District attorney concerned about Legislature’s decisions

Baker County District Attorney Matt Shirtcliff told county commissioners Wednesday he’s still evaluating how the recently completed legislative session will affect his work in the coming months.

If there’s one area of concern, he said, it’s House Bill 3508, a law that delays the implementation of Measure 57, the voter-approved initiative that would lengthen prison time for some nonviolent offenders.

But Shirtcliff’s 35 colleagues “worked hard” for the passage of Measure 57 over Measure 61, which would have been more expensive, and state prosecutors don’t want to see it go by the wayside, Shirtcliff said.

He said his fellow district attorneys are hoping that when legislators meet in special session next February, they’ll “see that Measure 57 won’t cost nearly what they thought” and reinstitute the measure.

“It does put people in prison longer,” he said, “but they are people who would have gone to prison anyway.”

Shirtcliff said his biggest concern about the compromise package is a move to increase prisoner “good time” from 20 percent to 30 percent of their sentence, “and it may be retroactive. My problem with that is, it’s not truth in sentencing. I think that’s bad policy, and it means I’m going to have to talk with my victims and look at old cases and release dates.”

“I don’t like it,” Shirtcliff said of the accelerated departure of some inmates from the prison system, “but it’s probably necessary in light of all the budget cuts.”

Under the new law, a felon who gets his probation revoked will receive 60 days in jail rather than 180 days. Probation times will be reduced by 50 percent, a development that doesn’t bother Shirtcliff “since we do a lot of that now (in Baker County) anyway.”

The new law contains at least three items that Shirtcliff and his fellow prosecutors like: assault in conjunction with a driving under the influence of intoxicants conviction now has a stiffer penalty; the sentence for kidnapping with sexual intent is upped to 25 years, rather than 10; and federal immigration authorities can now deport undocumented people serving a prison sentence up to six months before their release.

Another plus with the new bill, from Shirtcliff’s perspective: “This bill and others backfill our community corrections budget,” he said. “That and not getting our crime lab and youth facility decimated, that is a worthwhile exchange.”

Shirtcliff told commissioners crime rates during the first five months of 2009 are flat or down slightly from the year before. The number of people charged with possession of methamphetamine was 22 both in 2007 and 2008; through May 31 it was eight, and Shirtcliff said he believes the number will top out at 10 or 12 by the end of 2009.

“A lot of that is the work the drug task force is doing, plus putting (pseudoephedrine) behind the counter (at drug stores and grocery stores).”

He said he’s seeing lower recidivism rates among domestic violence offenders, but “no decrease in first-time offenders.”

The number of child sex-abuse cases is down again this year, a development Shirtcliff attributes to “sending enough people to prison” to set an example.

When he considers possible funding concerns, the drug task force is at the top of Shirtcliff’s mind.

“When we weren’t active there,” he told commissioners, “crime went up. I’m concerned with where our task force is going to be” as further cuts are implemented.