Challenges Facing Rural Prosecutors.

• Author: Gebert, Elizabeth R.

LIFE AS A PROSECUTOR in a rural setting is profoundly and uniquely rewarding. I ran for elected office in a small county knowing full well that there would be limited resources, but also expecting that agency partners and members of the community would be supportive of my efforts. I have not been disappointed.

THE STARK REALITY

It's Monday morning, my eyes snap open at 6:00 a.m. and I immediately open my email on my phone to see how many people are newly in custody from the weekend and will need court appearances by 1:15 p.m. Six. My mind immediately starts processing what I will need to do in order to read reports, make charging decisions, review criminal records, and write and file their criminal complaints by 11:00 a.m. Then I remember that my one and only half-time assistant district attorney is on vacation this week. That means that in addition to my usual 10:00 a.m. status conferences, usually adding up to 30 to 60 cases, I will also have to cover juvenile court all morning. I pull up my Outlook calendar and discover that juvenile court is scheduled during status conferences, so I'm double-booked for most of the morning. Make that triple-booked as I still have to write those complaints. Then I get out of bed.

That is merely a snapshot of nearly every day of my life as the District Attorney in a county of approximately 19,000 permanent residents in Northern Wisconsin. The vacation properties on the beautiful lakes that fill my county at least double that number with weekend, summer, and holiday occupants. We have two law enforcement agencies: the police department for the county seat, the City of Antigo, and one for the rest of the county. On week-nights, we can have as few as two officers covering the city and two deputies covering the entire county. On the healthcare side when I was elected in November of 2016, there were no Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse (AODA) treatment options in the county except for 1-on-1 counseling, which is the lowest level of that type of treatment. On the public safety side, our county is facing a crisis situation with understaffmg in the District Attorney's Office and the two law enforcement agencies that is reaching a fever pitch.

Our limited resources have been brought into harsh focus as we attempt to respond to an overwhelming methamphetamine crisis. It is crippling the court system, with one judge and one full-time district attorney on track to handle over 900 new criminal cases in the most recent...