Wayne County Prosecutor: Office is in 'crisis mode' and caseloads are 'inhumane'

[Jimaz]

Wayne County Prosecutor: Office is in 'crisis mode' and caseloads are 'inhumane'

Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy says the caseloads her staff is facing are “inhumane” and her office is in “crisis mode,” so she's recruiting retired prosecutors back to the office....

“Everyone’s caseload is really inhumane. We have many positions that we cannot fill,” Worthy wrote. "And on top of all of this, crime has spiraled out of control and the numbers are staggering."...

In Macomb County, starting pay for an entry level assistant prosecutor is more than $60,000, Macomb County Prosecutor Peter Lucido said. Some of the same issues caused by the pandemic exist with his office, too, including massive case backlogs.

Violent crime has escalated during the pandemic, Lucido said.

“I have a whole unit of domestic violence and we can’t keep up,” Lucido said....

That's not good. The Great Resignation rears its ugly head again.

[Honky Tonk]

"Wayne County Circuit Court has more than 3,000 cases awaiting trial and 25 district and municipal courts in the county have more than 10,000 cases pending..."


"An idle mind is the devil's workshop..."

[Rocket]

I had to do jury duty in a week long rape trial just before the pandemic started. Down at Frank Murphy.

The prosecutors own DNA expert testified that it was 37 quadrillion times more likely that someone else did it, rather than the accused.

I was thinking to myself,... "Do they really have nothing better to do than to prosecute a case they KNOW they can't win,.. and one where they KNOW the accused didn't do it?"

What a waste of the court's time [[they had even brought in a retired judge because they were so busy),... and what about the 14 of us jurors? We certainly had better things to do.

That kind of stupidity can't have put them in a good position going into this endemic.

[ABetterDetroit]

I see this problem as critical to solve. Detroit’s reputation for crime is bad enough without having a underfunded prosecutors office compounding the issue.

[bartocktoo]

I had to do jury duty in a week long rape trial just before the pandemic started. Down at Frank Murphy.

The prosecutors own DNA expert testified that it was 37 quadrillion times more likely that someone else did it, rather than the accused.

I was thinking to myself,... "Do they really have nothing better to do than to prosecute a case they KNOW they can't win,.. and one where they KNOW the accused didn't do it?"

What a waste of the court's time [[they had even brought in a retired judge because they were so busy),... and what about the 14 of us jurors? We certainly had better things to do.

That kind of stupidity can't have put them in a good position going into this endemic.

This is a complete and utter lie. No one would ever testify like that. Especially an expert. In a criminal trial, where cases are not brought unless they are almost certain they can get a conviction. You know that people usually work to put food on the table and roofs over heads, right? The last thing most think about is conjuring up some conspiracy to help or hurt someone they don't know. Take the tin foil hat off, and I 100% guarantee that what you said happened never happened.

[Rocket]

This is a complete and utter lie. No one would ever testify like that. Especially an expert. ................ I 100% guarantee that what you said happened never happened.

Well, I can tell you that you are precisely 100% incorrect.

I was there. It happened, EXACTLY as I said.

[JBMcB]

This is a complete and utter lie. No one would ever testify like that.

I listen to a lot of true crime podcasts and Youtube channels. There is courtroom video of testimony similar to this. It's dumbfounding.

There was a case in Commerce Township about 15 years ago where prosecutors went after a father for, we'll just say, doing things to his developmentally challenged son. His son, whom is non-communicative, "told" his teacher his father was abusing him. That's *all* the evidence the prosecution had. They went forward with the trial until the judge threw the entire case out when he realized the prosecution had absolutely nothing - no physical evidence, no other testimony other than
a teacher who claimed, but couldn't prove, they could communicate with a non-communicative person. Still, the son was taken away from the parents, they were investigated, the father was put in jail, and they got a bunch of awful coverage on the news. It's *insane* what some prosecutors get away with.