Jessica Masulli Reyes

The News Journal

Nine criminal prosecutors have left Attorney General Matt Denn's office in the last five months, and two more are expected to do the same in the next few weeks.

Even though the departures represent only a handful of the state's approximately 142 prosecutors, the loss is felt widely. It means that young lawyers are trying and supervising homicide and other felony cases once reserved for experienced prosecutors like Steve Wood, Ipek Medford, Josette Manning and Kathleen Jennings – all of whom left for private or public sector jobs.

"It is still tough not to walk up to Steve Wood's office and say 'how do you handle this?'" said Denn, who has been attorney general for two years but only recently tried his first criminal case.

The shakeup is indicative of a problem that Denn said his office is facing under the state's current budget crunch.

Attorneys are wooed to public law with promises of a meaningful career, excellent health benefits, and a balance between work and home life, but some in Delaware are finding it harder to justify continuing that work when their caseloads are rising, their salaries are nearly stagnant and their health benefits are in jeopardy.

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"We are kind of at a tipping point, and if the resources don't get there, there are only so many years that you can keep hearing the same phrase: 'there is a budget crisis, and we need you guys to do more with less,'" said Deputy Attorney General Barzilai Axelrod. "The only people that will suffer with the 'more with less' equation are the victims and citizens."

Steve Wood was a seasoned prosecutor – or the old guard, as some might say – but left in September to join McCarter & English, a law firm in Wilmington that starts a lawyer straight out of school at nearly double what Wood was making after 31 years of state service.

"I loved my service as a prosecutor," Wood said. "But because of the way the state compensates lawyers, I hadn't had a raise in excess of 2 percent since 2001. There came a time when I couldn't justify the sacrifice."

With a looming budget gap that could be as much as $350 million for next year, agencies are lining up with requests for more funds to do everything from raise judges' salaries to help elementary students with special needs. Virtually all, however, could lose funding under a budget that was proposed by former Gov. Jack Markell.

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As Delaware's new governor, John Carney, wrestles with the budget, he'll have a series of community conversations at locations around the state to hear the public's opinion.

In the meantime, both Denn and Chief Public Defender Brendan O'Neill have pitched their most urgent budget requests to the Office of Budget Management and will next month make similar pleas to the Joint Finance Committee for increased spending in order to hire more deputy attorney generals or assistant public defenders and support staff.

Among what Denn deems the most critical of his requests is another deputy attorney general to handle New Castle County homicide and gang cases. He's also asking for another full-time juvenile delinquency prosecutor and a criminal prosecutor to work in a casual/seasonal position without benefits, along with various support staff positions. The requests amount to a 3.4 percent increase in the office's budget.

These positions would help ease caseloads at a time when cases are becoming more complicated because of extensive reviews that are required for evidence from body-worn cameras, surveillance video and the public's cell phones, Denn said.

"We keep telling the legislative branch that this is a public safety issue," Denn said. "But they are in a tough spot, and I'm sympathetic to that. I am very familiar with the challenges in trying to balance the state budget, but this is a core public safety issue and so I think it needs to be viewed in that context.”

The public defender's office is asking for another assistant public defender to reduce the high caseload for Court of Common Pleas attorneys handling misdemeanor cases in Kent County. The American Bar Association recommends a caseload of 400 for these prosecutors, but assistant public defenders in Kent County are carrying three times that much, while their colleagues in Sussex and New Castle are carrying about double.

O'Neill said assistant public defenders cannot effectively dig into allegations against their clients if caseloads get too high. The result can be that cases end in pleas, rather than going to trial.

"What we want is enough resources, and that includes people, to ensure every attorney has the time and ability to defend their client effectively," O'Neill said. "These people have the right to the same level of legal representation that anyone would want for themselves or for someone close to them."

Denn agreed that heavy caseloads can lead to problems down the road.

"What we want to avoid is reaching the point where younger attorneys don't have sufficient experience to handle complicated cases," he said. "I don't think we are there yet, but the office is being squeezed."

Part of the squeeze is the number of attorneys who have left in recent months.

The departures first began in September when Wood left after three decades in the office. He took with him years of trial experience on cases that included James Cooke for the murder of University of Delaware student Lindsey Bonistall and supervisory experience that included his time as state prosecutor under former Attorney General Jane Brady and homicide unit head under former Attorney General Beau Biden.

"I loved my service as a prosecutor," he said. "But the pay was terrible. With a child in law school and another in college, I had to put my family first."

The changes continued the following month when Medford, head of the homicide unit, was recruited by Dalton & Associates to do plaintiff asbestos litigation.

Medford said the new position was an exciting chance to pursue a different type of law, but she also was seeing the pressures being placed on her unit, such as higher caseloads and on-call shifts in which deputy attorneys general go to homicide scenes on weekends, holidays and nights.

"Everyone is dedicated to what they do; that is why I stayed for so long," she said. "But we felt like we were a forgotten group over there, and we were tasked with one of the most important things you can do as a government employee. We were dealing with murders, rapes, robberies, burglaries and we're being tasked with more and more and more."

Then, there was a flurry of even more departures toward the end of the year. Kathleen Jennings, the former state prosecutor, went to work as the chief administrative officer for New Castle County Executive Matt Meyer's new administration. Sean Lugg moved from the appellate unit to the state prosecutor role to fill the vacancy.

Denn also named Deputy Attorney General LaKresha Roberts as his new chief deputy attorney general, the second-ranking position in his office, after Danielle Gibbs went to work as chief legal counsel for the newly elected governor. Roberts' previous role as head of the family division was filled by Abigail Rodgers Layton, formerly in the Medicaid fraud control unit.

"It is not an accident that the last five major promotions I've made have all been internal promotions rather than bringing people in from the outside," Denn said. "I'm trying to send a message that if you do good work, it will be rewarded."

Denn's office also lost Theresa Sedivec, head of the juvenile delinquency and truancy unit, to a commissioner position in Family Court, and Manning, the head of the special victims unit, to the state Department of Services for Children, Youth and Their Families.

"We've certainly had some very senior people leave recently," Denn said. "That is always a tough transition, not just because they are good lawyers, but also because they have institutional knowledge."

The personnel changes also give promising young attorneys a chance to step up.

Medford recalled that she was able to try her first homicide cases and then move into a supervisory role because of senior staff who left the Attorney General's Office during a similar transition over a decade ago.

"I thought 'Oh God, all these people are leaving,'" she recalled. "But they always will make do and be fine, because their heart is in it."

The same could happen for deputy attorneys general like Axelrod. He joined the Department of Justice in 2008, one year out of law school, and has jumped between various units. Now he is the assistant unit head for the violent criminal enterprises unit – which is losing its top supervisor in a few weeks.

Axelrod said, despite the challenges of working in public law, he wouldn't change his path.

"I'm kind of getting to the number of years where my friends who I took the bar with are starting to make partner or starting to make their money, and that is great," he said. "But I can't really get into that. This is my way."

"You come into this job knowing you are not in it for the money," Axelrod added. "You also know it is not an easy job, but what comes with the territory is the ability to lay your head on your pillow at night and know you are working for something other than yourself and that you are doing it to help everyone in this state."

Contact Jessica Masulli Reyes at 302-324-2777, jmreyes@delawareonline.com or Twitter @jessicamasulli.