Title
Changes to District Attorney's staffing table.
Body
Recommended Action: Approve the reclassification request and allow posting of the positions.
The District Attorney's Office has two positions on the staffing table which have not been funded since 2012. These positions were "held" in order to meet base budgets, but are now needed in order to meet mandatory discovery obligations. The District Attorney's Office can fund the positions, including benefits, through use of existing salary savings and anticipated future salary savings (2016 and 2017 budget cycles).
Each law enforcement agency will manage their cases and evidence differently and each uses different types of technology to collect and store case related evidence. The prosecutor is required to accept and manage all evidence regardless of the format in which it is obtained and stored. The prosecutor is also required, per the rules of discovery, to provide copies of the materials to defense counsel of record. In order to meet this obligation the prosecution office must ‘respond’ to changes in technology. The office must review, redact, store and copy all evidence, including electronic evidence, and have sufficient staff to facilitate the discovery obligations. Electronic evidence could include video/audio recordings of inmate telephone calls, suspect(s) and victim(s) interviews and interrogations, recordings from body cameras, recordings from automobile dashboard cameras, digital photographs, surveillance tapes, crime scene photographs, computer/smartphone/cell phone records including forensic analysis.
Technology use by public safety agencies continues to increase. The Wichita Police Department (WPD) is the law enforcement agency involved in the majority of juvenile and criminal cases (72%) prosecuted by the District Attorney’s office. In 2011, WPD began equipping their street officers with body cameras. From 2011 until September of 2015, sixty (60) cameras were in operation. Du...
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