 Welcome to Sheboygan County government working for you. My name is Adam Payne. I'm the Sheboygan County Administrative Coordinator and co-host of this program with Bill Gehring, County Board Chairman and today our guest is District Attorney Joe DiCecco. Joe is here today to talk a little bit about the roles and responsibility of the DA's office So we're pleased to have you with us today. Well, thank you for having me, gentlemen. Why don't you start with giving our viewers a little bit information about your background and your experience working in the DA's office? The only thing is anyone who has ever talked to me knows I'm not from Wisconsin. I'm from New England. I have a difficult time pronouncing ours, but aside from that I came to Wisconsin Law School in 1986, graduated in 1989 and then because I learned that you don't have to take a bar exam If you stay in Wisconsin, I look for job in Wisconsin. I was hired by the Sheboygan County DA's office, specifically Jim Frisch in in 1989 the year I graduated and I've been there ever since And you've been working in the district attorney's office here in Sheboygan County since? Since September 6th of 1989. And how does one become a district attorney? A district attorney is an elected position and you have to run for office. The qualifications are relatively simple. You have to be an attorney. You have to be a member of the Wisconsin State Bar and you have to convince enough people to vote you in And it's a two-year term. I thought that's been changed now. It's going to be a four-year term But not for a couple of elections to come. So you you have a two-year term I have a two-year term. I have to run again in this November And if I read the statute right, I'm going to have to run again two years in the next November Then that would be a four-year term if I'm elected And you were elected one again for I was elected November of 2002 when I took office in January of 2003 So it's been about a year. I've been district attorney And how's it been going? What's your first year been like as a district attorney? A bunch of headaches, I'm telling you. The very first year we had, as you well know, the big budget crisis And we were faced with trying to hit our tax levy for our office And part of that was that originally it was thought that we'd lose our Check investigation unit, but we eventually worked out a solution that appears to have satisfied everyone And I can't go through that again though. I you know, I don't know what next the next fiscal year will bring but I'm really looking forward to kind of having an easier budget time next year And to do the types of things that we're really there to do for and that's to prosecute cases Well, I hope you're right on the easier budget But I I don't know if that's going to come to fruition. I suspect that's correct Why don't you share with folks how many employees you have in the department and what your primary responsibilities or services are? We have eight attorneys seven or including myself seven of whom are full-time One being a halftime attorney or employee and we're all state employees. The state pays us directly We also have a County employees who man our office. We have two halftime employees who work in the check fraud unit We have four county employees who work in the victim witness office And then we have seven county employees who work as our legal support staff for transcribing Charges and things of that nature So your position and the assistant district attorneys are state Funded positions. They're all state funded I'm not sure the year that changed but shortly after I became when I first became an assistant district attorney in 1989 I was a county employee the state then decided to assume the responsibility for the salaries of all the prosecutors throughout the states probably to attract Qualified people to become the prosecutors the salaries varied so much between counties That you really didn't get any continuity. You got someone went there for a year and then went somewhere else When the state came in they took over the salaries of the state prosecutors and it's consistent throughout the state So I was lucky that I I mine was an entry-level position. I came right out of law school I don't know of any prosecutors office in the state that now considers anyone directly out of law school They want someone with some experience in criminal prosecution. So I was kind of lucky there But it shows that the state did step in in this instance and elevated the Professionalism of that position so that you have people who are making a career out of being prosecutors Instead of using it as that like a little way station the way to something else So when people Hear you on the radio or you're quoted in the paper Though you're the The chief in that office you have how many prosecutors I have eight and seven aside from myself And a number of support staff that are county funded right and the office itself the the office itself runs on the county budget All the state pays for his salaries And we have to deal with all the concerns the county has in in budgetary Areas because we're part of the county budget Now what is your office's relationship with the state attorney general's office? Well, it's kind of a strange relationship We are not directly Responsible to the state attorney's office except in some areas We for any question of a constitutional matter right to make silent right to a jury trial all these things If there's a disagreement and there's going to be an appeal on it The state attorney general's office does that appeal and the reason they do that is to make sure that there's a Consistent approach to these type of issues throughout the state If we Sometimes and we have to actually apply for permission to them to appeal They say no we can't do it. Sometimes they let us do it, which is fine with us Sometimes they simply say no you can't do it. They also provide some support in the form of criminal investigation although You know we're so far away from Madison. We really don't We don't see as a viable option for for our use. We have to use local sources And they also give opinions on how a law is to be interpreted. So if for example, um, when the Case came down from the Supreme Court about the shopkeeper in Milwaukee Who was convicted of carry concealed weapon in this place of business? And the wisconsin supreme court said no, that's a legitimate function and exception law enforcement immediately called us and said How do we enforce this? How what do we what are we to do with this? and Our office issued our own opinion which was only binding and only legal until such time as the attorney general's office Did their opinion on how this was to be prosecuted as it was they never did an opinion on it So our in supporting county our interpretation of that law is still the one that police officers use So that's one example of how the attorney general's office interacts with our office So not under their direct supervision, but there are certain things we can't do without the permission and consent Now your office plays a vital role in the community and I want to make sure we touch on this some of the Responsibilities of your office give us a flavor for the types of things your office does a primary responsibility Is to prosecute all criminal acts that occur in the shiboyin county Those include traffic crimes those include misdemeanors, which are Serious crimes, but not serious enough to go to prison and they include felonies Which are the more the most serious crimes in which prison could be an option in addition We also prosecute non traffic offenses Such as speeding tickets and a whole host of other types of moving violations for both of shiboyin county sheriff's department and the wisconsin state patrol We also do any forfeitures Of a forfeiture ordinance that is issued by the shiboyin county sheriff's department on the state patrol We also prosecute those we're also responsible For prosecuting all juvenile matters in the county of shiboyin So a child in need of protection of services, which is called chips juvenile need of protection of services Which is called a gyps a delinquent child, which is simply a child that's underage that's committed to crime And a termination of parental rights. Those are all our office's responsibilities And then to add to that Some unfunded mandates from the state have Have required that we do For example, we do wage claims, which is when a person Believes that they've been underpaid or not paid pay the proper amount We get those cases coming from the Department of Labor and we also do I guess that wage claims is really the main thing that is the extra thing of which there's no funding for whatever We just have to do it. It's a real breadth of programs. It's a breadth of programs and At times it kind of distracts us not distracts us But it'd be a lot better if all we did was criminal matters, which is our primary function But we can't because we are required by law to do a number of other functions as well So you've shared You know again the makeup of your department the association with the attorney general's office your your housed in the courthouse You have state funded employees Employees funded through the property tax through sheboyk county before I turn it over to the chairman Bill gearing, what's your relationship with the county board? How does that then interact with your functions? Well, because Even though I'm a state employee and all the attorneys and state employees We still have everyone else in the office as a county employee plus our office operating budget is a comes out of a county budget So we're responsible to our A liaison committee, which is a law committee to report to them on a regular basis For any variation in our in our expenditures and things of that nature Ultimately, we're responsible to the county board a perfect example of that is in trying to keep the check for our unit a viable option and We instituted the check diversion program with the help of a corporation council of colby zing And that was we had to go through the law committee. We had to go through I'm sure the other committee we had to go through. I don't know if it's human resources or finance I think it was finance and then had to go to the county board for a general vote So what we do in the office as far as budgets and our operation is really intricately tied to county government And and of course we interact with other agencies within the county most known to be the schwarren county sheriff's department But certainly the highway department all all sorts of different entities emerging medical services council Mostly to make sure all on the same page to make sure we're not operating across purposes. So Uh our relationship to the county the county board and the county government is a is a is intermashed It's critical that we Go into that relationship with an understanding of what the responsibilities of all the people are And and when there are differences of opinion that we work to resolve them so that we can get the result that we want Very good. Thank you, Joe Joe I understand that the demands on your office and your caseload constantly has increased Could you talk about the number of cases that you prosecuted during the year 2003? Oh sure bill In fact, I I brought a list here because I won't remember these numbers without looking at it We prosecuted a total of criminal cases in uh 2002 and that's traffic felony amistameter was about 3,300 In 2003 that number jumped to about 3,700 Our juvenile cases and those are all the liquidities the chips the chips all this stuff Jumped from 500 and of 78 to 600 and We've really experienced Each year we experience a rise in the number of cases we do it Now in 2003 the number of misdemeanors went down slightly but the number of felonies went up So that's you can't really looking at a total number the felonies are more complicated cases take more time They're usually more than a one-day trial whereas something like operating after vacation is a morning trial So you really can't tell by looking at the number of cases But you can get a good idea of the amount of work you're doing by the numbers going up Which have gone up consistently over the last several years in Sheboyne county Obviously one year is just kind of a snapshot than there could just be a spike But is there one type of case that seems to be increasing most? Is it the felonies? Are they say it is the cases that are increasing most are felony drug dealing We've experienced an influx over 2003 Of more drug deals coming up from either Milwaukee, Chicago Establishing a base here in Sheboyne and selling most of them are selling crack cocaine Which is really one of the most insidious drugs and addictive drugs that there is Has nowhere Powder cocaine has nowhere near the addictive power of crack cocaine And we prosecute these people we send the prison we're not messing around with them That's one of the Increases in the types of cases we had over the last the actually over the last couple of years we've more and more Crack cocaine drug dealers are coming into the county Hidds your office expanded the type of cases that are prosecuted or Actually, we have and it's uh, you know post september 11th When I took office in january of this of last year out of 2003 one of the Areas that I was asked to address was identity theft identity theft is when someone takes an identifying document Or even the name of another person and uses it as their own It's one of the most rapidly growing crimes across the country And in january, I decided that we should be aggressively Prosecuting these kind of cases and most of those cases come from motor vehicles where people who may not be legal in this country Who purchased someone's social security number tried to get a wisconsin driver's license or an id card Using that fault or stolen social security number And that's a felony in the state and we've had 16 or 18 cases about 18 I guess over the last year That we never prosecuted before That we're prosecuting now. I think it's important that People understand that you got to be really careful about your identifying documents Check numbers credit card numbers Your social security number certainly and because some when someone gets a hold of this They can just ruin your life. They can ruin your credit. They can In fact, even in these relatively Simple types of someone's just using some of those numbers those people get a job and that's their social security number So the person who really belongs to is suddenly notified of the irs that they have not declared 20 25 30 thousand dollars in income. Well, they didn't earn that. It's the other person earning it But the social security number is the same and that causes problems because as you probably know federal bureaucracies to correct a problem. It's just just like snails and I thought it was important enough to aggressively prosecute these cases. So that has added to our case law So then there actually is identity theft Actually happening in sheboygan county, not that somebody's opening the mail that you send to chicago or new york and get your numbers But it's happening right happening in sheboygan. We've only had two or three very severe cases The severe cases where someone has actually taken the additional step of getting a credit card or line of credit In someone else's name using someone else's social security number and that is just a quagmire to try and clean up We only have two or three of those cases most of the cases we prosecute are someone who's in the country I believe that they're in here illegally. They're trying to get an id card Those people are very cooperative when they're challenged. They admit that they bought they bought it in milwaukee or chicago for 200 bucks or whatever And we have a standard disposition for those people because they're not they're not terrorists. They're not they're not the traditional identity theft thieves Has your department taken on any new initiatives under your leadership? well, we tried to do a number of things but We did apply for grant early in january Which would have had us have another attorney which was shared with fondlec county for a prosecution of domestic violence cases Of which by the way about one third of all the cases we have are domestic violence related whether it's a misdemeanor Disolute conduct or a misdemeanor battery and it was very Disappointing to see that fall through we thought we had a very good chance. It was a new program We did everything we're doing everything that the program wanted us to do and unfortunately existing programs in the larger counties got the funding Which wasn't really the purpose of this of this grant, but we don't control the state controls it Since then i've been looking for grants any source of revenue and unfortunately all the homeland security and 9-1-1 funding is for law enforcement agencies for emergency medical service agencies for county government preparedness plans And there really isn't at least as far as i could find from searching for months now Funding to supply prosecutors to prosecute crimes that may be committed by people who are either here illegally or are engaging in illegal Illegal activities which may reflect on our concerns about concerning a 9-1-1 We've talked a little bit already about the budget cut that you had to meet for the year 2004 this year Could you tell us what you had to cut or how you did meet the budget requirements? Well, it was just it was very difficult we looked at we I sat down with my office manager collar Colla pederman and with deon canapuz the victim witness coordinator And because those are while they're all part of our office They have we have they don't have separate budgets But we have to consider them separately in doing our budget because for example the victim witness office gets Reimbursed for all their expenses by a percentage from the state which helps a lot Which is going down now, but And so when we went down and just looked at everything every line by line item and may cuts everywhere We could and we were still about 14,000 Dollar shy of our tax tax levy target and we just couldn't cut anymore And that's when when we went to our liaison committee The budget was approved by taking out the the check people which would have made up for that difference I thought that was a vital service that we just couldn't do without and plus the repercussions So that would be that now instead of these people doing all this work for checks It would fall back to law enforcement because these people do the checks in the whole county They don't just do them for the city And so we were able to working with the law committee working with corporation council working with the county board We were able to present a program A diversion program where fees will be paid directly to the county For the Consideration of not being prosecuted if they if they pay the checks So that took some time and it was a lot of work by a lot of people But you know, I I'm still convinced is that when when reasonable people sit down even if they have a difference of opinion That they can work something out and that's exactly what was done here and the credit goes to the the law committee The county board to colby zing I'll take a little credit myself for trying to get it done But that's that's to me is what county government's about it's working together To resolve a problem that that everyone is happy with It's fairly new in the year and new into that changed program But do we have any projections about whether the income will in fact meet the expenses? Well, we just we began at january 2nd and several 100 people who have worth we have a lot of worthless checks in this county have indicated their willingness to participate in the program But we needed, you know, the there's an administrative fee of 35 dollars So until we get their money Then we'll know what kind of revenue we're generating It looks like it's going to work out very well Particularly because we get a bunch of checks at one time Then we may not have so many in the next period then get a whole bunch of them again And most people are responding favorably. They realize they'll have no criminal record. They'll have no audience violations They pay the administrative fee to pay off the checks and we just close the case And that saves time for us. It saves time. The merchants get their money back Or whoever was the recipient of the worthless check and we generate revenue for the county to help support our Our budget Okay, I understand that a recent study showed that shabuagan county should have a number Of additional da's that we don't have could you expand on that? This is a continuing problem When prosecutors became state employees The state began a statewide survey Figure out a method to to determine How how many prosecutors will be needed in any one office? And they finally i'm not exactly sure how they do it. It's not just straight numbers It's a percentage for certain families and misdemeanors and things like that But we've been consistently at least according to state survey Under what we're supposed to have and that's been for several years now And I think even the second year I became when I was a state prosecutor We were the very first survey that came out said we were three prosecutors shy of what we needed The latest survey that came out indicated we're four and a half prosecutors shy of what we need And it makes it very difficult for us We do the job We have to put Prioritized cases and some have to kind of sit on a shelf that don't need immediate attention for a little bit until we can get to them But it's it's really a handicap. The only resolution to that, unfortunately Is for more money for for state prosecutors and given the level of the budget crisis In the state. I'm not optimistic that that will come about anytime soon So in the meantime, we just we just keep doing the job we're doing Hope we don't get too far behind and just keep plugging away Thank you And you have been plugging away all I hear Joe are good things about the job You're doing that your office is doing and in spite of these challenges again a lot of positive feedback And I know you feel positive about your staff. Why don't you talk about that just a little bit? Well, I think that the staff really had even though we got so much work to do. I always believe that creating a healthy Work environment is very important for the productivity of your staff even even if you're swamp with stuff and One of the first things I did when I took office was to make sure that there are open lines of communications Through all the staff members. Are there any problems we need to talk about them and resolve them not let them fester for a period of time And we have a generally Relatively loose attitude in the staff. We have you know, fridays and casual fridays for not the lawyers, but for the other staff I like to feel that anyone Could come to me with a problem and we would sit down with whoever it isn't and work it out It's just a much more congenial atmosphere. I'm very happy to have been A part of that And I'm very pleased the result Everyone who works there seems to be happy. I mean you can't be happy every day, but Certainly there's a new attitude. There's a new vitality to the office and I'm very pleased with that outcome as are we One of the things that I Understand is the cases that you've assigned a prosecutor to each of our five circuit court judges. That's correct What's your relationship with the judges? How has that been working? Well, we kind of got this sweet and sour relationship with the judges I mean we have to work with them every day obviously And they have their own opinions about certain things and we have our own opinions But I go back to the example of trying to work with county government You know, I go to all the judges meetings and they have a problem. We try and work it out sometimes we can't sometimes it's a matter of my discretion and that's the way my policy and A compromise can't be reached because that's my job But most of the time the vast majority of the time We work things out You know chief judge ed stangle his office is always open to me We kid around and caught a lot when everything's done He's very pleasant all the judges are very pleasant to work with but certainly the chief judge is Very easy to work with and we may differ on what we think should happen to a criminal What their sentence should be we may differ on how the case is progressing But I think everyone realizes that we all have different jobs to do. We're all part of the same system and Whatever the compromise can be done To alleviate a problem the court can that we try and do that and the judges accommodate us to it I can give you an example for the first time in 2003 I was the judges agreed to allow To have one week of very limited court appearances So our attorneys could go to training. They have to be recertified And before it was catches catch can we could never get this time off And I approached the judge and said we really need to do this You know, you know, it'll increase our decrease our downtime If you can possibly make this week, which is the a week-long conference where we can get all the credits we need I really appreciate and they responded and said sure and it worked out just fine And we're going to do that every year and that also cuts down on our expenses because the state pays for most of that training When you have to kind of catch this catch can with these one-day things sometimes it doesn't pay And we have to take it over our budget We only have a couple of minutes remaining and you've covered a lot of ground in this short 30 minute program And I've talked about a lot of challenges with your caseloads going up with your staffing really not being where it needs to be challenges with the budget As you look You know in the years ahead, what do you see as the key challenge? Probably the greatest challenge or concern that you have in your profession and where we're headed I think unfortunately one of the key challenges is going to be continued budget concerns I really think that's going to affect us for a long time I think we can work through that But it's going to be it's going to be a big obstacle to work through Aside from the budget, you know things are changing all the time Laws are constantly being changed and revised and we have to we have to respond to that And I've got people I've experienced prosecutors who are starting to approach retirement age And we're going to have to think about replacing prosecutors I'm not approaching retirement age because I started so late I'm going to be here for 40 years of you know, if I get elected again, but but that's some of that's the problems I think the budget is the main thing but that's kind of a short term really focused problem relatively short term The long term is Keeping the staff the prosecutors I have and the staff I have even the support staffs approaching retirement They're just so good at what they do And when it comes time for them to leave when they retire, it's going to be very difficult to replace them And I'm not surprised to hear you have mentioned the budget because all of us in government at any level It's uh really driving the services we provide and what level we provide and there are a lot of needs Joe, I want to thank you for your time today Really appreciate it. I know how busy you are and again now we appreciate the fine job you and your staff are doing Thank you very much and thank you for having me Next month we're going to have Roger landing the highway commissioner join us to talk a little bit about some of the challenges He and his staff have keeping the roads clear and safe during the winter months and offering some tips to you And how you can help them do our job. So until then on behalf of county board chairman bill gehring and myself adam pain Thank you for joining us