Craig Watkins' Letter To Judge Foster

CRAIG WATKINS CRIMINAL DISTRICT ATTORNEY DALLAS COUNTY, TEXAS July 21,2009

County Judge Jim Foster

Dallas County Commissioners Court

411 Elm Street

Dallas, Texas 75202

Dear Judge Foster, The purpose of this letter is to give a clear and concise overview of the issues and concerns regarding the budget of the Dallas County District Attorney's (DA) office. First, let me begin by saying I empathize with the daunting task you and the Commissioners are faced with in terms of trying to close the $64 million budget gap in these tough economic times. I recognize that in order to address the budget shortfall, certain sacrifices must be made for the county's financial survival. However, as I have stated since the budgeting process for FY201 0 began, a mandated 10% budget cut across the board for all departments although convenient, is irresponsible. Instead the county should prioritize which departments are in a position to make cuts and which essential services, such as law enforcement, should not be cut at all and instead be funded at the same level as the current budget for FY2009. The reality is that the Dallas County District Attorney's office has been underfunded and understaffed for years as evidenced by the crime rate and jail standards. Over the years, this lack of resources created an assembly line of justice and as we have witnessed first-hand with the 20 DNA-based exonerations (the highest in the nation in one jurisdiction), assembly line justice leads to wrongful convictions. Needless to say, at this point we will be in dire straits if forced to make additional cuts, as those cuts would create a threat to public safety and negatively impact the efficiency of the criminal justice system as a whole in Dallas County. Over the past couple of months, inaccurate information has been repeatedly disseminated to the citizens of Dallas County and the media about the DA's state and federal forfeiture

Frank Crowley Courts Building • 133 N. Industrial Blvd., L.B. 19 • Dallas, Texas 75207-4399 • 214/653-3600

funds and how those funds can be used. I would like to take this opportunity to address this recurring issue and provide an accurate account of how much money is currently in those funds, what they can and more importantly carmot be used for according to state and federal laws, and the amount of those funds that has already been earmarked by our office to pay for essential operating expenses that the county should fund but does not. First, let's take a look at the DA's two federal forfeiture funds, Fund 535 and Fund 540, which are both funds where the DA's office participates in equitable sharing with the federal government. Fund 535 is the DA's Forfeiture HIDTA (High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area) Fund whereby money is generated from drug busts that a DA investigator who is assigned full-time to the DEA (Drug Enforcement Agency) pl2.ys a role in the agency's tactical operations. The DA's office generally receives 25% of the money and assets seized from these busts. As of June 30, 2009, the current balance of Fund 535 was $245,688.64. However, in accordance with the regulations on equitable sharing from the US. Department of Justice (DOJ) which specifically states, "shared resources shall not be used to replace or supplant the appropriated resources of the recipient," it would be a violation of the

law to give Dallas County money from federal forfeiture funds.

Therefore,

Commissioners should not even take the DA's federal forfeiture funds into consideration as it relates to the county's budget planning process. The regulations also state "the recipient agency must benefit directly from the sharing." For example, using this fund to purchase finger-printing equipment for the Sheriffs office does not directly benefit the DA's office. Noncompliance with the policies of the DOl's Guide to Equitable Sharing may subject the recipient agencies to one or more of the following sanctions: denial of an agency's sharing request; temporary or permanent exclusion from further participation in the equitable sharing program; offsets from future sharing in amounts equal to impermissible uses; civil enforcement actions in US. District Court for breach of contract; or where warranted, federal criminal prosecution for false statements under 18 US.C. § 1001 and/or fraud involving theft of federal program funds under US.c. § 666, or other sections of the criminal code.

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Our other federal forfeiture fund is Fund 540, which is also a federal asset sharing fund.

These funds are generated from cash and asset seizures resulting from various

federal crimes.

As of June 30,2009, the balance in Fund 540 was $914,110.00.

However, the same above-mentioned federal regulations apply to this fund in tenns of what the money can and cannot be used for. Additionally, even though these two federal funds both have balances, due to continued inadequate funding by the county, our office has been forced to budget more than $1.5 million in operating expenses from these funds to pay for basic, essential needs in order for the DA's office to be functional. Without our federal forfeiture funds, we would not be able to pay for state bar dues for all of our attorneys, nor the necessary replacement vehicles, standardized service weapons, holsters, ammunition and bullet­ proof vests for our investigators.

The county does not fund any of these operating

expenses. In addition to the two federal funds, the DA's office has six state funds -

Funds

541, 542, 544, 545, 546 and 547. One of these funds is a state forfeiture fund and the other five are unadjudicated funds. Fund 541, which has a projected ending balance of $609,463.38, is generated from forfeited cash, automobiles and real estate. All of the money in Funds 542 Unadjudicated Fund A - Attomey General with $31,501.82; 544 Unadjudicated Fund B - Attomey General with $26,218.15; 545 Unadjudicated Fund C­ Gam~ling with

$49,326.17; 546 Unadjudicated Fund D - DPS Narcotics with $83,238.02

and; Fund 547 with $177,997.67, which applies to anything that does not fall under Unadjudicated Funds A, B, C, or D, is held by the DA's Office in trust as the treasury of the court and can only be paid out if litigation is won. During litigation, however, it is simply not our money to spend. Even if we win litigation, the DA's office is only entitled to approximately 20% of the net. State laws also regulate how forfeiture funds are used by the recipient agency and according to Article 59.06 of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure, "A commissioners court or governing body of a municipality may not use the existence of an award to offset or decrease total salaries, expenses, and allowances that the agency or the attorney receives from the commissioners court or governing body at or after the time the proceeds are awarded."

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I realize the reason you may deem it possible to have access to the DA's forfeiture funds is because of the false impression my predecessor may have given you by giving the county $1 million from the forfeiture funds on December 27, 2006, (five days before I took office) as a reimbursement of salaries for the DA's Child Abuse division, even though the statute specifically states that forfeiture funds caill10t be used for salaries. In addition to the illegal $1 million transaction, the former administration also wrote a check out of the forfeiture funds in the amount of $424,176.75 to a special prosecutor who handled the fake drug scandal -

a case that had been prosecuted two

years earlier, yet the special prosecutor did not submit the legal bill until December 8, 2006, just shortly before I took office. Both of these transactions have severely hampered our administration's ability to provide the necessary CLE (Continuing Legal Education), as well as other training and tools that our attorneys need. Coupled with a lack of adequate funding from the county, the DA's office simply caill10t afford to make any additional cuts to our current FY2009 budget of $35.9 million without affecting public safety and use of the DA's federal and state forfeiture funds are not an option. If the Commissioners force the DA's office to cut the 40 positions dictated by a 10% mandated budget cut along with the possibility of losing 38 grant-funded positions that the county initially agreed to pick up the funding after a pre-determined period of time, it will have devastating and long-term effects on the overall efficiency of the criminal justice system. Losing prosecutors would result in a backlog of cases, which the delay will only benefit the criminals, because as time passes, witnesses' memories fade or they move away or worse, pass away. Justice will be delayed and justice delayed is justice denied. Ultimately, we would be faced with the dilemma of choosing which criminals to release on PR (personal recognizance) bonds and which ones to release fitted with an electronic ankle monitor until they are due back in court, neither of which should even be a consideration from my perspective, all because the DA's office is improperly funded and does not have enough prosecutors to handle our caseload. For some criminals, PR bonds and ankle monitors do not serve as deterrents to committing new offenses while they are temporarily out of jail. You will recall my first month in office, we were asked

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to go against law enforcement tradition by releasing low-level offenders because of overcrowding at the county jail. We will not repeat that decision and surely, this is not what the taxpayers of Dallas County want. I honestly believe that the average citizen has no idea how our office operates, which is why educating people through town hall meetings and the media is so critical. People watch crime shows on television and they really think that prosecutors only work on one high-profile case at a time. Nothing could be further from the truth. In 2008 alone, the 245 attorneys (including four part-time attorneys) at the Dallas County District . Attorney's office handled 123,294 cases. That's 503 cases per attorney and our office reports to 90 courts and four grand juries, and this does not include the additional 120,000 Class C misdemeanors that our attorneys are responsible for at the Justice of the Peace Courts. This level of work was only possible because of the 17,000 hours of unpaid overtime that our attorneys logged between January 1 and December 31, 2008. Those 17,000 hours of uncompensated work translates into over 10 full-time attorney positions and let us not forget that many attorneys work countless hours of overtime and don't even bother to log their time because they know they will not get paid for it. My first assistant said it best when she said the DA's office is a legal sweatshop. In closing, I would like to ask you to take a serious look at all of the information provided in this letter and strongly consider supporting my position of not cutting the DA's budget and instead support our request for Commissioners to fund our office for FY2010 at the same level of funding approved for FY2009, since public safety is the number one priority for the citizens of Dallas County. Also, please note that this is not only the DA's position, but also that of the public evidenced by the results of a recent Dallas Morning News online poll which asked readers, "Should the District Attorney's office be included in the county's budget cuts?" The poll results revealed that not only did the majority of respondents believe the DA's budget should not be cut, but in fact 50% believed the DA's budget should be increased. While I understand a budget increase is not feasible at this time, I simply ask the Commissioners to prioritize just as you would in your own household during tough economic times and recognize that the District Attorney's office is different from other

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county departments. After all, it is my job to get criminals off of our streets, so that the citizens may enjoy all of the wonderful new development happening in Dallas County. Thank you in advance for your time and consideration.

Craig Watkins Dallas County Criminal District Attorney

enclosure cc: Commissioner Maurine Dickey, District 1

Commissioner Mike Cantrell, District 2

Commissioner John Wiley Price, District 3

Commissioner Kermeth Mayfield, District 4

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