all other remedies fail.
While statutory formulas for establishing, modifying and enforcing support orders exist, exceptions based on a person’s particular circumstances are allowed as rebuttals, hardships, or exceptions to the general rule.
UNIT SPECIFIC TRAINING In addition to weekly unit trainings and regular office-wide training on a variety of prosecutorial best practices in Continuing Legal Education courses (CLEs), SED DDAs are provided specialized training in the following areas:
• Annual ODAA Child Support Conference • National Child Support Enforcement Association Conference • Ongoing web-ex, in-person and on-line manual training through local, state, national partners regarding child support technical issues, law revisions and policy updates. • Yearly assessments leading to certification and compliance with all federal regulations in the Title IV-D child support area.
UNIT OUTCOMES Approximately 100 cases per year require contested contempt trials and civil appeal trials/hearings.
Of the approximately 1,200 cases per year that are scheduled for contempt and administrative appeal hearings, 88-90% of cases result in a negotiated pretrial offer.
104 105 SED collects more than $30 million each year for families in Multnomah County.
SED implements strategies to strengthen the ability of parents to support and care for their children through partnerships with the court, and referral agencies for employment, housing, counseling and treatment services. A lack of any one, or a combination of these, can often serve as barriers to pay support.
The Oregon Child Support Program helps more than 60% of child support-eligible children in the United States.
Of the 60% of children who receive Child Support Program services, nearly 80% come from a custodial household that struggle with financial resources, educational opportunities and/or parenting opportunities.
Child support helps to negate economic hardship and instability for children and families that can result in loss of human potential, societal consequences and taxpayer costs.
Child support encourages self-sufficiency, independence, self-esteem, and reduces reliance on public assistance.
Due to the nature of child support enforcement, SED cases may be enforceable for 35 years after entry of the original child support judgment. Approximately 1,200 cases per year may be resolved due to a variety of reasons—debts paid in full, parties request closure from the system, reciprocal state terminates request, parties relocate to another jurisdiction, obligated party dies, etc.
INVESTIGATORS The SED DA Investigator is expected to facilitate the work of the unit by applying specialized knowledge and skill to trace information and people, conduct interviews of a sensitive and sometimes volatile nature, seek out and identify evidence, serve subpoenas and documents as necessary, perform financial investigations such as: bank assets, investment assets, credit reports for earning and spending information, loan applications, assist the DDA and SED agents in investigating obligor’s real or personal property, review estate information to determine the beneficiary, and conduct employment/income searches.
The SED DA Investigator, under the direction of the DDA/agents, may perform surveillance/observation of obligor and property, witness interview and complete follow-up reports.
104 105 COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT • SED participates in multiple community events, including: Veteran’s Stand-Down and Paternity presentations at local high schools and local job fairs.
• SED also provides informational brochures, visitation calendars and website information on child support services and referrals made accessible. DDAs are also members of the Oregon State Bar Family and Juvenile Law Committee.
• SED coordinates with other family law entities by meeting regularly with the Oregon Attorney General Support Enforcement Division and the Multnomah County Family Law Department.
• SED staff also participate in the yearly Oregon District Attorneys Association (ODAA) Child Support Conference. The SDDA is involved in various in-person and telephonic meetings with DCS management including: 1) ODAA Child Oversight Subcommittee, 2) DCS Policy Unit and 3) Local Family Law Advisory Committee.
POLICE AND AGENCY ASSISTANCE Once a year, every FT DDA in SED is on the office-wide on-call list and is required to spend one week being available around the clock to review warrants and respond to general law enforcement questions that come in outside of traditional business hours.
For more information on the general office on-call policy, see the olice“P and Agency Assistance” section for Unit A/B.
SED DDAs regularly conduct various training and meetings with the Oregon Division of Child Support (DCS).
GAINING ADDITIONAL SED STAFFING SED would benefit greatly from the addition of a Resource/Compliance Specialist. Currently, obligors must be charged with Contempt of Court and be placed on probation in order to avail themselves of the Court Coordinator’s services.
An SED Resource/Compliance Specialist would provide advanced-level technical assistance at the pre-adjudication stage by meeting with obligors who are unable/ unwilling to pay support due to lack of employment, social services, treatment, or other reason. Resources and referrals could be provided to parents who are not paying the full amount of their obligation so as to increase their ability to support their children.
106 107 Additionally, recognizing that child support orders can place substantial burden and stigma and strain on members of our community, the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office could provide resources and opportunities to obligors to assist to help prevent any criminal behavior that could result because of a support order being issued.
Photo: SED Deputy District Attorney Suleima Garcia
106 107 Photo: Current and past members of the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Untested Sexual Assault Kit Team.
Photo: Multnomah County District Attorney Investigators. Not pictured: Joshua Johnson.
108 109 Victim’s Assistance Program
108 109 The primary goal of the Victim’s Assistance Program is to make the criminal justice system more accessible and responsive to our community members, in particular to victims of crime.
A primary mission of the District Attorney’s Office is to ensure crime victims have a meaningful role in the criminal and juvenile justice system and to provide them with dignity and respect using trauma-informed practices.
To that end, it is the philosophy of the District Attorney’s Office that every effort be made to maximize victim involvement at every possible stage of a criminal case. This office is committed to the full implementation of Crime Victims’ Rights as embodied in Oregon law.
Victim advocates are generally, with a few exceptions, assigned to all felony and domestic violence cases. In some cases, a victim advocate will be specially assigned to a misdemeanor case at the request of the Deputy District Attorney, a crime victim or when the crime of sexual abuse in the third degree is charged.
Advocates work directly with crime victims to explain the criminal justice system, go over their legal rights as crime victims, provide court accompaniment, offer referral information to appropriate community services and guide victims through the prosecution process.
The Victim’s Assistance Program (VAP) includes 18 staff and approximately 40 trained Sexual Assault Victim Advocate volunteers (SAVAs).
This office has developed and maintained lasting partnerships with local, state, and federal law enforcement and other government and community organizations throughout Multnomah County to allow us to provide the best possible assistance to victims of crime.
110 111 VICTIM SERVICES BY UNIT: As previously mentioned, it is the responsibility of all Deputy District Attorneys to ensure that every effort is made to maximize victim involvement at every possible stage of a criminal case.
During any pretrial negotiation, DDAs consult with the victim(s) before an offer to resolve a case is presented. In every case, DDAs take into consideration a victim’s wishes and input before final resolution of a case.
The primary function of having a victim advocate in each unit is to assist our community members. A victim advocate is a support person for the victim during various stages of the criminal justice process. The victim advocate, along with the case DDA, is responsible for ensuring that the victim has been advised of his or her official crime victims’ rights and that when the victim requests, those rights are afforded to them.
Victim advocates, through the training and partnerships in our community, can provide short-term crisis intervention, referrals to area agencies, and information about the criminal justice system to victims of crime.
THE DOMESTIC VIOLENCE UNIT IS ASSISTED BY FIVE VICTIM ADVOCATES
DV Unit Victim Advocate Statistics from FY 2019: • 1,695 individual victims served • 1,566 cases involved victims (average of 1 victim per case) • 1,547 cases were assigned a victim advocate.
Domestic violence occurs primarily in the home, but it can impact an entire family and beyond. The presence of children in the midst of an abusive incident is particularly concerning. Careful consideration for the health and welfare of children is provided by the members of the DV Unit. Often, children are exposed to abuse and are traumatized emotionally and physically – especially when they intervene to protect an abused parent.
Our experience in the DV Unit shows that victims of domestic violence mostly want the abuse to stop, and for the abuser to receive service or treatment. Victims of domestic violence are typically very specific about what kind of case resolution they seek. The DDA will take into account a victim’s perspective and, knowing that the victim and the offender may stay together, the DDA will endeavor to create a resolution to maximize the victim’s safety in the future.
Each victim advocate receives specific and ongoing training related to domestic violence. These victim advocates share a passion for helping victims of DV and understand the unique perspectives victims bring to each case.
110 111 Victim Advocates can help provide domestic violence survivors with assistance gathering restitution information, housing, travel expenses for court-related events and help with the Oregon Crime Victim’s Compensation program. Moreover, the Victim Advocates can help provide referrals to have locks changed, moving the victim to a safe and secure location, and ensuring displaced victims have access to food.
UNIT A/B IS ASSISTED BY THREE VICTIM ADVOCATES Note: One Victim Advocate is assigned fulltime to work with property crime victims. The two other Victim Advocates work with the Human Trafficking Team, which is co-housed within Unit A/B. These Victim Advocates have specialized experience in working with victims of human trafficking. They offer wraparound services and assist victims in all aspects of a case.
Unit A/B Victim Advocate Statistics from FY 2019: • 1,233 individual victims served • 1,130 cases involved victims (average of 1.5 victim per case) • 639 cases were assigned a victim advocate
UNIT C IS ASSISTED BY TWO VICTIM ADVOCATES
Unit C Victim Advocate Statistic from FY 2019: • 1,016 individual victims served • 499 cases involved victims (average of 2 victims per case) • 446 cases were assigned a victim advocate
UNIT D IS ASSISTED BY TWO VICTIM ADVOCATES
Unit D Victim Advocate Statistic from FY 2019: • 577 individual victims served • 449 cases involved victims (average of 1.1 victims per case) • 353 cases were assigned a victim advocate
THE MULTNOMAH DISCIPLINARY TEAM / CHILD ABUSE TEAM IS ASSISTED BY ONE VICTIM ADVOCATE
MDT/Child Abuse Team Victim Advocate Statistic from FY 2019: • 100 individual victims served • 100% of cases involved victims (average of two victims per case) • 64 cases were assigned a victim advocate
The MDT Child Abuse Team Victim Advocate receives specialized training to help child victims, their families and guardians.
The Victim Advocate for the MDT Child Abuse Team ensures she is available to accompany the victim/family to grand jury, trials, and hearings; assist with Crime Victims Compensation applications, restitution requests, and property/evidence release; and
112 113 inform victims/families of a case’s status.
When not working directly with victims, the Victim Advocate helps to plan MDT Child Abuse Team activities by setting meetings and agendas, overseeing training and educational opportunities; preparing progress reports and grant applications, and generally assisting DDAs as needed.
MISDEMEANOR TRIAL UNIT DOES NOT HAVE ANY SPECIFICALLY DESIGNATED VICTIM ADVOCATES
Misdemeanor Trial Unit Victim Advocate Statistics from FY 2019: • 189 individual victims served • 4,355 cases involved victims (average of 0.57 victims per case) • 111 cases were assigned a victim advocate
Although there is not a full time Victim Advocate assigned to the Misdemeanor Trial Unit, a Victim Advocate will be assigned to a Misdemeanor Trial Unit case either when a.) The case involves the crime of sexual abuse in the third degree, b.) At the request of the Deputy District Attorney handling the case or c.) At the request of a crime victim.
All victims of misdemeanor cases are notified prior to any pretrial resolution and are offered the opportunity to be present and heard at the time of case resolution.
Victims are contacted by the DDAs, Certified Law Student or interns assigned to the District Attorney’s Office.
THE JUVENILE UNIT IS ASSISTED WITH THE SUPPORT OF 1.5 FTE VICTIM ADVOCATES
In Juvenile Court, the vast majority of those convicted of a crime start on probation. It is rare that a person is sent to a youth correctional facility without first having been on probation. As a result, the unit works hard to educate victims on the probation services offered to juveniles. Most victims are sensitive to the fact that these are juveniles and understand the emphasis on rehabilitation. Rarely do we have victims upset with the outcome of a case.
112 113 THE PRETRIAL UNIT DOES NOT HAVE ANY SPECIFICALLY DESIGNATED VICTIM ADVOCATES
Pretrial Unit DDAs do not carry a trial caseload. In the event that the Senior Deputy Dis- trict Attorney is assigned a homicide case, a victim advocate from one of the other units will be assigned to assist the SDDA.
However, a Pretrial Unit DDA is assigned to assist with restitution matters for crime vic- tims. That DDA works with victims, restitution clerks, victim advocates and other DDAs in the office to ensure that victims of crimes are notified of the right to restitution and receive the proper documentation for the court to impose restitution.
The Witness Intimidation Support Program (WISP) was developed by the Oregon District Attorneys Association, with significant assistance from the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office, in response to the growing threat to, and needs of, victims and witnesses in criminal cases. The mission of WISP is to provide financial assistance to victims, witnesses and their families, who are endangered due to their ongoing or anticipated testimony in a criminal case or investigation. By accessing WISP funds, the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office has successfully relocated 17 victims and/ or witnesses of gang violence, domestic violence, sex trafficking, sexual assault and burglary crimes. This program helps mitigate the trauma and fear victims and witnesses experience by increasing their safety and providing them the opportunity to stay involved in the case without further threat of harm or violence.
SART (Sexual Assault Response Team) The purpose of Multnomah County’s Sexual Assault Response Team (SART) is to ensure an effective, consistent, comprehensive and collaborative response to sexual assault that prioritizes the needs of sexual assault survivors and brings responsible persons to justice. The SART membership includes law enforcement, medical personnel, and system and community based advocates. All members have some involvement in the medical response to the sexual assault forensic evidence kit collection process in Multnomah County.
The District Attorney’s Office is responsible for facilitating the SART meetings which take place bi-monthly. Meetings are a time to discuss trends in the field, debrief cases, and identify and address gaps in services.
Untested Sexual Assault Kit (USAK) Project A victim advocate is assigned to the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office USAK Project Team.
Members of this team have received specialized training regarding contacting victims on historical cases related to the now eliminated backlog of untested sexual assault kits and ways to address issues that arise from this process. Despite the elimination of the SAFE
114 115 Kit backlog, there is a significant work to be done in this area.
The victim advocate attends weekly case staffing meetings along with the designated USAK prosecutor and local law enforcement. In these meetings, cases are reviewed in detail and the team works together to create a plan to move forward.
The victims of these cases may have been sexually assaulted years or even decades ago. Through DNA evidence, the perpetrator may be identified and some test results have been linked to serial rapists.
All members of the team are trauma-informed and work with care and consideration.
The advocate is tasked with outreach and notifications for sexual assault survivors impacted by the USAK Project.
More than 100 victims have been contacted as part of the Untested Sexual Assault Kit Project.
DANY USAK SUMMARY Number of SAFE kits tested under the DANY Grant: 2,916 Number of SAFE kits with DNA profiles entered into CODIS: 871 Number of CODIS Hits: 485 Number of prosecutions commenced as a result of testing: 13 Number of convictions: 6 Number of cases pending adjudication: 1 Number of victims notified of of the results of the SAFE Kit: 192
VICTIM NOTIFICATION All victims of crimes with individuals being prosecuted by the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office receive information about their rights as crime victims, the opportunity to submit information about their losses for restitution, and notification letters on the case status and disposition. The victim advocate, along with the assigned DDA, is responsible for ensuring that the victim has been advised of their rights and that when the victim requests, those rights are afforded. Advocates also provide notification of critical stage hearings and court accompaniment, offer referral information to appropriate community services, and guide victims through the prosecution process. The District Attorney’s office provides an average of 30,000 crime victims’ rights notifications a year.
SAVA PROGRAM The Sexual Assault Victim Advocate (SAVA) program provides 24-hour on-call response to victims of sexual assault in Multnomah County. Volunteers and staff respond to all local area hospitals to provide accompaniment for forensic rape exams, crisis intervention, resource referrals, and emotional support. This immediate crisis intervention service is then followed by ongoing support and advocacy throughout the
114 115 investigation and prosecution of the case. The SAVA Program volunteers respond to approximately 270 sexual assault call outs each year.
GATEWAY CENTER FOR DOMESTIC VIOLENCE SERVICES The Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office has a Domestic Violence Victim Advocate specifically assigned to the Gateway Center. This off-site position allows for the District Attorney’s Office to meet with our community in a safe environment that is less traumatizing than the courthouse. Furthermore, the Gateway Center allows the District Attorney’s Office to serve our community members located east of the Willamette River.
More than 3,000 individuals access services from the Gateway Center each year. Every participant is offered services upon arrival.
Our Victim Advocate is available to work collaboratively with on-site partners to provide information and assist victims of domestic violence and elder abuse. The Victim Advocate is a subject matter expert in domestic violence and is able to assist with the reporting process, having a case reviewed for prosecution, safety planning and appropriate referrals. Any cases originated at the Gateway Center are assigned to the Gateway Center Domestic Violence Victim Advocate to ensure continuity of care.
MULTNOMAH COUNTY VICTIM ASSISTANCE MASS CASUALTY The Multnomah County District Attorney’s Victim Assistance Program actively participates in planning, training and preparation for a mass casualty event. This multilevel approach includes formation of an internal District Attorney response team, joining with Multnomah County Emergency Management in their efforts to create a county-wide plan addressing mass casualty response and reunification.
Additionally, the team works with surrounding counties, state and federal partners in creating a comprehensive response plan including mutual aid. The efforts made by our program have created new relationships and renewed the commitment to preparing for
116 117 a mass casualty.
SURVEY MATERIAL REGARDING ADVOCACY Although the survey is available to any victim to complete at any time, we actively seek feedback from victims whose cases have resolved in the previous quarter. Surveys are made available in hard copy and online. Our front desk staff also does outreach phone calls to victims to complete the survey over the phone. Our grant requires a 10% return rate and most quarters we reach that threshold.
The survey language is provided by the Oregon Depart of Justice’s Crime Victims Services Division. The survey asks victims to rate their experience on the following three issues:
1. Did the services provided by the Victim’s Assistance Program help you make informed choices about your situation?
2. As a result of the information you received from the Victim’s Assistance Program, do you better understand your rights as a victim of crime?
3. Did the information given to you by the Victim Assistance Program help you better understand the criminal justice system process as it relates to your case?
116 117 ASSISTING VICTIMS OF CRIME Victims can respond with the following options for each issue: strongly agree, agree, neutral, disagree, and strongly disagree.
Our average score is a 76% approval rating wherein victims respond they strongly agree or agree.
U VISA PETITIONS The timely and accurate review and certification of U visa petitions by the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office is a high priority. A Victim Advocate and Chief Deputy District Attorney quickly review the requests and getting these important documents into the hands of qualifying crime victims who are undocumented and request U visa certification.
As defined by the Department of Homeland Security, the U visa is an immigration benefit for victims of certain crimes who meet eligibility requirements. The U visa allows eligible victims to temporarily remain and work in the United States, generally for four years. While in U visa nonimmigrant status, the victim has an ongoing duty to cooperate with law enforcement and cannot unreasonably refuse to assist with the investigation or prosecution of a criminal activity. If certain conditions are met, an individual with a U visa may apply for adjustment to lawful permanent residency status (i.e., seek a green card in the United States) after three years.
IMMIGRANT CRIME VICTIMS’ RIGHTS COMMITTEE Immigrant people who are victimized by crime face unique challenges in accessing—or even trusting—our criminal justice system. This collaborative local committee includes immigration law attorneys, immigrant peoples’ advocacy groups, like Immigrant and Refugee Community Organization (IRCO), local law enforcement agencies, the Oregon Attorney General’s Office, and two representatives of the District Attorney’s Office. The members meet regularly to solve problems of access to the criminal justice system for immigrant people, both documented and not. This outreach and inclusion is critically important in the present time, and this group is highly effective at solving problems of trust, access, and accountability for system partners.
COMMITTEES AND TASKFORCES Members of the Victim Assistance Program participate in a number of local and state committees and taskforces including:
• Adult Multidisciplinary Team • Child Multidisciplinary Team • Community Peace Collaborative • Domestic Violence Enhanced Response Team • Equity Diversity Opportunity Council • Foreign Born Human Trafficking Task Force • Multnomah County Child Fatality Review Team
118 119 • Multnomah County Family Violence Coordinating Council • Multnomah County Sex Trafficking Collaborative • Multnomah County Sexual Assault Advisory Committee • Multnomah County Threat Assessment Team • Tri-County Human Trafficking Team Meeting
118 119 RECIDIVISM
120 121 “Recidivism” for purposes of statistical evaluations in Oregon means “the arrest, conviction or incarceration of a person who has previously been convicted of a crime, if the arrest, conviction or incarceration is for a new crime and occurs: (a) Three years or less after the date the person was convicted of the previous crime; or (b) Three years or less after the date the person was released from custody, if the person was incarcerated as a result of the conviction for the previous crime.” A “cohort” consists of all individuals released to parole or post-prison supervision during a six month period. Here, we use the first six months of each year to define cohorts, e.g., the “2016 cohort” consists of all individuals released during the first six months of 2016. Because ORS defines recidivating as reoffending within three years of conviction or leaving custody, the most recent recidivism rates come from the 2016 cohort.
According to Oregon’s Criminal Justice Commission’s (CJC) analysis of Oregon’s rate of recidivism, statewide among the 2016 cohort:
• 16.5% were incarcerated for a new felony crime within three years • 43.9% were convicted of a new misdemeanor or felony crime within three years • 52.9% were arrested for a new crime within three years
RECIDIVISM RATE FOR INDIVIDUALS SENTENCED TO FELONY PROBATION:
According to Oregon’s Criminal Justice Commission’s (CJC) analysis of Oregon’s rate of recidivism for offenders sentenced to felony probation:
• 15.4% were incarcerated for a new felony crime within three years • 45.1% were convicted of a new misdemeanor or felony crime within three years • 51.3% were arrested for a new crime within three years
120 121 RECIDIVISM RATE FOR 2016 COHORT:
Individuals in the 2016 cohort were 11% less likely to recidivate in Multnomah County than in the rest of Oregon.
CATEGORIES WHERE MULTNOMAH COUNTY DOES BETTER THAN THE REST OF OREGON (2016 COHORT):
• Women were 20% less likely to recidivate in Multnomah County than in the rest of Oregon.
• Individuals convicted of drug crimes were 9% less likely to recidivate in Multnomah County than in the rest of Oregon.
• Individuals convicted of sex crimes were 37% less likely to recidivate in Multnomah County than in the rest of Oregon.
CATEGORIES WHERE MULTNOMAH COUNTY IS TRENDING WELL:
• Women in the 2016 cohort were 6% less likely to recidivate than women in the 2015 cohort
• Men between the ages of 18 and 30 were 12% less likely to recidivate in Multnomah County than in the rest of the state.
122 123 MULTNOMAH COUNTY JUSTICE REINVESTMENT PROGRAM:
As prison costs increase nationwide, communities are trying to find effective ways to reduce spending on prison and increase public safety. Multnomah County’s Justice Reinvestment Program (MCJRP) is designed to reduce the use of state prisons for individuals who can safely be supervised in our community. MCJRP holds offenders accountable by providing the structure, supervision, and services necessary for success in our community. The program addresses the root causes of crime and increases services to victims.
The Multnomah County Justice Reinvestment Program Data and Evaluation sub- committee issued a report in November 2018, which analyzed the recidivism rate of MCJRP participants. The sub-committee concluded that “[t]he majority of MCJRP participants (71%) were not arrested on new criminal charges in the 12 months following their initial sentence. Though we found no significant differences in the 12-month arrest rate between MCJRP participants and the comparison group, some preliminary evidence suggests that MCJRP participants may be significantly less likely than the comparison group to be arrested 24 months following their initial sentence. Whereas, 42% of the comparison group were arrested on new criminal charges within 24 months of their sentence, only 36% of MCJRP participants were arrested on new criminal charges.” Therefore, despite placing more high/risk high/need defendants on probation, there was a 6% lower recidivism rate compared to similarly situated defendants.
Emerging knowledge of best practices across the criminal justice system underscores the need to provide specialized services to sub-populations within the system to improve outcomes and maximize the opportunity for success. To this end, through funds received via a supplemental Justice Reinvestment grant, Multnomah County targeted pre-and post-adjudication services for women and youth/young adults 25 and under to improve assessments, increase engagement and ensure programming consistent with best practices once sentenced to probation. The goals of the Special Populations program are: 1) Decrease overall prison intakes and revocations for offenders, especially women and individuals 25 and under, through early assessment, engagement and evidence-based services designed to meet their unique needs; and 2) Improve system effectiveness by providing training on the unique needs of women and youth/young adults 25 and under to partners across the MCJRP system.
The latest data found on CJC’s dashboard indicates that women were 20% less likely to recidivate in Multnomah County than in the rest of Oregon. Similarly, men between the ages of 18 and 30 were 12% less likely to recidivate in Multnomah County than in the rest of the state.
122 123 OUR WORK TO REDUCE RACIAL AND ETHNIC DISPARITIES IN THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM The Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office continues to be a leader to address the racial and ethnic disparities in our criminal justice system. Simply participating in the conversation doesn’t bring about meaningful change. To that end, under the leadership of District Attorney Rod Underhill, this office has implemented meaningful policy-based changes to reduce the racial and ethnic disparities that exist. When a portion of our community is disproportionally impacted by the justice system, we must take actions to conduct a high-level analysis to determine the source of that unbalance and to address in quickly and deliberately.
In this section, the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office will highlight the work we have done to address racial and ethnic disparities.
To begin, our work was significantly described in our analysis of the 2019 W. Haywood Burns Institute report on racial and ethnic disparities. This section includes that report so the reader has a deeper understanding of our commitment to appropriately addressing racial and ethnic disparities in a thoughtful, systematic and meaningful way.
The next section will include a broad overview of our work to reduce juvenile racial and ethnic disparities. Next, we will detail our work to implement the Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion (LEAD®) program and the Treatment First Program. These two programs have been implemented to reduce the impact caused by involvement with the criminal justice system. Finally, we have included a recent report that describes the actions taken by the Clackamas, Multnomah, and Washington County District Attorneys’ offices after a study found Black individuals were being excluded fromriMet T property at a disproportionately higher rate than White individuals.
124 125
Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office analysis of the 2019 W. Haywood Burns Institute report on Racial and Ethnic Disparities
November 2019
124 125
The Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office remains fully committed to appropriately addressing racial and ethnic disparities in a thoughtful, systematic and meaningful way. Similarly, this office remains dedicated to improving our understanding and awareness of the racial and ethnic disparities that exist in our criminal justice system. In order for there to be meaningful change, we must actually change and remain committed to that ideal. To that end, the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office, working with our system partners, continues to benefit from a rich and collaborative, several year relationship with the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and its Safety and Justice Challenge to implement data-informed policies that reduce our reliance on jail and prison beds while simultaneously reducing the disparities within our local community justice system.
The Safety and Justice Challenge recently provided the public with an updated “Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Multnomah County” report. The original report, issued in 2016, resulted in a dedicated pursuit from this office to better identify outcomes for our communities, in particular for our minority communities. Since that report, my office and the community has benefited from careful and critical examinations of our public safety system through a lens of equity, fairness, safety and justice as we analyze the racial and ethnic disparities in Multnomah County.
There is a lot to learn from this most recent report, but whether disparities exist is not one of them; we know that fact to be true. In this report – compiled by the W. Haywood Burns Institute – we see an increase in disparities in some of seven decision points analyzed. The report also shows some modest, and some substantial, improvements in other areas including prosecutorial-specific data points. We are proud of that progress but recognize more work needs to be done to critically analyze where disparities are found, challenge each other with answering the question of why those disparities exist and then to focus on identifying and implementing additional solutions.
Like in 2016, the new report examines data for seven key parts of the criminal justice system (1): Arrests; (2): Prosecutorial Charging; (3): Assignment of Counsel; (4): Jail Releases; (5): Case Processing/Diversion; (6): Disposition and Sentencing; and (7): Probation. The Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office’s role in each decision point varies. With that premise in mind, we have carefully reviewed the report’s analysis, methodology and findings for all decision points, but with an even stronger level of scrutiny of the decision points specific to our profession.
The following paragraphs contain analysis of certain decision points specific to our profession.
Decision Point 6: Disposition and Sentencing [Rate of Prison Referrals] Here, the W. Haywood Burns Institute report concluded that in Multnomah County, the likelihood of receiving a prison sentence for people of color decreased substantially from 2014 to 2019. This is a remarkable accomplishment. It is consistent with Multnomah County’s, and this office’s, dedicated effort to reduce disparity in who receives a prison sentence.
Contributing to the reduction in disparities are the post-sentence diversion programs like the Multnomah County Justice Reinvestment Program (MCJRP), START Court, Mental Health Court and Veterans Court. Further, policy changes such as the adoption of the Juvenile Tier II and the Second Look Policy were implemented to help reduce the disproportionality of youth from communities of color being sentenced to prison. In the 2019 report, the only post-sentence diversion programs to be analyzed in this report include MCJRP and START Court.
There is always opportunity for improvement any time disparity is present. As we continue to work towards complete equity, we are proud of our efforts, which has helped reduce disparities in the rate of prison sentences from 2014 across all but one demographic studied in this report.
As stated in the 2019 “Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Multnomah County” report: As of 2019, Black adults were 1.1 times per 1,000 cases more likely than White adults to receive a prison sentence, which is a substantial decrease in the disparity in rate of prison sentences
As of 2019, Latino adults and White adults have the same RRI rate 1.0, which means there is equality and they are receiving prison sentences at the same rate
The number of convicted adults who are subject to prison increased for White adults from 2014 to 2019 and decreased for all other demographics studied
In 2014, Black adults were 1.6 per 1,000 cases times more likely than White adults to receive a prison sentence
126 127 Additionally, as of , lac , atino and Asian acific slander adults are slightly more li ely, but near parity, to receive a ail sentence than White adults. The report found that the for lac , atino and Asian acific slander adults to receive a ail sentence is . compared to . for White adults.
Decision oint 2: rosecutorial Char in : Rate o Cases ssued or rosecution The Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office is guided by our legal and ethical duties when determining how to issue a case for prosecution. We ac nowledge the enormous responsibility bestowed upon us to ensure our policies and practices are consistent and fair for all individuals.
The data in the W. aywood urns nstitute report confirms the way we issues cases for prosecution is at or near e uity across all demographics. This point is highlighted in the “Disparity in Cases Issued” chart below.
As stated in the 2019 “Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Multnomah County” report: The current rate demonstrates that lac and ative American adults were less li ely than White adults to have their cases issued for prosecution
Decision oints and : Case rocessin Di ersion and Disposition and entences: The Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office is proud to wor with the court and others to offer about a do en diversion and specialty courts that offer varying degrees of supervision and resources for individuals when placed on probation by a udge.
We believe these programs are beneficial to the community as they help reduce gaps within our public safety system, lessen the impact of the criminal ustice system and helps provide individuals with needed services.
n this section of the report, we start to see the results of our dedicated efforts to offer more diversion programs. One of the many goals of a diversion program is to stop a person from being adversely impacted by the criminal ustice system. A criminal ustice system with more diversion programs will inherently see fewer convictions occurring.
We continue our effort to ensure e uity across all demographics within our community. We have wor ed e tremely hard towards achieving e uity as it relates to conviction rates, and it appears that we are e tremely close to obtaining that goal.
126 127 e wor closely with the court to ensure that the di ersion eligibility for all indi iduals is e ual. ot all criminal offenses are eligible for di ersion. or e ample there are appro imately crime categories that are e cluded from being eligible for MC the county’s innovative prison diversion program. These exclusions include aggravated murder, murder, sex crimes and crimes committed against children under the age of .
The report identifies only cases di erted. It specifically notes that it cannot tell readers whether people of color are more or less li ely than hite people to be eligible for or offered di ersion or whether people of color who are offered di ersion are more or less li ely than hite people to enroll participate in di ersion.
My office intentionally created new policies and collaborated with partners to implement new and inno ati e di ersion programs to reduce disparities for certain crimes. ith regard to our policy change in this office changed the way we prosecute certain Interfering with ublic Transportation I T offenses. pecifically we no longer prosecute I Ts for fare e asion e clusion. Additionally the conduct based I Ts we do issue are eligible for Community Court di ersion. The graph below demonstrates the lowered rate of prosecution across all racial demographics which is particularly noteworthy for lac adults.
ource MCDA report April
urthermore this office created a policy to defeloni e most drug possession offenses and created the Treatment irst rogram which offers diversion and treatment in lieu of conviction. The Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office can and does, through policy assist in the way cases that are referred to this office are handled in the criminal ustice system. otably the chart below reflects that lac adults are o er fi e times more li ely to be eligible for the Treatment irst di ersion program than hite adults and participate at an e ually high rate. There is disparity in the drug possession arrest rates for lac adults. The Treatment irst rogram is able to address disproportionality by di erting lac adults at a higher rate.
128 129
(Note: This graphic was created by the District Attorney’s Office using data found in the 2019 W. Haywood Burns Institute report.)
As explained in the . aywood urns nstitute report, the data used relies on referral rates to the District Attorney’s Office and therefore does not capture pre oo ing diversion programs. ollowing the first acial thnic and Disparities report, this office wor ed expeditiously to ecome the first urisdiction in Oregon to implement the aw nforcement Assisted Division AD program.
sta lished in , the AD program is a county funded, pre oo in diversion program that allows law enforcement to divert an individual facing low level drug offenses and to connect them with case managers using a harm reduction approach with the expectation that the individual entirely avoids ail or prosecution and instead receives needed services.
ource MCDA program data
128 129
ource A rogra data
hile the success of the AD ro ra is not s ecifically e a ined in this re ort, our o n data sho s that the ro ra contri utes to reducin dis arity ithin the cri inal ustice syste Data indicates that lac adults ere ein di erted at a rate a ro i ately four ti es hi her than that of hite adults in his di ersion rate lo ers to a out three ti es ore li ely in , here data collection is not yet co lete hile there ha e not een any ati e A erican arrest referrals in and , ati e A ericans ere also di erted around four ti es ore than hite adults in
here are also post plea division programs like Multnomah County’s Community Court, the Treatment First Program, the ultno ah ounty Dri in under the nfluence of nto icants D Di ersion ro ra , the ultno ah ounty anctions reat ent O ortunities ro ress O Dru ourt, o unity ourt and the Do estic iolence Deferred entencin ro ra hese ost lea di ersion ro ra s ere e a ined in this re ort
As a result of additional di ersion o ortunities, there ay e ore cases dis issed follo in successful artici ation in di ision, hich hel s to reduce the o erall rate of con iction for e eryone and to a reater e tent eo le of color as detailed in the ullet oints elo e ill also continue to use the data ro ided in ay ood urns nstitute re ort in a eanin ful ay to identify and i ro e, hene er ossi le, the nu er of eli i le cases entered into di ersion ro ra s
As stated in the 2019 “Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Multnomah County” report: he rate of con ictions across all de o ra hics er , cases ith a dis osition decreased fro
n , eo le of color ere less li ely than hite adults to ha e their case result in a con iction o or e ery , hite adult ith a dis osition, there ere con ictions o or e ery , lac adult ith a dis osition, there ere con ictions o or e ery , atino adult ith a dis osition, there ere con ictions o or e ery , Asian acific slander adult ith a dis osition, there ere con ictions o or e ery , ati e A erican adult ith a dis osition, there ere con ictions
n su ary, addressin the dis arities in the cri inal ustice syste ill continue to ta e intentionality, ti e, resources and artici ation fro all arties here is no one si e fits all a roach, ut hat is needed is a unified front fro all syste artners he ultno ah ounty District Attorney’s Office is a committed partner of the ocal u lic afety oordinatin ouncil, hich hel s coordinate local cri inal ustice olicy and addresses racial and ethnic dis arity issues in our co unity
The Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office or s intentionally to identify racial and ethnic dis arities and to ro tly address those atters he e ers of this office stri e to ensure all si ilarly situated indi iduals in ol ed in the cri inal ustice syste are treated fairly and ith di nity and res ect to o tain an e uita le outco e As District Attorney, fir ly elie e e achie e that
130 131 e pectation every day hile eing a are that improvements are possi le ith continued training, education and e amination of potential policy ad ustments system ide
n order for there to e actual change, e must actually change and remain committed to that concept
The Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office is committed to the open and alanced administration of ustice—one that honors and respects diversity in all of its forms As an office, e move for ard ith a promise to continue the momentum under ay that has already reduced some disparities – ut also ith a promise to do etter e must do etter as an organi ation and as a system to proactively address policies and practices that ill ensure our ustice system is fair for everyone and to ensure that all mem ers of that system are held accounta le
See next page for infromation about the Juvenile Justice Reinvestment Program, which was implemented in June of 2016 and included a new policy and procedure for handling juveniles charged with certain BM11 offenses. The Tier II Policy was implemented in response to the disproportionality of youth from communities of color being referred for prosecution and later convicted as adults and/or sentenced to prison. Its goal was to minimize the collateral consequences of adult convictions for juveniles of color and to send fewer youth to prison.
130 131 JUVENILE JUSTICE REINVESTMENT PROGRAM Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office, February 14th, 2020
MCJRP Implemented JJRP Implemented SB 1008 Implemented (JJRP ends) July, 2014 June, 2016 January, 2020 History
Launched on July 1, 2014 following the passage of HB 3194, the Multnomah County Justice Reinvestment Program (MCJRP) reduces the use of state prisons for offenders who can be safely supervised in the community. Forty-two juveniles indicted for Tier II BM11 crimes participated in the MCJRP process during the first two years of the program.
Then on June 8, 2016, the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office implemented a new policy and procedure for handling juveniles charged with certain BM11 offenses. The Tier II Policy was implemented in response to the disproportionality of youth from communities of color being referred for prosecution and later convicted as adults and/or sentenced to prison. Its goal was to minimize the collateral consequences of adult convictions for juveniles of color and to send fewer youth to prison. While individuals ages 15 to 17 with Tier II BM11 charges had previously been processed in adult court, the Tier II Policy provided the opportunity for these youth to have their cases resolved within the juvenile system through the Juvenile Justice Reinvestment Program (JJRP). Forty-four juveniles have benefited from the JJRP process. Following the implementation of SB 1008 on January 1st, 2020, all juvenile cases were transferred to juvenile court for adjudication, and JJRP ended.
This report compares MCJRP and JJRP juveniles’ outcomes and demographics to those of a pre-MCJRP comparison group comprised of fifty-four juveniles who were indicted for Tier II BM11 offenses in the two years before MCJRP implementation.
Outcome
MCJRP and JJRP sharply reduced the number of juveniles receiving OYA sentences
The rate of juveniles receiving OYA sentences Juvenile Outcomes fell from 48% in the comparison group to 11% in the JJRP group. Black and Hispanic juveniles benefited from a 89% 71% decrease in OYA sentence rate. 74% Each Tier II BM11 offense carries a 70 month 48% 52% 11% presumptive prison sentence. For the 16 26% juveniles who participated in MCJRP or JJRP and were sentenced to OYA, the average OYA Probation OYA Probation OYA Probation sentence was 33 months. Comparison Group MCJRP JJRP
The remainder of this report presents outcomes and detailed demographic data for juveniles who participated in the three stages of the timeline above (the pre-MCJRP comparison group, MCJRP, and JJRP respectively) in addition to revocation data for juveniles sentenced to adult probation.
1
132 133
Pre-MCJRP Comparison Group [1] July 1st, 2012 through June 30th, 2014
n 1 and 1 , the t o years precedin the implementation of 1 , fifty four juveniles ere indicted for M11 Tier offenses e cludin se crimes and domestic violence T enty si received an O A sentence hile t enty ei ht received adult pro ation
Comparison Group Case Resolutions Adult Probation 19
5 2 2 0
API Black Hispanic Native White American 52% Adult Probation 48% OYA Oregon Youth Authority 17
6 3 0 0
API Black Hispanic Native White American
Pre-MCJRP Comparison Group st th (July 1 , 2012 to June 30 , 2014) Adult Pro ation O A Total 1. Gender Female 6 10 (19%) Male 22 22 44 (81%) 2. Race/Ethnicity API 2 0 2 (4%) Black 1 1 36 (67%) Hispanic 2 6 8 (15%) Native American 0 0 0 (0%) White 8 (15%) 3. Charge Assault 1 6 (11%)
Kidnap 1 1 2 (4%) Robbery 26 20 46 (85%) Total 28 (52%) 26 (48%) 54
1 Data in this section as o tained from the CR M data ase 2
132 133 [2] Juveniles in MCJRP July 1st, 2014 through June 30th, 2016
n 1 and 16, the t o years precedin the implementation of JJRP, forty t o juvenile defendants participated in the MCJRP pro ram 1 6 of all MCJRP participants durin this time period leven received an O A sentence hile thirty one received adult pro ation
MCJRP Outcomes Adult Probation 18
7 6
0 0
26% API Black Hispanic Native White American
Adult Probation
OYA Oregon Youth Authority 7 74%
2 2 0 0
API Black Hispanic Native White American
Juveniles in MCJRP st th (July 1 , 2014 to June 30 , 2016) Adult Pro ation O A Total 1. Gender Female 2 9 (21%) Male 2 33 (79%) 2. Race/Ethnicity API 0 0 0 (0%) Black 18 25 (60%) Hispanic 2 9 (21%) Native American 0 0 0 White 6 2 8 (19%) 3. Charge Assault 2 6 (14%) Robbery 2 36 (86%) Total 31 (74%) 11 (26%) 42
Data in this section as o tained from the CR M data ase 3
134 135 [3] Juveniles in JJRP June 8th, 2016 to December 31st, 2019
rom June 8th, 2016 to Decem er 1st, 201 , forty four juveniles participated in JJRP ive received an O A sentence, five received adult pro ation, thirty four received juvenile pro ation, and t elve ere transferred to juvenile court for adjudication on January 1st, 2020
Juvenile Probation JJRP Case Resolutions 19 6 7 1 1
API Black Hispanic Native White American 11% Adult Probation 3 12% 2 Juvenile probation 0 0 0 Adult probation API Black Hispanic Native White OYA American 77%
Oregon Youth Authority 3 2 0 0 0
API Black Hispanic Native White American
Juvenile Justice Reinvestment Program Resolutions Examined Separately by Gender, Race/Ethnicity, and Charge (June 8th, 2016 to December 31st, 2019) Juvenile Pro ation Adult Pro ation O A Total 1. Gender Female 11 2 0 13 (30%) Male 2 31 (70%) 2. Race/Ethnicity API 1 0 0 1 (2%) Black 1 2 24 (55%) Hispanic 6 0 9 (20%) Native American 1 0 0 1 (2%) White 2 0 9 (20%) 3. Charge Assault 8 2 1 11 (25%) Robbery 26 33 (75%) Total 34 (77%) 5 (11%) 5 (11%) 44* Removes 12 individuals hose cases ere transferred to juvenile court for adjudication on 1 1 20
Data in this section as o tained from an internal MCDA trac in sheet 4
134 135 Revocations [4]
Amon juveniles receivin adult pro ation , the revocation rate has decreased note that juveniles in the comparison roup and the MCJRP roup have had more time on supervision to e revo ed than juveniles in the JJRP roup i of the t enty t o juveniles in the comparison roup sentenced to adult pro ation have een revo ed 21 our of the t enty seven juveniles ho participated in MCJRP efore JJRP as implemented and ere sentenced to adult pro ation have een revo ed 1 one of the five juveniles in JJRP ho ere sentenced to adult pro ation have een revo ed 0
Adult Probation Revocations
30 27 25 22 20 15 10 6 4 5 5 0 0 Revoked Not revoked Revoked Not revoked Revoked Not revoked Comparison group MCJRP JJRP
Summary
Juvenile defendants facin Tier M11 char es ecame eli i le for the Multnomah County Justice Reinvestment Pro ram MCJRP on July 1, 201 hile 8 of similarly situated juveniles in the t o years efore MCJRP received O A sentences, only 26 of juveniles participatin in MCJRP received O A sentences Juveniles further enefitted from the Juvenile Justice Reinvestment Pro ram JJRP implemented on June 8th, 2016 Only 11 of JJRP participants received O A sentences, a decrease from the pre MCJRP comparison roup MCJRP and JJRP sharply reduced the num er of juveniles receivin O A sentences
Recidivism data is unavaila le at this time Juvenile pro ation revocation data is unavaila le at this time T o JJRP juveniles have een on pro ation for ten months and t enty months respectively All other juveniles have een on pro ation for at least t o years 5
136 137 See next page for information about the Multnomah County Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion (LEAD®) Program, which provides intensive case management and diverts individuals engaged in low-level drug offenses from the criminal justice system and also reduces the disproportionate number of persons of color being arrested and referred to the criminal justice system for these offenses.
136 137
Rod Underhill, District Attorney
1021 SW Fourth Avenue, Room 600 Portland, OR 97204-1193 Phone: 503-988-3162 Fax: 503-988-3643 www.mcda.us
MULTNOMAH LAW ENFORCEMENT ASSISTED DIVERSION (LEAD®) MISSION & PURPOSE
Elected officials and law enforcement officers, along with residents, business owners, and service providers in downtown Portland and other Multnomah County communities want to improve public safety and public order in their neighborhoods. We endeavor to reduce future criminal behavior by individuals engaged in low-level drug offenses while also reducing the disproportionate number of persons of color being arrested and referred to the criminal justice system for these offenses. In Seattle, Washington a non-randomized controlled trial has demonstrated that LAW ENFORCEMENT ASSISTED DIVERSION (LEAD®), which provides intensive case management and diverts some cases from jail and prosecution, is more successful at reducing recidivism than processing these individuals through the criminal justice system. The following proposed model borrows heavily from Seattle’s LEAD® Operating Referral and Diversion Protocol.
The LEAD® model focuses on low-level misdemeanor and felony drug possession crimes and uses two processes for entry into the program. The first process diverts individuals arrested for drug possession to services and resources specific to the needs of the individual instead of jail and prosecution. Participation is voluntary but requires completion of an in-depth assessment within 30 days of arrest otherwise the case is referred for prosecution. The second process, the social contact referral, deflects individuals perceived by officers as at high risk of future arrest for drug possession to services and resources specific to the needs of the individual. Participation through the social contact referral process is also voluntary.
CORE PRINCIPLES
Core principles of this intervention include:
A harm reduction philosophy which engages participants where they are; participants will not be penalized or denied services if they do not achieve abstinence. The goal is to reduce the harm done to themselves and to the surrounding community through problematic drug activity. Some or all services may be withdrawn from participants whom LEAD® staff feel are not making progress toward reducing the harm caused by their behavior.
LEAD® is a registered trademark held by the Public Defender Association for the Seattle/King County LEAD® Policy Coordinagtin Group. Used by permission.
ͶȀʹͺȀͳ ͳ 138 139 A non-displacement principle that ensures that individuals waiting for scarce community-based services will not be displaced by moving a LEAD® participant ahead of them on a wait list. Rather, LEAD® participants will wait until it is their turn to receive services. Where existing programs have unused capacity and are an appropriate fit for participants’ identified needs, LEAD® staff will refer participants to those resources. LEAD® program funding may be used to purchase or access additional resources that would not otherwise be available to this population.
Transparency and accountability to community stakeholde rs and public safety leaders who will have access to program performance reports, direct access to program staff and the ability to ask questions and provide feedback. Community confidence that pre-booking diversion is a reasonable way to accomplish the goal of improving public safety is essential to the viability of the program.
WHEN
The goal is to begin the pilot project in February 2017. It is anticipated that the pilot will be reviewed one year following its start date.
WHERE
The pilot project will be implemented in the High Pedestrian Traffic areas of the City of Portland as defined in Portland City Code (PCC) 14A.50.030(F).
DURATION
The pilot project will operate for one year and will then be evaluated to determine its efficacy. If effective, local officials will consider expanding LEAD ® to other areas of the city/county.
ANALYSIS
Program analysis is integral to the LEAD® initiative. All partners are committed to ensuring rigorous evaluation of LEAD® outcomes such as recidivism, cost-benefit (compared to business as usual) and increased participant self-sufficiency. To that end, the program will convene a data group consisting of representatives from each of the interested LEAD® partners. In addition, external academic partners will be contracted to submit their own independent outcome investigation. Together, these internal and external analyses will document the program’s effectiveness in meeting its goals.
LEAD® is a registered trademark held by the Public Defender Association for the Seattle/King County LEAD® Policy Coordinating Group. Used by permission.
ͶȀʹͺȀͳ ʹ 138 139 PROJECT DEVELOPERS
Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office Black Male Achievement Initiative Portland Police Bureau Citizens Crime Commission Multnomah County Chair’s Office Metropolitan Public Defender’s Office
City of Portland- Mayor’s Office Joint Office on Homelessness
Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office Gresham Police Department
District 3 County Commissioner’s Office Community Members Multnomah County Mental Health and Addiction Services Department Multnomah County Department of Community Justice
DIVERSION PROCESS
In the context of LEAD®, diversion means that a person who could have been booked into jail and referred for prosecution is instead referred to a case manager who will conduct an initial screening to address immediate needs and then schedule a more comprehensive psychosocial assessment of client- identified needs and goals.
A. Diversion process
The Portland Police Bureau will train officers to make contact with persons in the High Pedestrian Traffic areas engaging in LEAD®-qualifying offenses to determine their eligibility for the program pursuant to factors set forth below. After a LEAD®-eligible client is arrested, the LEAD®-trained arresting officer will call the LEAD® service provider and the individual will be turned over to the case management team for initial screeni ng. This may take place at a designated LEAD® facility or at a police contact office or precinct.
The LEAD® case management team will provide an initial screening to determine immediate needs and offer crisis-related assistance. Upon enrollment, the participant is eligible for more comprehensive services. A person is enrolled in LEAD® if (i) he/she commits a qualifying offense in a High Pedestrian Traffic Area; (ii) he/she completes an in-depth intake assessment within 30 days of referral, unless the LEAD® prosecuting attorney extends that time on the recommendation of a LEAD® law en forcement partner and/or a member of the LEAD® Operations Team; and (iii) he/she signs a Participant Agreement Form and a Release of Information Form allowing the sharing of information among the service providers and LEAD® operational partners.
LEAD® is a registered trademark held by the Public Defender Association for the Seattle/King County LEAD® Policy Coordinating Group. Used by permission.
ͶȀʹͺȀͳ ͵ 140 141
The LEAD® officer who makes the referral to LEAD® will write an arrest report and forward it to the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office for review. The assigned Deputy District Attorney (DDA) will review the report as soon as practicable for compliance with the agreed upon diversion criteria. If the assigned LEAD® DDA determines that the potential participant is not an appropriate LEAD® referral, the LEAD® DDA will contact the LEAD® Operations Team and a plan will be developed.
At least monthly, the LEAD® Operations Team will hold staffing sessions in which participants will be reviewed. All referrals will be carefully reviewed for amenability to the program, with particular deference provided to the assessment of the LEAD® officer who made the referral. Subsequent referrals on new charges will be reviewed by the LEAD® DDA in consultation with the LEAD® Operations Team.
No criminal charges will be filed for the referred case once a person is enrolled in LEAD®, unless they are otherwise ineligible.
B. Eligibility Criteria for Diversion into the LEAD® Program:
Individuals are eligible for LEAD® if they are arrested for the following offenses:
ORS 475 et. seq. Possession of a Controlled Substance Offenses (except for Commercial Drug Offenses and Substantial Quantities of Controlled Substances, See 475.900(2 )(b))
Basis for Exclusion:
The individual has 5 grams or more of heroin; 10 grams or more of cocaine; 10 grams or more of methamphetamine; The individual has an active extraditable warrant; The individual has an existing no contact order, temporary restraining order, or other court order prohibiting contact with a current LEAD® participant; The individual is a current or former LEAD® participant, unless continued participation in the LEAD® program is recommended by the LEAD® team and agreed upon by MCDA; The individual has a pending case eligible for, or is engaged in, a Multnomah County Specialty Court (including STOP, START, MCJRP, Mental Health, DISP and DV-DSP); The individual is on Post-Prison Supervision, Parole, formal probation or misdemeanor bench probation for a person offense; Denial by LEAD® Operations Team; or Any other exceptional circumstance(s).
LEAD® is a registered trademark held by the Public Defender Association for the Seattle/King County LEAD® Policy Coordinating Group. Used by permission.
ͶȀʹͺȀͳ Ͷ
140 141 SOCIAL CONTACT REFERRAL PROCESS
The social contact referral is considered a deflection from potential future interaction with the criminal justice system.
A. Social Contact Referral Process
Depending on program capacity, LEAD® will accept referrals from law enforcement via the social contact referral process. That is, individuals perceived by officers (or individuals referred to officers by community members, social service providers or area security personnel) as at high risk of arrest in the future for LEAD®-eligible offenses. Even in situations where a police officer has probable cause to make an arrest but does not, the officer may still refer the person to LEAD®. Social contact referrals are entirely voluntary and subject to program availability.
All social contact referral deflections to LEAD® must meet the following pre-requisite:
Verification by law enforcement that the individual is at high risk of arrest for a LEAD®- eligible offense. Verification by law enforcement means: Police reports, arrests, jail bookings, criminal charges, or convictions indicate that this individual has engaged in relevant criminal activity; or Law enforcement has directly observed the individual's criminal activity; or Law enforcement has a reliable basis of information to believe that the individual is engaged in committing relevant offenses, such as information provided by another first responder, a professional, or credible community members.
Prior to the initial screening, the LEAD® Deputy District Attorney will review the criminal history of all persons referred through the social contract referral process to ensure they meet criteria. If an individual meets criteria, the LEAD® Screening and Outreach Coordinator will complete the initial screening in order to determine eligibility and immediate needs. The LEAD® Screening and Outreach Coordinator will offer immediate crisis-related assistance and, over time, more comprehensive services if the person enrolls in LEAD®. A person socially referred is enrolled in LEAD® if (i) he/she completes an in-depth intake assessment within 90 days of referral; and (ii) he/she signs a Participant Agreement Form and a Release of Information form allowing the sharing of information among the LEAD® operational partners.
The LEAD® Screening and Outreach Coordinator will determine, based on the eligibility criteria below (and including his/her own opinion of the individual’s amenability to the intervention model), whether a
LEAD® is a registered trademark yheld b the Public Defender Association for the Seattle/King County LEAD® Policy Coordinating Group. Used by permission.
ͶȀʹͺȀͳ ͷ 142 143 socially referred individual will be allowed into the LEAD® Program. A prior social referral does not preclude subsequent referral, but is a factor that the Screening and Outreach Coordinator will consider when determining the individual’s amenability to the program. There is no limitation on the number of times an individual may be referred to the program through a social contact referral.
B. Eligibility Criteria for Social Contact Referral to LEAD®
Individuals perceived by officers (or individuals referred to officers by community members, other social service providers, or area security personnel) as at high risk of arrest in the future for LEAD® eligible offenses.
Considerations for Inclusion or Exclusion: The individual has an active extraditable warrant; The individual has an existing no contact order, temporary restraining order, or other court order prohibiting contact with a current LEAD® participant; The individual is a current or former LEAD® participant, unless continued participation in the LEAD® program is recommended by the LEAD® team; The individual is engaged in a Multnomah County Specialty Court (including STOP, START, MCJRP, Mental Health, DISP and DV-DSP); The individual is on Post-Prison Supervision, Parole, formal probation or misdemeanor bench probation for a person offense; or Denial or acceptance to be determined by the LEAD® Operations Team.
INTERVENTION PROTOCOL
A. Initial contact and referral by officers
The Portland Police Bureau will devise its own procedure for review of referrals by individual officers. Following the decision to refer an individual to LEAD®, the referring officer will contact the LEAD® Screening and Outreach Coordinator who will come to the precinct or other agreed upon location. LEAD® staff will be available to respond immediately during designated periods when they are open for referrals.
When the Screening and Outreach Coordinator arrives, the referring officer will provide basic information about the individual, including known criminal history. If the individual is a Department of Community Justice (DCJ) client, the referring officer will enter a note in the EPR that the individual was arrested and referred to LEAD®. The DCJ Officer will treat this arrest as a “non-event” and no sanction will be issued for this arrest. The referring officer will document in their report that the Screening and Outreach Coordinator was called, arrived, and provided with the pertinent information.
LEAD® is a registered trademark held by the Public Defender Associatione for th Seattle/King County LEAD® Policy Coordinating Group. Used by permission.
ͶȀʹͺȀͳ 142 143 The referring officer will then release the individual from custody. The officer will leave the Screening and Outreach Coordinator to engage the individual.
If a suspect is intoxicated or otherwise lacks capacity to engage effectively in the intake process, the individual should not be referred to LEAD® at that time. If, in the Screening and Outreach Coordinator’s judgment, an individual is unable to provide informed consent and/or poses a risk to self or others due to severe behavioral health issues, the individual will be diverted to appropriate medical services. The arresting officer may refer the individual through a social contact referral once he/she has b een released from medical care. For all other diverted referrals, the Screening and Outreach Coordinator will complete an initial screening and schedule a follow-up appointment to conduct a detailed intake assessment.
B. Cover Sheets
LEAD®-trained officers who make diversions to LEAD® should complete and attach the “Multnomah LEAD® Cover Sheet” to the arrest report for every PCS arrest made. This cover sheet should be completed for all PCS arrests - those that result in diversion and for those that do not result in diversion.
C. Social Contact Referrals
An officer making a social contact referral will staff the case with the LEAD® Deputy District Attorney and the LEAD® Screening and Outreach Coordinator. If the individual meets criteria and is a good fit for the program, the officer will contact the referred individual and connect them with the Screening and Outreach Coordinator for an immediate initial screening.
D. Intake assessment
When an individual is diverted to LEAD®, LEAD® staff will immediately conduct an initial screening to gather basic information about the person, identify any acute immediate needs, and assess the person’s appropriateness for diversion. Based on the initial screening, the Screening and Outreach Coordinator will first work to meet any immediate needs that must be addressed, such as shelter for the night. The Screening and Outreach Coordinator will also thoroughly explain the diversion process and the assistance that might be available through the LEAD® program.
If an individual does not remain to complete the initial screening that immediately follows arrest, LEAD® program staff will contact the supervising sergeant and MCDA by email. The Portland Police Bureau may decide to re- arrest the individual or to refer the case to the prosecutor without re-arrest.
LEAD® is a registered trademark held by the Public Defender Association for the Seattle/King County LEAD® Policy Coordinating Group. Used by permission.
ͶȀʹͺȀͳ
144 145
At the end of the initial screening, LEAD® staff will schedule a follow-up appointment to perform an in- depth intake assessment which should occur optimally between 24-48 hours after the initial screening, or as soon as otherwise possible. The intake assessment should not occur more than 30 days from the referral date in the case of arrest referrals (90 days for social contact referrals), unless an extension is recommended by the referring officer and/or the Operations Team. The Screening and Outreach Coordinator will send an email to the LEAD® DDA with basic referral information. The LEAD® DDA will enter the referral in formation on the DDA spreadsheet and, if the individual is a DCJ client, will send an email to the DCJ officer alerting them of the referral to LEAD® and requesting input from the DCJ officer.
When completing the in-depth intake, the first task of LEAD® staff is to determine the immediate cause of the individual’s drug activity on the street. In addition, the case manager will survey a wide range of factors that might contribute to ongoing encounters with law enforcement. Such factors include, but are not limited to: behavioral health issues, lack of housing, prior legal involvement and/or gang involvement, lack of employment or income, and lack of education. LEAD® funding and staffing may be used to address any factor or set of factors driving the participant to engage in the program qualifying offenses.
If an individual completes the initial screening, but refuses or fails (within 30 days from referral) to complete the in-depth intake assessment, the LEAD® social service provider will notify the LEAD® DDA who may then decide to file a criminal charge.
E. Self-Directed Action Plan
Once any acute needs have been addressed, the case manager will work with each participant to design a Self-Directed Action Plan (SDAP) which will form both the action plan for the individual and a key element of program evaluati on. The SDAP may include assistance with housing, treatment, education, job training, job placement, attainment of government benefits, licensing assistance, child care or other services. The case manager will follow up with the individual to address elements of the SDAP in the order that the participant identifies as being most significant.
Although the needs and goals in the SDAP will be client-identified and client-driven, the SDAP will draw on the professional expertise of the case manager. If the case manager identifies a need for treatment or other services and the participant is amenable, the case manager will either provide referrals to appropriate programs with available capacity (see discussion above of non-displacement principle) or procure needed services using project funding.
LEAD® is a registered trademark held by the Public Defender Association for the Seattle/King County LEAD® Policy Coordinating Group. Used by permission.
ͶȀʹͺȀͳ ͺ
144 145 F. Withdrawal of services
Receipt of ongoing services is conditioned on the participant making, in the judgment of the LEAD® Operations Team, good use of the resources provided, and sufficient progress toward reducing the harm his/her drug-related criminal behavior has brought to the community and him/herself. Revocation of services should not be invoked lightly, but act as a powerful motivator for participants to take the opportunity seriously and make good use of LEAD® resources.
G. Regular staffing sessions with partners
At least monthly, the LEAD® Operations Team will conduct a staffing at the Portland Police Bureau that includes the key operational partners in LEAD®: the Portland Police Bureau, the identified service provider, the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office, the Metropolitan Public Defender’s Office, the Multnomah County Department of Community Justice, the Multnomah County Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services, community advisory representatives, and the Project Manager. LEAD® partners will use the staffings to share information about program participants’ situations and progress; to discuss possible withdrawal of program support from participants who are not making effective use of the opportunity; to discuss referral criteria, program capacity and compliance with the protocol; and to focus the attention of LEAD® program staff and Portland Police Bureau officers in particular areas viewed with concern by community representatives.
H. Community report
The LEAD® Policy Team and LEAD® Community Engagement Team will periodically reach out to neighborhood residents, businesses and community leaders to provide informational updates about LEAD® operations and to receive feedback on areas of focus.
I. Goal of self-sufficiency; no time limit
Self-Directed Action Plans will be designed to maximize the chances a participant is able to achieve self- sufficiency independent of program funding at some point in the near term. For some, this may entail a plan for vocational or higher education or achieving a GED; for others, it may involve job placement; for those who are not likely to be able to support themselves through work, it may entail applications for government benefits.
Since the objective is securing changes in individual behavior, there will be no a priori limit on the time period in which an individual can receive services. The test is simply whether, in the judgment of the LEAD® Operati ons Team, the participant continues to make good use of resources.
LEAD® is a registered trademark held by the Public Defender Association for the Seattle/King County LEAD® Policy Coordinating Group. Used by permission.
ͶȀʹͺȀͳ ͻ 146 147 See next page for information about the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Treatment First Program, which is dedicated to helping individuals break their drug dependent lifestyle, reuniting families, reducing the recidivism rate, and improving public safety in Multnomah County.
146 147
Rod Underhill, District Attorney 1021 SW Fourth Avenue, Room 600 Portland, OR 97204-1193 Phone: 503-988-3162 Fax: 503-988-3643 www.mcda.us
TREATMENT FIRST PROGRAM
1. MISSION & PURPOSE
Since 1991, the Multnomah County Sanctions Treatment Opportunities Progress (STOP) Drug Court has been available for most people that are charged in Multnomah County with a felony drug possession crime. The objective for STOP Court is to significantly reduce drug abuse within the community. Throughout the years, STOP Court has assisted in the reduction of harm from the use of controlled substances and a reduction in recidivism within the community.
With the passage of HB 3194 during the 2013 Oregon Legislative session, the Criminal Justice Commission (CJC) was charged with developing evidence-based standards and best practices to be applied to specialty courts. Many of its suggested standards are in conflict with STOP Court’s current practice: STOP Court does not use standardized, objective, validated risk and need screening and assessment tools to assess the risk and need of the potential adult drug court candidate1, nor does it target individuals classified as moderate to high risk and high need2. The agencies that collaboratively implement STOP Court acknowledge the need to adjust the way we approach treatment and dosage for individual offenders based on risk and need, in addition to other factors. To that end, the Treatment First Program concept will involve the use of a validated risk and needs assessment tool and, because the Treatment First Program will serve a mixed population of low risk/need and moderate to high risk/need offenders, the program will provide separate tracks and separate group treatment services to ensure low risk offenders are not attending group sessions with moderate and high risk offenders and that their specific needs are met. Defendants with low risk and low needs will be assigned a low supervision track. The Treatment First model reserves the STOP Court for the highest need, highest risk individuals while creating alternative tracks that match program design to offender needs and profiles. By creating multiple treatment tracks besides the STOP Court, the county is able to provide an appropriate system response to offenders who are non-addicted and/or
1 3-4: “Adult drug courts shall use standardized, objective, validated risk and need screening and assessment tools to assess the risk and need of the potential adult drug court candidate (e.g., LSI-R, LS-CMI, PSC, etc.). Screening and assessment results should be used for both program eligibility and to determine level and type of care and supervision. Adult drug courts shall use validated clinical assessments for service planning, to address treatment and complementary service needs. When working with members of historically disadvantaged groups, programs have a responsibility to use tools validated for those members, where available.” 2 3-3: “Adult drug courts should target individuals classified as moderate to high risk and high need. Adult drug courts choosing to serve low risk low need individuals, as a small percentage of the overall participants population, should develop separate service tracks or “phase” requirements for the low risk low need offenders so that services for participants are appropriate for their assessed need and risk level.”
7/25/18 Page 1
148 149 low risk. inall , the Treatment irst Program is intended to replace the pedited Plea ocket Plea in ustice Center oom C for possession cases.
e are further aware of the fact that a ver significant disproportionate number of persons of color are being arrested and referred to, and inserted into, the criminal justice s stem for these offenses. e endeavor to reduce the negative impact of criminal justice involvement and its associated collateral consequences and embrace a “treatment first” philosophy.
The Treatment First Program will be a partnership of the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office C A , the ultnomah Count Circuit Court CCC , defense services etropolitan Public efenders, ultnomah efenders nc. and others , the epartment of Communit ustice C , local law enforcement and communit treatment providers. The Treatment irst Program is dedicated to helping individuals break their drug dependent lifest le, reuniting families, reducing the recidivism rate, and improving public safet in ultnomah Count .
The Treatment irst Program will involve significant data collection and outcomes research. Participant data will be monitored and anal zed on a regular basis to determine the effectiveness of the program. onitoring ma include comparing historicall disadvantaged groups to the other participants, to identif —and work to address—an areas of inequit in program access, treatment, responses to behavior, and dispositions.
2. CORE PRINCIPLES
Core principles of the Treatment irst Program approach include: The Treatment irst team shall include the following roles agencies: judge, prosecuting and defense attorne s, local law enforcement and treatment provider s . sing a primaril non adversarial approach, prosecution and defense counsel promote public safety while protecting participants’ due process rights. ligible participants are identified earl and promptl placed into the Treatment irst Program. Assessment for substance use disorders and other treatment needs shall be conducted b appropriatel trained and qualified professional staff familiar with the harm reduction philosoph . Provide the correct treatment dosage to participants depending on risk need level. ualif ing felon Possession of Controlled Substance offenses we believe the vast majorit of cases will be immediatel reduced to misdemeanor offenses and be eligible for the Treatment irst Program. e endeavor to emphasize treatment over punitive sanctions. Successful completion of the Treatment irst Program will result in dismissal, or reduction of the offense. An appropriate individualized treatment plan must be balanced with personal and social responsibilit , accountabilit , and public safet .
3. CHARGING DECISION PROCESS
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148 149
A. TIER 1 OFFENSES
hen sufficient e idence e ists to initiate prosecution all felony Possession of Controlled Substance offenses will be immediately reduced to misdemeanor offenses and be eligible for the Treatment First Program as a Tier offense unless one of the following conditions e ist
. The charge is a Commercial Drug Offense or the amount of controlled substance reco ered is a ubstantial uantity of controlled substance ee . b . The defendant has a pending person felony or faces charges in ol ing a crime constituting domestic iolence or firearms related offense . The defendant has had three or more pre ious drug cases in the Treatment First Program . The defendant is charged in the same charging instrument with another felony offense other than Possession of a Controlled ubstance . The defendant is currently on super ision for a se offense per O A. or . n the discretion of the District Attorney the First Assistant to the District Attorney or a Chief Deputy misdemeanor treatment would not be appropriate gi en the particular circumstances of the defendant.
Any drug possession charge that involves residual amounts of drugs will continue to be reviewed by the Intake Unit or the Neighborhood Prosecution Unit and will be issued as Tier 1 eligible. All field tested tested Possession of a Controlled ubstance offenses or felony drug possession offenses that in ol e a readily identifiable prescription drug shall be re iewed by a nit Drug nit DDA.
. TIER 2 OFFENSES
All Possession of a Controlled Substance offenses involving Substantial Quantities ee . b shall be prosecuted as a felony offense and made eligible for the Treatment First Program unless one of the following conditions e ist
. The defendant has a pending person felony or faces charges in ol ing a crime constituting domestic iolence or firearms related offense . The defendant’s Sentencing Guidelines Grid score is a 6 A C or D A A A . The defendant is charged in the same charging instrument with another felony offense other than Possession of a Controlled ubstance . The defendant is currently on super ision for a se offense per O A. or . n the discretion of the District Attorney the First Assistant to the District Attorney or a Chief Deputy the Treatment First Program would not be appropriate gi en the particular circumstances of the defendant.
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150 151 4. CASE PROCESS/TERMS OF INVOLVEMENT
The deter ines a defendant’s eligibility upon the initial review of police reports and informs the defendant and court at the ti e of arraign ent T ligi ilit ill e indicated on the charging instru ent ca tion To e eligi le the defendant ust fall into a Tier or Tier offense categor a les of controlled su stances eligi le for the Treat ent irst rogra include eroin etha heta ine ocaine codone eth lenedio etha heta ine cstas and hallucinogenic ushroo s This list is not e hausti e
Upon arraignment on the District Attorney’s Information, the defendant ill e infor ed of the Treat ent irst rogra T ro ided the entr for for the to re ie and the defendant shall e gi en a T court date for Tier and call date for Tier t the sa e hearing the court ill assign an assess ent date efore the T date if Tier and call date if Tier f a Tier defendant ishes to enter the rogra the defense attorne should contact the T court and get a date set on that doc et The defendant ill e gi en a e el of Ser ice ase anage ent n entor S or Women’s Risk Needs Assessment (WRNA) and the T rug Screen ris assess ent inter ie ith the e art ent of o unit ustice The ris needs e aluation ill e ro ided to the court defense and rosecution efore the T court date and ill infor rofessional udg ent as it relates to treat ent
To elect the Treat ent irst rogra the defendant ust enter a conditional discharge lea ursuant to S hich eans that a erson ust lead guilt or no contest ut is not found guilt the udge during the course of treat ent The entr for ill e a aila le and the defendant ill sign and agree to the ter s of Treat ent irst Treat ent lasts for a set a ount of ti e rogress is onitored the Treat ent irst rogra drug tea hich consists of a udge defense counsel a de ut district attorne the e art ent of o unit ustice and the treat ent rogra liaison The drug court tea utili es a colla orati e a roach and onitors the rogress of each defendant
s art of artici ation in the Treat ent irst rogra the defendant ust agree to not ossess an firear s or a unition for the eriod of ro ation in this case urther the defendant ust also agree that the defendant shall not ossess an firear s or a unition for a eriod of ears follo ing the i osition of the sentence of discharge in this case The defendant ill e su ect to conte t of court roceedings if the defendant diso e s an such court order The defendant sti ulates that the court has the inherent authorit to i ose conte t sanctions The defendant further sti ulates that in consideration of the state allo ing for the ter ination or conclusion of the case the court aintains urisdiction as to the enforce ent of the firear s rohi ition f the defendant is found in conte t the defendant agrees that the arties ill resent a sti ulated sentencing agree ent to the court
t each court a earance the drug court tea re ie s a re ort ith the defendant e ending on the ris and need of each defendant—along ith other factors that infor rofessional udge ent such as accounta ilit icti in ut i act if a lica le and the nature of the underl ing offense— the re ort a co er treat ent rogress attendance grou artici ation attitude urinal sis results and other rele ant factors Successful completion of the defendant’s individualized treat ent
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150 151 plan will result in a reduction or dismissal (depending on the ier) upon graduation from the reatment irst rogram ailure of the treatment plan will result in a revocation and conviction of the charge(s)
5. FAILURE TO APPEAR/BENCH WARRANTS
If the defendant fails to appear at arraignment, or any other hearing, the defendant is sub ect to issuance of a bench warrant for the defendant’s arrest When taken into custody the court will schedule an assessment and release the defendant for the ultnomah ounty D to do an assessment if still needed If the defendant As a total of times on all open cases the defendant will be held in custody and be given a court date the first riday following arrest for entry into the program If the defendant enters the program the defendant may be released to initiate drug treatment If the defendant declines to enter the program the udge will make a release decision, or set a release hearing, and assign a trial readiness date
If the defendant fails to appear after entering the , the defendant is sub ect to a bench warrant and sanctions as set by the court
6. HOLDS AT THE TIME OF ARRAIGNMENT
Out of County/State Holds -If at the time of arraignment on a eligible case, the defendant has an out of county hold, the court will release the defendant and set a hearing in the court efore the court date the defense attorney with the help of the ourt, D and the District Attorney will communicate and investigate the nature of the hold, consider likely outcomes and possibly seek a global resolution offer consistent with the nature of the hold Local Holds - If the hold is a ultnomah ounty hold, the state will agree to release to the hold and the court will set a court date At the court date the district attorney’s office, Department of ommunity ustice and the defense will report as to the nature of the hold and the action regarding the reatment irst case District Attorney Dismissal A defendant who is on formal probation for a felony offense, or participating in an out of county court program that requires active engagement in drug treatment, may be eligible for a dismissal of their TFP eligible charge without entering the Treatment First Program (TFP). To qualify for possible dismissal without entry into TFP the defendant must agree to sign the stipulation of guilt document and demonstrate that they are actively engaged in a comparable treatment program. The ultimate decision to dismiss the case will be made by the Multnomah County District Attorney based on the individual’s particular circumstances. After the dismissal of the case the Multnomah County Department of Community Justice will forward the stipulation of guilt document to the appropriate supervising agency.
In order to show that a defendant is actively engaged in a comparable treatment program defense counsel must provide the following information to our office:
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152 153 1) The defendant is on formal field level probation or participating in an out of county court program that requires active engagement in drug treatment. 2) Proof of state certified level of care appropriate treatment and active engagement. 3) The defendant has been sanctioned by the probation department for the conduct that he is charged with or has signed and filed the stipulation of guilt document. 4) The defendant is in compliance with all probation conditions.
For dismissal of this case all the above criteria have to be confirmed in writing by a probation department representative at the first Treatment First Program (TFP) hearing after arraignment on the charge. If best efforts, as determined by the District Attorney’s Office, have been made to get all the information but it is not obtained by the first TFP hearing the defendant can enter a plea and sentencing will be set over for 30 days. If all of this information is not present at the first hearing, or best efforts have not been made to obtain the information, the defendant must enter the TFP and earn the dismissal by successfully completing the out of county probation or drug court program. There will be no set overs past this 30 day period unless the court grants a good cause extension. If the defendant fails to appear for the sentencing hearing, or is arrested for new charges, the state will object to a dismissal of the charge absent a successful completion of the TFP. The defendant must also sign, and file with the court, the stipulation of guilt document. After the dismissal of the case the Multnomah County Department of Community Justice will forward the stipulation of guilt document to the appropriate supervising agency.
7. CASE DISPOSITION/RESOLUTION
A. Tier I: Plea Offer
ach ier defendant e i i e for the reat ent irst ro ra i ea to the nder yin ossession of a contro ed s stance char e nder he defendant i ea i ty or no contest to the charge and with the consent of the district attorney’s office and the defendant, i e aced on ro ation f s ccessf the defendant’s case i e dis issed f the defendant does not s stantia y co ete the re ired treat ent ro ra or a ide y conditions of ro ation the defendant’s probation may be extended. If the defendant’s probation is revoked the defendant i e con icted and sentenced
he case DDA or Treatment First Program DDA will negotiate all other non-drug misdemeanor charges present on the charging instrument. Unless approved by a unit supervisor or Chief Deputy, the following offenses will not be offered dismissals at part of the Treatment First Program:
1. Class A Person Crimes, as defined by Oregon Administrative Rule 213-003-001(15); 2. Driving Under the Influence of Intoxicants; 3. Indecent Exposure if the underlying facts are sexual in nature; 4. Any offense involving a firearm; or 5. Any charge involving restitution without victim input and appropriate satisfaction related to the restitution obligation and amount. 6. Theft 2, Criminal Possession of a Forged Instrument, Criminal Mischief 2 or Forgery in the Second Degree.
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If the defendant does not enter a change of p ea, the case is given ria eadiness dates and set on the misdemeanor tria docket. he state may a so e ect to s bmit the matter to the grand ry or set a pre iminary hearing for fe ony consideration. he defendant is not e igib e for a dismissa nder the terms of this agreement. If convicted at tria the defendant wi be ordered to participate in the and no straight time ai offers wi be given.
he defendant wi have been assessed sing the I or and assessment too s. hey wi be sed as decision s pport too s to match offenders to the optima eve of s pervision and treatment.
. Participant timeframe: All probations are indefinite until the person is discharged and the case is dismissed by the court pursuant to ORS 475.245(4). Below time periods are only advisory.
a. If the defendant is high risk/high need on the risk needs assessment, the defendant is given a o rt date for entry into the program. In ct wi case manage o rt participants. In exceptiona circ mstances if the defendant does not enter o rt, the defendant agrees to do a dr g and a coho eva ation and be p aced on months of . active probation. he defendant m st fo ow thro gh on whatever treatment is recommended by and or In ct. he treatment foc s for these individ a s is acco ntabi ity, treatment and habi itation. b. If the defendant is high risk/low need on the risk and needs assessment, the defendant agrees to do a dr g and a coho eva ation and treatment if recommended and be p aced on months of . active probation. he treatment foc s for these individ a s is acco ntabi ity and pro socia and adaptive habi itation. here wi be the possibi ity of ear y termination of probation if the re ired treatment is comp ete. reatment is considered comp ete when a a ified c inician with the state certified treatment provider, by way of treatment p an review, determines that the individ a meets discharge criteria for o tpatient treatment. ischarge criteria for o tpatient treatment are detai ed in the rd edition of the merican ociety of ddiction edicine. In addition, the defendant is e igib e for ear y termination if the defendant does not have a new pending case, and has comp eted a comm nity service, sanctions and paid restit tion, if any. he epartment of omm nity stice (DCJ) will run the defendant’s criminal history and establish other protoco s to verify that the defendant is e igib e for an ear y termination. one page report wi be forwarded to the co rt re esting ear y termination. If granted, the court’s Judicial ssistant wi fi o t a reatment irst dgment dismissing or red cing the reatment irst harge. he report and the dgment dismissing or red cing the charge wi
3 For those defendants who have entered the program before July 1, 2018, Early Termination eligibility will be determined when they have been engaged in 9 months of treatment consistent with their quadrant and requirement of probation and have not had any probation violations.
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154 155 be forwarded to the District Attorney’s Office. he treatment focus for these indi iduals is treatment and habilitation. c. f the defendant is low risk/high need on the ris needs assessment the defendant a rees to do a dru and alcohol e aluation and treatment if recommended and be laced on months of O . robation. here will be the ossibility of early termination of robation if the re uired treatment is com lete. reatment is considered com lete when a ualified clinician with the state certified treatment ro ider by way of treatment lan re iew determines that the indi idual meets dischar e criteria for out atient treatment. Dischar e criteria for out atient treatment are detailed in the rd edition of the American ociety of Addiction edicine. n addition the defendant is eli ible for early termination if the defendant does not ha e a new endin case and has com leted all community ser ice sanctions and aid restitution if any. ee footnote below he De artment of ommunity Justice D J will run the defendant’s criminal history and establish other rotocols to erify that the defendant is eli ible for an early termination. A one a e re ort will be forwarded to the court re uestin early termination. f ranted the court’s Judicial Assistant will fill out a reatment irst Jud ment dismissin or reducin the reatment irst har e. he D J re ort and the ud ment dismissin or reducin the char e will be forwarded to the District Attorney’s Office. he treatment focus for these indi iduals is treatment and habilitation. d. f the defendant is low risk/low need on the ris needs assessment ursuant to O . the defendant a rees to be laced on months of O . robation. here will be the ossibility of early termination of robation if the defendant is com liant after months. he De artment of ommunity Justice D J will run the defendant’s criminal history and establish other rotocols to erify that the defendant is eli ible for an early termination. A one a e re ort will be forwarded to the court re uestin early termination. f ranted the court’s Judicial Assistant will fill out a reatment irst Jud ment dismissin or reducin the reatment irst har e. he D J re ort and the ud ment dismissin or reducin the char e will be forwarded to the District Attorney’s Office. he treatment focus for these indi iduals is re ention and harm reduction.
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1. Early Termination Protocol i. he De artment of ommunity Justice will re iew all cases rior to their halfway oint to determine based on the a reed criteria whether a defendant is eli ible for early termination. f a defendant is eli ible D J will forward a re ort to the court re uestin early termination. f a defendant is not eli ible D J will also forward a re ort to the court indicatin the defendant is not eli ible. After such date the defendant defense has the burden to show that the defendant is eli ible for early termination. . Tier 1: Post-plea 1. Motion to Dismiss Charge(s): At any time after the conclusion of the eriod of su er ision consistent with the reatment irst ro ram a reement and order a defendant who has fully com lied with and erformed the conditions may mo e to have the charge/s dismissed with the approval of the district attorney’s office and the De artment of ommunity Justice. 2. Revocation/Termination and Sentencing f the defendant fails to a ear at a hearin on the order to show cause fails to a ear at a O court a earance or if the court finds that the defendant failed to fulfill all of the terms of the a reement and order defendant is sub ect to termination from the ro ram and a ud ment of con iction on the char e. he defendant a rees the defendant will be sentenced ursuant to the a reement. . Tier II: Plea Offer
ach ier defendant eli ible for the reatment irst ro ram will lead uilty to the underlyin dru ossession offense under O . . he defendant will lea uilty or no contest to the char e and
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156 157 with the consent of the district attorney’s office and the defendant, will be placed on probation. If successful, the defendant’s case will be reduced to a misdemeanor.
If the defendant does not substantially complete the re uired treatment pro ram or abide by conditions of probation, the defendant’s probation may be extended. If the defendant’s probation is re o ed the defendant will be con icted and sentenced.
If the defendant declines the reatment irst ro ram the case is i en call dates. he defendant is not eli ible for a char e reduction to a misdemeanor. If con icted at trial the defendant will be ordered to participate in the and no strai ht time ail offers will be i en.
. Participant timeframe: Same as Tier 1
D. Tier II: Post-plea 1. Motion to Reduce Charge(s): t any time after the conclusion of the period of a super ision consistent with the reatment irst ro ram a reement and order, a defendant who has fully complied with and performed the conditions may mo e to ha e the char e s reduced to a misdemeanor with the appro al of the district attorney’s office and the Department of Community Justice. 2. Revocation/Termination and Sentencing he court may terminate the defendant’s participation in and enter a findin of uilty if the defendant fails to appear at a hearin on the order to show cause, defendant fails to appear at a court appearance or if the court finds that the defendant failed to fulfill all of the terms of the a reement and order. he defendant a rees the defendant will be sentenced pursuant to the a reement.
8. TRIAL
If the defendant does not enter into at the Justice Center, the court will assi n a ier I case to misdemeanor circuit court and will assi n it a trial readiness date consistent with other misdemeanor cases. he Court will assi n ier II cases to call for trial. If con icted, the defendant a rees the defendant will be ordered to participate in the .
9. TREATMENT FIRST PROGRAM REVOCATION/TERMINATION
y stipulation, the defendant a rees that if re o ed, the defendant is sub ect to a ail sentence and stipulates under . and all other applicable re on statutes that the defendant is not eli ible for credit for time ser ed, credits or any other credits upon re ocation. In addition, the defendant a rees that the defendant may recei e the maximum sentence allowed by law.
I e o e ermination resumpti e 30 45 Days w/no credit for time served or any other
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156 157 credits including 936 pursuant to stipulation.
I e o e ermination resumpti e 45 60 Days w/no credit for time served or any other credits including 936 pursuant to stipulation.
he presumpti e re ocation termination sentence listed abo e may be increased or reduced based on a ra atin or miti atin factors found by the court and put on the record. hese factors include, but are not limited to fforts in treatment en th of sobriety ental health Criminal history considerations robation iolations ew arrests en th of super ision completed uper ision compliance eedbac from treatment pro ider robation recommendation ailure to appear history Credit, includin C if appropriate
OAR DEFINITIONS
erson felonies are in numerical statutory order . urchase or ale of a ody art for ransplantation or herapy . lteration of a Document of ift . scape I . upplyin Contraband as defined in Crime Cate ories and and . ra ated urder . urder . elony urder . anslau hter I . anslau hter II . e li ent omicide . ra ated ehicular omicide . elony ssault . ssault III . ssault II . ssault I . elony tran ulation . ndan erin erson rotected by rder . ra ated Dri in hile uspended or e o ed . Criminal istreatment I . emale enital utilation . ssaultin a ublic afety fficer . se of tun un, ear as, ace I . idnappin II . idnappin I . ub ectin nother erson to In oluntary er itude II . ub ectin nother erson to In oluntary er itude I . raffic in in ersons . Coercion as defined in Crime Cate ory . ape III . ape II . ape I . odomy III . odomy II . odomy I . exual enetration II . exual enetration I . urchasin ex ith a inor . exual buse II . exual buse I . nline exual Corruption of a Child II . nline exual Corruption of a Child I . Custodial exual isconduct in the irst De ree . elony ublic Indecency .
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158 159 nlawful Dissemination of Intimate Ima e . nlawful Contact with a Child . Incest . bandon Child . uyin ellin Custody of a inor . Child e lect I . sin Child In Display of exual Conduct . ncoura in Child ex buse I . ncoura in Child ex buse II . , ossession of aterial Depictin exually xplicit Conduct of Child I . , ossession of aterial Depictin exually xplicit Conduct of Child II . In asion of ersonal ri acy I . tal in . iolation of Court s tal in rder . heft by xtortion as defined in Crime Cate ory . ur lary I as defined in Crime Cate ories and and . rson I . c Computer Crime— heft of an Intimate Ima e . obbery III . obbery II . obbery I . ree pi in In ury . ra ated arassment . buse of Corpse I . Intimidation I . nlawful se of a eapon . Inmate In ossession of eapon . elony ossession of a oax Destructi e De ice . nlawful ossession of oft ody rmor as defined in Crime Cate ory . romotin rostitution . Compellin rostitution . urin a inor . elony nimal buse I . ra ated nimal buse I . n ironmental ndan erment . a anufacturin or Deli erin a chedule I Controlled ubstance hereby Causin Death to a erson . Causin nother to In est a Controlled ubstance as defined in Crime Cate ories and and . nlawful dministration of a Controlled ubstance as defined in Crime Cate ories , , and , , and . b aintainin Dan erous Do . it and un ehicle In ury . elony Dri in nder the Influence of Intoxicants as pro ided in . it and un oat and attempts or solicitations to commit any Class or Class person felonies as defined herein.
erson Class misdemeanors are in numerical statutory order . esistin rrest . ssault I . tran ulation . enacin . ec lessly ndan er nother . Criminal istreatment II . se of tun un, ear as, ace II . exual buse III . Custodial exual isconduct in the econd De ree . ublic Indecency . ri ate Indecency . nlawful Dissemination of Intimate Ima e . nlawfully ein in a ocation here Children e ularly Con re ate . Child e lect II . ndan er elfare of inor . ncoura in Child ex buse III . In asion of ersonal ri acy II . nlawfully Directin a aser ointer . tal in . iolatin Court s tal in rder . Interferin with a in a olice eport . arassment ffensi e exual Contact . Intimidation II . isdemeanor ossession of a oax Destructi e De ice . urnishin exually xplicit aterial to a Child . d nlawful dministration of a Controlled ubstance . a aintainin Dan erous Do . , Dri in nder the Influence of Intoxicants as pro ided in and attempts or solicitations to commit any Class C person felonies as defined in section of this rule.
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158 159 Program Evaluation (Attachment #1)
outcomes such as recidivism, participants’ reduction in use of controlled substances, and reduction in the number of individuals with multiple PCS arrests. In addition, the DA’s Office wishes to use the
group when behavior from the immediate past (“Time 1”) is compared to their present behavior in TF (“Time 2”). As the details of the program are fleshed
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160 161 See next page for information about the actions taken by the Clackamas, Multnomah, and Washington County District Attorney offices after a study found Black individuals were being excluded from TriMet property at a disproportionately higher rate than White individuals.
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Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office
Interfering With Public
Transportation
(IPT)
UPDATED REPORT
April 2019
Research and Evaluation Team Lead Analyst: Christopher W. Dollar
April 11th, 2019
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INTRODUCTION
Founded 45 years ago, TriMet provides bus, light rail and commuter rail transit services in the Port- land, Oregon, metro area (TriMet, 2019). This area covers the three largest counties by population in Oregon, including Clackamas, Multnomah and Washington counties. TriMet’s light rail, Metropolitan Area Express (MAX), consists of five MAX lines that run on 60 miles of track and serve 97 stations (TriMet, 2019). Unlike the bus lines, MAX ridership does not require proof of fare prior to boarding. Instead, payment enforcement is conducted through the use of random fare inspections. A fare en- forcement incident can include either 1) a warning, 2) a citation, or 3) exclusion for not having valid fare at the time of the inspection. Concerns over “profiling” or “enforcement bias” arise when there are racial/ethnic disparities in enforcement or arrest practices.
In December 2016, the Clackamas, Multnomah, and Washington County District Attorney offices (The Tri-County DA Offices) began examining Interfering with Public Transportation (IPT) cases that were submitted for prosecution consideration involving persons riding TriMet without fare. ORS 166.116(1)(a) provides: “A person commits the crime of interfering with public transportation if the person * * * [i]intentionally or knowingly enters or remains unlawfully in or on a public transit vehicle or public transit station.” In that same timeframe, on December 14, 2016, a TriMet commissioned study from Portland State University (PSU) Criminal Justice Policy Research Institute was released (Renauer, 2016). The report confirmed similar prosecution findings that among persons riding TriMet who do not pay fare, Black individuals are excluded from TriMet property at a disproportionately higher rate than White individuals. Although the PSU report did not find any systemic racial and/or ethnic bias, the author of the study did suggest that the “elevated percentage of African American riders being excluded should be examined more closely.”
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t is of the highest importance that ustice guides prosecutorial decisions. hen deciding hether to initiate prosecution it is imperative to consider, among other things, fairness, e uity and proportional conse uences. The Tri County A ffices ere therefore concerned that the racial disparity con firmed in the study could lead to un ust results in the criminal ustice system. The Tri County A ffices recogni ed that primary responsibility to address this issue lay ith TriMet and ho it chooses to enforce rules and la s on its transportation system. eyond the issues of disparate exclusion practices of lac fare evaders on TriMet, the Tri County A ffices further evaluated hether the level of harm to TriMet caused by fare evasion is proportional to the level of prosecution for a Class A Misdemeanor (punishable by up to 1 year in ail). They determined that in all but the most chronic or exceptional circumstances applying this la to any previously excluded fare evader is not a proportional conse uence, and it compounds an unfair and disproportionately higher rate of exclusion from TriMet. or these reasons the Tri County A ffices decided to mod ify the ay fare evasion based T cases are handled by their offices. n anuary , 1 , the Tri County A ffices changed the ay they handle prosecution of certain nterfering ith ublic Transportation ( T) offenses. hereas trespassing on TriMet based on ex clusions for non payment of fare had previously been prosecuted as Class A Misdemeanors, these three offices decided to no longer prosecute T offenses based on fare evasion exclusions. hen exceptional circumstances arise or an individual chronically violates their TriMet exclusion, these of fices ill consider hether issuance of Criminal Trespass and or Theft (Class C Misdemeanors) charges are appropriate. The Tri County A ffices decided that using Class C Misdemeanor charges (punishable by up to days in ail) to address chronic fare evasion offenders on TriMet balanced TriMet’s need to maintain order on its system, while simultaneously equating the level of harm with the appropriate charge in the criminal ustice system. The Tri County A ffices agreed ith TriMet and others that riders need to feel safe on the MA and bus lines. Conse uently, the Tri County A ffices continued to revie for prosecution T charges for persons engaging in or excluded from TriMet for ualifying behavior related conduct such as conduct that involves assaultive or offensive physical conduct, disorderly conduct that involves the use of physical force or conduct immediately li ely to result in the use of physical force. As the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office (MC A) continues to prioriti e reducing dis parity in the local criminal ustice system, this report is an effort to monitor the effects of the Tri County DA Offices’ policy change to no longer prosecution T offenses based on fare evasion ex clusions. This document contains Multnomah County specific data and ill summari e the changes that occurred after the ne policy implementation, focusing on cases ith T charges referred to the MC A, changes in issued T charges, potential displacement of T charges to Criminal Trespass charges, and the racial composition of individuals involved. or this report, the racial brea do n included hite, lac , ispanic, and Asian individuals. ndividuals hose race as identified as n dian ere not included due to the potential inaccuracy of grouping these individuals either as Asians or as ative Americans. ative American individuals ere not included in the racial brea do n due to insufficient sample si es per year ( total referrals over years).
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Methods and Data
he data used in this report were collected from the C data ase, which is the ultnomah County District Attorney’s case management system he selection criteria for the data was any re ferred and issued case with at least one charge a – d or Criminal respass charge with an accompanying “TriMet Flag.” A “TriMet Flag” is an indicator used within CRIMES to denote if the crime was committed against ri et property or elicited the response of a ri et officer
ri et law enforcement is a conglomeration of separate law enforcement agencies hese agencies include eaverton olice Department, Clac amas County heriff’s Office, Gresham Police Depart- ment, ills oro olice Department, a e Oswego olice Department, ilwau ie olice Department, Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office, Port of Portland Police Department, Portland Police Bureau, igard olice Department, ualatin olice Department, est inn olice Department and the ash ington County Sheriff’s Office.
here are several ways to monitor the effect of a policy change n particular, this report uses multiple decision points and multiple metrics ultiple decision points refer to varia les in separate stages of the prosecutorial process
“Referred cases” are examined as a proxy for the arrest practices of law enforcement “Issued cases” are examined to study the charging practices of Deputy District Attorneys and “Criminal Trespass II” cases are studied to see if there has been a displacement of cases y either n regard to multiple metrics, four are used throughout this report
aw counts ates he elative ate nde and aw Differential epresentation D he most straightforward method is to e amine how the raw counts of cases change over time he second way is to e amine the rate at which populations e perience an event compared to their popu lation si e An , also called a is atio irvan, c ntosh, mol ows i , allows us to compare one group’s rate to another. In this case, rates for White individuals serve as the baseline against which rates for lac , ispanic, and Asian individuals are compared he final metric, aw Differential epresentation, reveals the num er of individuals who are over or under e periencing the event i e referrals for an charge if they shared the same ris as the reference group ir van, c ntosh, mol ows i
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Population data for White, Blac , and ispanic individuals over age in Multnomah County were acquired from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention’s (OJJDP) Easy Access to uvenile Populations E APOP for through which uses .S. Census data. It is ac nowl- edged that use of general census population data is a limitation and is discussed further in the limitations and future research section. Population data for is not available yet from the .S. Census Bureau and had to be derived. The average proportion of Multnomah County to the state of Oregon was calculated for the last years to and was used to derive the average estimated Multnomah County population given the U.S. Census’s estimated Oregon population in . Addi- tionally, the average proportion for the last years – was calculated for each race and ethnicity group of Multnomah County, and used to estimate the proportion of each group in the
Figure a. Adult Race Ethnicity Population Counts in Multnomah County by ear ear White Black Hispanic Asian Native Am. Total 2013 470,366 33,517 54,324 48,703 5,937 , 2014 475,707 34,481 56,024 51,040 6,009 , 2015 481,834 35,327 58,439 53,514 6,105 , 2016 486,925 36,396 61,129 56,027 6,089 , 2017 487,901 37,404 63,357 58,449 6,127 , 2018 Est. 492,200 38,081 66,033 60,554 6,175 , Multnomah County population estimate for Figure a . Figure b shows the percentage of the
Figure b. Adult Race Ethnicity Population Percentage of Multnomah County Total by ear ear White Black Hispanic Asian Native Am. Total 2013 . . . . . , 2014 . . . . . , 2015 . . . . . , 2016 . . . . . , 2017 . . . . . , 2018 Est. . . . . . , total population each racial or ethnic group of Multnomah County.
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SECTION ONE: REFERRED CASES
esides slightly a errant totals for the num er of cases referred from la enforcement to the MCDA involving an P charge (O S . ) has een on a general do n ard trend since . Cases issued also decreased during this period ith a idening gap after . he graph a ove sho s month totals for the years through and a . reduction in the num er of referred cases ( igure a).
he percent changes in igure highlight the differences in referred cases from the years to . Compared to the pre policy implementation year referred cases ith an P charge de creased a total of . in . Cases involving hite individuals decreased the most at . follo ed y ispanic ( . ) lac ( . ) and Asian ( . ) individuals. n cases decreased an additional . . Asian individuals had the largest decrease ( . ) from to follo ed y lac ( . ) hite ( . ) and ispanic ( . ) individuals.
n there ere cases referred ith at least one P charge. y ust efore the policy change there ere referred cases. our of these cases involved defendants ith an un no n race. Eleven cases had defendants that ere identified as ndian (n ) or ative American (n ). he remaining cases involved hite (n ) lac (n ) ispanic (n ) and Asian (n ) indi viduals. n . of referred cases ith an P charge involved hite individuals follo ed y lac ( . ) ispanic ( . ) and Asian ( . ) individuals. he num er of cases referred ith at igure . early Percent Change in eferred P Cases Multnomah County District Attorney s Office ( ) White Black Hispanic Asian All Other Total ear f Chg f Chg f Chg f Chg f Chg f Chg 2013 2014 . . . . . . 2015 . . . . . . 2016 . . . . . . 2017 . . . . . . 2018 . . . . . . otal Change . . . . . . 6 | Page
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least one P charge fell y . to cases in . n . of referred cases involved hite individuals follo ed y lac ( . ) ispanic ( . ) and Asian ( . ).
hile the DA offices have direct control over prosecution decisions the MCDA as also hoping for a change in la enforcement P arrests and referrals. District Attorney od Underhill and prosecu tors assigned to revie riMet cases made a concerted effort to ensure e tensive outreach to riMet officials and la enforcement personnel to e plain the ne policy and rationale ehind the decision. his could e plain the and case referral decrease for P trespassing charges.
n igure rates per are sho n for each race ethnicity. igure sho s the for individuals y race and ethnicity hile igure is the D for the same groups. et een and the rates of cases for oth hites and ispanics ere relatively the same decreasing from around to . referrals per for hites and . for ispanics in . his has resulted in values for cases involving ispanic individuals that are consistently around . ( . ). Cases here the defend ant is identified as Asian have the lo est rates of all the groups not e ceeding per Asian people despite having an estimated population similar to that of ispanics. his results in the for cases ith Asian defendants eing small . in and . in . As the D reveals in igure cases here the defendant is Asian are underrepresented for referral of P hen compared to the hite population.
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early rates for cases involving cases ith lac individuals are higher though decreasing from ( . per ) to ( . per ). hile rates for cases ith lac individuals are currently at their lo est very lo rates of cases ith hite defendants resulted in lac defendants’ main taining over time. his is an e ample of ho rates can decrease over time ithout decreasing the metric of disparities. o ever as igure sho s the over representation of cases here the defend ant as identified as a lac individual has decreased. Another ay to interpret igure is that it sho s that the num er of cases here the defendant is identified as lac ould need to decrease y a further cases to have equity et een the num er of cases here the defendant is lac versus here the defendant is hite.
Overall total count of referred P case rates are decreasing for each race and ethnicity. Cases here the defendant is identified as a hite individual sa the largest decrease in referred cases y . from to . Cases ith a lac defendant sa a decrease of . ispanic defendants y . and Asian defendants y . ( cases to ) et een and .
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SECTION TWO: ISSUED CASES
non-payment of fare
White Black Hispanic Asian All Other Total f f f f f f 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018
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Issued Cases by Charge Type
ORS 166.116(a) —
non-payment of fare
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ORS 166.116(b)-(d) statute provide that “[a] ”
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sia i dividua s hite i dividua s a ou ted or o a de e da ts o o ed a ispa i a d sia de e da ts urther ore the itt e variatio over ti e is e pe ted as the po i did ot ai to e e t prose utio o ehaviora ased har es
i ures a d sho s the rates a d s o ases issued ith a ehavior ased har e et ee a d ates o issued ases ith a ehavior ased har e are o siste t o est or hite a d ispa i i dividua s thou h o rates or a i dividua s e eed per urre t i rates or issued ases ith ehavior ased har es i vo vi a i dividua s are per i e the hite rate per is so s a va ues or a a d ispa i i dividua s shou d e i terpreted autious the or ases ith a ehavior ased har e i vo v i a i dividua s as hi e ases i vo ved ispa i i dividua s at a rate si i ar to hites i ure sho s that the or a i dividua s has ot de reased su sta tia over the stud period et a d are o er tha the previous ears
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SECTION THREE: CRIMINAL TRESPASS II
thou h o o er prose utes o e ses ased o are evasio e usio s he e ep tio a ir u sta es arise or i dividua s hro i a vio ate their ri et e usio s de i ed as re eivi a third e usio ithi a da period the i o sider hether issua e o ri i a respass ass isde ea or har es are appropriate he e ieves that usi ass isde ea or har es to address hro i are evasio o e ders balances TriMet’s need to ai tai order o its s ste hi e si u ta eous e uati the eve o har ith the appropriate har e i the ri i a usti e s ste here ore it is i porta t to e a i e pote tia disp a e e t ro ases to issued ri i a respass ases
ORS 164.245 provides that “[a] perso o its the ri e o ri i a trespass i the se o d de ree i the perso e ters or re ai s u a u in a motor vehicle or in or upon premises.” his report used the “TriMet Flag” located in the CRIMES database (MCDA’s case management system) i order to separate ri i a trespass har es o ri et propert ro si i ar trespass har es ou t ide ri inal trespass cases involving a “TriMet Flag” indicate trespass charges specific to TriMet property or i vo ve a ri et a e or e e t respo se, while those with “No TriMet Flag” constitute a general trespass o e se to o ri et propert dditio a a i e revie as o p eted o i dividua s ide ti ied as havi a ri et a ed ase as to as ertai the ature o the u der i ir u stances. These circumstances were aggregated into three categories: “True Trespass,” “Behavioral
Exclusion,” and “Only Fare Based Exclusion.”
i ure depi ts a ri i a respass ases ith a ri et a o d i e i i ure a d three ate ories that o prise the a ore e tio ed riteria “True Trespass” cases involve trespasses from either private e tities that resu ted i a ri et po i e respo se or re usa s to eave ri et propert when asked. “Behavioral Exclusion” trespasses involve offenders who are back on TriMet property a ter re eivi a e usio or i appropriate ehavior su h as i hti or propert da a e o ri et “Only Fare Based Exclusion” cases involve trespassers who are located on TriMet property after re- eivi a e usio or o pa e t o are a d ho have o other ehaviora ased e usio he
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“Only Fare Based Exclusion” category is of specific importance to analyze because MCDA’s new policy directly affects those prosecuted under such circumstances
Before 2016, the majority of cases were classified as “True Trespass” cases Figure 22 owever, “Behavioral Exclusions” and “Only Fare Based Exclusions” have increased since 2016 n 201 , be havioral exclusions and true trespass cases accounted for 2 cases and 2 cases respectively, while fare based exclusions accounted for 2 cases Both behavioral and fare based exclusions are behavior types that would have previously been charged as T a cases prior to the policy change
ogically, the policy does not address the behavior of individual TriMet passengers so it is within reason to expect the behaviors warranting case referrals to continue Therefore, if T a charges for fare based circumstances are to be unilaterally declined, Criminal Trespass charges are hypothesized to increase in fre uency to absorb displacement There were 6 T a cases in 201 and 6 CT cases in 201 , accounting for 2 of the T a cases from 201 Additionally, there were five cases with at least one T a charge in 201 Adding the T a and CT cases together from 201 totals 0 cases of similar behavior, or 101 of 201 T a cases Therefore, it appears that the policy has shifted the T a cases to CT for “chronic offenders” Figure 2 Counts of eople by umber of The data available does not provide historical data ssued T Cases and ear 201 201 on chronic offenders, which is defined as individu Cases 201 201 201 2016 201 201 Total als who had received three or more exclusions in a 1 2 1 01 222 2 1, 0 0 day period epeat offenders are analyzed as a 2 62 6 6 1 2 6 proxy Figure 2 provides such an analysis the 21 2 11 number of people by the number of cases they have 20 1 10 1 over the entire study period For example, 1,0 1 2 6 1 people had one case between 201 and 201 , while 6 1 2 10 six people were responsible for cases each in the 1 1 2 1 1 6 same time period As this is not indicative of how 2 1 many people had T cases each year, the number 2 of cases per year was calculated for each individual 11 2 2 shown in Figure 2 There were 1, 0 individuals 12 1 1 responsible for one case per year This differs from 1 1 1 Figure 2 because the one individual could have 1 1 1 2 multiple cases, but over multiple years Therefore, Total 6 60 12 2 100 1, 15 | Page
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any individual with more than 3 cases in a year has the potential to be classified as a “chronic offender.” his is not all inclusive however as an individual can be e cluded without bein arrested which is not captured in the current data .
Criminal Trespass for Underlying Fare-Based Exclusions he followin analyses are riminal respass cases where the individual received an e clusion for
only non payment of fare and were desi nated as a chronic offender durin a case review of all rim inal respass cases. here were no cases durin the study period where an individual received an issued riminal respass case and were not identified as chronic. dditionally there were no other race or ethnicities represented after the selection criteria was used.
here were cases in where the defendant was identified as hite resultin in a rate of .3
cases per hite people i ure . he number of cases in dropped for hites to total and . per people. here were two cases where the defendant was identified as is panic for both and resultin in a rate of .3 per ispanic people per year. ases where the defendant was identified as lac increased from ei ht in to in which also increased the rate from .3 to . .
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owever i ures and report the counts and rates for people who had at least one case in each year i.e. the same individual may be included in different years but no more than once for a iven year . i ure reveals that there were seven hite individuals in and si in and the rates are . for each year. here were two ispanic defendants for both and and the rate per ispanic people remained the same .3 . here were five lac individuals in and si in althou h a difference of one increased the rate by almost . times from . to . .
he relative rate for cases where the defendant was identified as ispanic was at parity . with hites in i ure . owever due to the decrease of the number of cases with hite defend ants the ispanic case increased to . in . he differential representation shown in i ure 3 increased from in to one in as well. ases where the defendant was identified as lac had a relative rate of . times that of hites in and . in . he differential representation of cases where the defendant is identified as lac increased from seven in to in .
he relative rate of ispanic individuals increased from . in to . in i ure 3 . ow ever the raw differential representation did not chan e . . he difference between the cases and the people calculations lies in the number of repeat hite defendants bein the same as the number of cases and number of ispanic defendants. he relative rate of lac individuals rose from .3 in
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to . in lar ely for the same reason. he differential representation of lac individuals also increased from four people to si people who are over represented i ure 3 .
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SUMMARY ince the policy chan e enacted on anuary 3 there have been observable decreases in prosecu tions for nterferin with ublic ransportation in ultnomah ounty. eferred char es after fell 3 . in and an accumulative . from to . urthermore a reater chan e occurred in char es issued by the . ompared to char es issued by the office fell . in after the policy chan e to a total decrease of . in . pected decreases occurred in issued trespass a char es which decreased .3 from to to an a re ate decrease of .3 between and . char es issued for behavior based reasons remained mostly unchan ed between these years. ith this decrease in issued char es also came an increase in issued riminal respass char es incurred on ri et property which increased from 3 in to in .
hile it appears the policy has redirected char in choices from nterferin with ublic ransit a to riminal respass there are two ar uments to consider. irst there were no individuals who were issued a riminal respass case for “fare based e clusions only” who were not a “Chronic Of- fender.” In this regard the policy has wor ed relatively as intended. econd because char in decisions have shifted from a lass isdemeanor with a potential sentence of up to one year ail to a lass isdemeanor 3 days potential ail the char es prosecutors are issuin are in line with the policy see in proportional conse uences to fare evasion.
he number and rate of referred cases where the defendant was identified as lac have decreased over the study period. owever because this policy chan e effects everyone cases with hite de fendants also decreased. his caused the relative rate of cases with lac defendants to remain the same while the differential representation has dropped by 3 over si years.
ll issued cases for with a lac defendant fell substantially from to with all metrics decreasin e cept the relative rate as cases with hite defendants also fell . here were a total of cases where the defendant was identified as lac that are over represented down from in 3. ssued cases for behavioral e clusions b – d char es have not chan ed substantially over time for any population. or a cases any e clusion all four metrics counts rates and fell to ero as there were no cases with at least one a char e where the defendant was identified as lac . t appears that the policy has had its intended effect.
n addition to diminishin and eliminatin prosecution for fare based e clusions the policy aimed to prosecute “chronic offenders” who had received three or more e clusions in a day period with riminal respass char es. riminal respass char es on ri et have increased from in to in . owever 3 of ri et riminal respass cases were for fare evasion only and every case the defendant was identified as a chronic offender.
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Limitations and Future Research s noted a o e in the first section the use of . . Census genera popu ation data is a i itation. If enforce ent is conducted at rando a co on approach in disparit studies is to assu e that the percentage of e c usions and or arrests for each racia ethnic group shou d e e ua to their percent- age of the oca popu ation. his is est su ari ed r. rian enauer a ort and tate ni ersit professor and Director of PSU’s Criminal Justice Policy Research Institute, who notes in his 2016 enforce ent outco es report his traditiona assu ption can e fa i e for four reasons . Certain racia ethnic groups a uti i e pu ic transportation at higher rates than their percentage of the genera popu ation thus putting the at greater ris for fare en- force ent acti it . . Certain racia ethnic groups a co it fare enforce ent io ations at higher rates than their percentage of the genera popu ation thus putting the at greater ris for fare enforce ent acti it . . oca census popu ation figures cannot accurate easure racia ethnic popu ations using transit ecause an un nown percentage of transit riders co e for counties or states outside the ort and etro area. . ep o ent of enforce ent personne a tend towards a ine or stop that happens to e fre uented higher proportions of certain racia ethnic groups in- creasing their i e ihood of an enforce ent incident. These measurement issues have been referred to as the “baseline problem” com on to race disparit studies. In response to these four reasons r. enauer uti i ed two separate popu ation esti ate datasets to address the first two issues. oth sets originated fro ri et rider sur e s. he first eing the Ridership Survey 2016, used to esti ate the nu er of peop e and percentages of racia ethnic groups of that popu ation enauer . he second is the Fare Evasion Survey 2016 in which contractors con- ducted a sur e of the nu er of fare e aders was recorded as we as their race ethnicit to atte pt to acquire a “true incident rate” of fare evasion (Renauer, 2016 . s these four reasons are co pe ing argu ents against using generic . . Census popu ation data the esearch and a uation ea intends to o tain these datasets for a reasona e and representati e ase ine in future reports.
nother i itation is the current descripti e ana sis cannot sa with athe atica confidence that the po ic change had an effect on the ti e series or not. his is a necessar distinction ecause there are at east two possi i ities the trend of I referred and issued cases was a read dec ining and therefore the po ic had no effect or that the trend of cases was a read decreasing and the po ic e pedited the dec ine in cases after . he esearch and a uations ea is acti e see ing ethods that wi pro ide rigorous statistica testing to the o ser ations in this report.
ti ate this report is one in a series of reports the u tno ah Count istrict ttorne ’s Office to e a uate the i pact of the decision ade the ri-Count s. he esearch and a uation ea intends to produce further reports with updated data to continue to understand the effects of the po ic on the peop e of u tno ah Count .
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References
irvan, J , cIntosh, , Smol ows i, (201 Tail, tus , and trun hat different metrics reveal about racial disproportionality in school discipline Educational Psychologist, (1 , 0
Renauer, (2016 nalysis of Racial thnic Disparity in Tri et are nforcement Outcomes on the 201 2016 Criminal Justice Policy Research Institute Submitted to Tri et Retrieved from https trimet or meetin s board pdfs 2016 12 1 analysis of racial ethnic disparity in trimet fare enforcement outcomes on ma 201 2016 pdf
Renauer, (201 nalysis of Racial thnic Disparity in Tri et are nforcement Outcomes on the 2016 201 Criminal Justice Policy Research Institute Presentation to Tri et Retrieved from https trimet or meetin s board pdfs 201 0 0 presentation analysis of racial ethnic disparity in trimet fare enforcement outcomes on ma 2016 201 pdf
Tri et (201 i ht Rail Pro ect istory Retrieved from https trimet or history ma overview htm
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182 183 Continuing Legal Education (CLE) and the District Attorney’s Equity Dignity and Opportunity Council (EDOC)
182 183 The Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office condemns racism, bigotry, and intolerance. However, denouncing racism is not enough. As an organization, we strive to identify and build core values of diversity, equity and inclusion into the fabric of our organization. We believe that embracing diversity and equity as organizational values creates positive space leading to positive outcomes, whether in public health and safety decisions or organizational development. Through EDOC, the District Attorney’s Office has started an honest internal dialogue that encourages our staff and management to reflect, listen and learn from each other’s experience and the experiences and knowledge of others.
The Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office formed the Equity Dignity and Opportunity Council (EDOC) in 2013. The mission of EDOC is to “support and guide the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office in its objective to provide an inclusive environment that promotes equity, values integrity, and strives to establish a workplace where the rights, values, and dignity of its employees and community members are upheld and respected to assist them in reaching their full potential.”
We recognize the importance of this issue and have worked to reduce the negative impacts of criminal justice involvement and its associated collateral consequences for racial and ethnic minority groups by implementing different policies and programs.
The Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office currently has 64 Deputy District Attorneys. Of those, 24 (37%) are persons of color or mixed race. Of the Senior Deputy District Attorneys (SDDAs), four of the 12 SDDAs (33%) are persons of color.
As described in detail in the previous section, the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office is part of the Racial and Ethnic Disparities (RED) subcommittee of the Local Public Safety Coordinating Council (LPSCC), which is a community-based response to the ongoing, serious RED issues in criminal justice.
System partners include the Multnomah County Circuit Court, Multnomah County’s Department of Community Justice (DCJ), Multnomah County’s Office of Equity and Diversity, community members with an interest in racial and ethnic disparity matters, law enforcement agencies and others doing justice work.
184 185 Since 2013, EDOC has been instrumental in providing trauma-informed and implicit bias trainings to the office. These regular trainings are mandatory for all deputy district attorneys and staff are also encouraged to attend as their duties allow. EDOC has sponsored more than 30 hours of related mandatory trainings including the following:
• Diversity & Equity-Definitions and Shared Awareness Training • Diversity in the Workplace: Applying the Equity & Empowerment Lens • Equity, Diversity and Trauma-Informed Practices • Gender Bias in the Workplace • Hands Up Portland • Microaggressions and Invisible Disability • The Evolve Experience • The Privilege Walk • The Science of Bias • Trauma Informed Practices in the Criminal Justice System
184 185 The Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office will continue to work on equitable progress. We understand that successfully building a culture of diversity, equity and inclusion into our work and organization requires an ongoing and evolving process of continued investment and openness to change. As an organization we are committed to the challenges we face related to unconscious or implicit bias, understanding the dynamics of privilege and power, and recognizing the value of diversity in our staff and community.
CONTINUING LEGAL EDUCATION The Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office has a Continuing Legal Education (CLE) committee that is currently chaired by a Unit A/B Senior Deputy District Attorney. Also on this committee are 10 DDAs from various units within the office and one staff person. The committee meets monthly to explore various training opportunities and to plan future CLEs offered office-wide.
Photo: Oregon Supreme Court Justice Adrienne Nelson and University of Oregon Professor Dr. Erik Girvan present a CLE on Gender Bias in the Workplace to the District Attorney’s Office in January of 2020.
186 187 • Advanced Lexis/Nexis Training • Advances in DNA Technology • CARES and Child Abuse Reporting • Child Abuse/Elder Abuse Reporting • Civil Law and the Intersection with Criminal Law • Court Ordered Treatment Services by VOA • Courtroom Safety and Security • Crime Victims' Rights • Cross Examination • Debriefs/Proffers/Cooperation Agreements • DNA 101 • Domestic Violence Lethality Factors and Gun Dispossession • DUII Case Training • Effective Use of PowerPoint • Evidence • Grand Jury and Preliminary Hearings • Grand Jury Practice • Human Trafficking • Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion (LEAD®) & Treatment First • Lawyer Well-Being: How Mental Health and Substance Use Can Affect Our Profession • Legislative Update • Legislative Update • Making a Record • Media and the Law • Mental Health • Other Acts Evidence • Phone Dumps and Search Warrants • Post-Conviction Relief and How to Avoid It • Practical Tips for Case Resolution and MCJRP Case Process Updates • Preliminary Hearings • Pre-Trial Release: Recent Trends and Arguments • Probation Violation Hearing Best Practices for Probation Officers, District Attorneys and Defense Counsel • Probation Violation Hearing Refresher • Restitution Basics • Restitution Issues • Sentencing Advanced • Sentencing Basics • Support Enforcement Division and Dependency • The general CLEs presented during the last three years include: • The Prosecutor’s Role in Bail and Pre-Trial Release Decisions • Trial Basics - Voir Dire, Opening and Closing Statements • Trial Fundamentals (Opening/Direct/Cross/Closing) • Victim’s Assistance Program
Photo: During the COVID-19 pandemic, the District Attorney’s Office held a virtual CLE.
186 187 In addition to the training opportunities described above, members of the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office also attend many trainings sponsored by outside agencies.
Internally, the CLE committee provides enough in-house trainings to comply with the Oregon State Bar requirements of at least 45 continuing legal education credits every three years with five ethics CLE credits for each reporting year. The following ethics CLEs have been provided by the office in the last three years:
• Avoiding Discipline • Brady and ORS 135.815 • Brady v. Maryland and the Prosecutors Duty to Disclose Evidence • Ethics for Prosecutors • Ethics for the Modern Prosecutor • Rules of professional conduct • The Ethical Prosecutor
188 189 188 189 190 191 Photos: (Top) An undated photo, provided by Multnomah County’s Office of Communications, of the downtown courthouse before being expanded to meet the needs of the county. (Bottom) A designer rendering of the future Multnomah County Central Courthouse, which is slated to open in summer of 2020.
190 191 ROD UNDERHILL District Attorney
JEFF HOWES First Assistant to the District Attorney
JOHN CASALINO Chief Deputy District Attorney
DON REES Chief Deputy District Attorney
KIRSTEN SNOWDEN Chief Deputy District Attorney
PAUL WEATHEROY Chief Investigator
JODI ERICKSON Program Manager
ALLEN VOGT Finance Manager
Senior Deputy District Attorneys | Adam Gibbs, Amity Girt, Bette Yada, Brian Davidson, David Hannon, Glen Banfield, J.R. Ujifusa, Jenna Plank, Lori Fellows, Nathan Vasquez, Tom Cleary and Traci Anderson Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office 1021 Southwest 4th Avenue | Room 600 Portland, Oregon 97204
Email: [email protected] Phone: 503-988-3612
Visit the Multnomah County District Attorney’s website at: www.mcda.us
Open you phone’s camera application and point it at either of these QR codes to visit the DA’s website (left) or to email the District Attorney’s Office (right).