Mike Green Tackles Prosecutor Attrition

In response to the criticism of the high turnover rate in his office, Mr. Green stated to Cristina Domingues of R-News "the public does not care who prosecutes the cases as long as we win."

This statement is more telling than it may first appear.

It must be remembered that Mr. Green is a political animal and is completely beholden to what the "public" believes. This is evidenced by the fact that back in 2003, when former District Attorney Howard Relin announced he would not seek re-election, Mr. Green (a lifelong republican married to a lifelong republican) jumped to the democrats to obtain the nomination for the Office of District Attorney.

When Mr. Green says "the public does not care who prosecutes the cases as long as we win," what he is REALLY saying is that "HE does not care who prosecutes the cases." It isn't rocket science and does not take a rocket scientist to understand that there would be a high rate of attrition when your boss is of the opinion that all of his employees are expendable.

When Cara Briggs points out the fact that 85 prosecutors have left the District Attorney's Office since 2001 when Mr. Green became First Assistant, Mr. Green can only counter by saying that the proper starting point of analysis should be the number that have left since he began his tenure as the District Attorney.

Okay. Mr. Green became District Attorney in January 2004. At that time, he oversaw an office which employed 70 prosecutors. As of todays date, Mr. Green has been District Attorney for 45 months. In those 45 months, 48 prosecutors have left the office. Yes, you read that right - 48 prosecutors. Or, put another way FOR EVERY MONTH Mr. Green HAS BEEN DISTRICT ATTORNEY, AT LEAST ONE PROSECUTOR HAS LEFT THE OFFICE. Yes, during his tenure, an astonishing 69% of his prosecutors have left the office.

Mr. Green states that this high attrition rate (which he appears not to be concerned about) has nothing to do with his felony conviction rate of 91 percent. When one discussed statistics, one should always be cognizant of the words of former British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.”

With respect to prosecutor attrition, the statistic that would be most telling would be the conviction rate after trial of the most serious charge. This statistic is actually the most telling indicator of the quality of prosecutor still in the DA's Office as it indicates the quality of the prosecutor in conducting a trial and obtaining a conviction on the most serious charge. That number is going to be somewhere in the 30 percent range. If that is the case, what that number tells us is that either (a) Mr. Green is significantly over-indicting cases and/or (b) there is a lack of skill and experience in the prosecutors trying those cases.

If Mr. Green is correct in saying "the public does not care who prosecutes the cases as long as we win," THEN THE PUBLIC SHOULD RE-EVALUATE THIS POSITION.