Legal News

Arizona AG Axes 12 Attorneys As Nationwide Purge Continues

By Amir Efrati

Prosecutor layoffs are in full swing across the country, as a round of cuts announced today by the Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard shows. The Arizona AG laid off 12 attorneys, which makes 22 since the start of the year, or about 5% of the lawyers in his office. No criminal prosecutors were included in today’s cuts, he said. (HT:ATL)

We previously brought you news from other states where prosecutors were on the firing line.

When the Law Blog looked further, it found that the cuts, a direct result of slashed state budgets, are happening in jurisdictions both large and small: Joe Cassilly, DA in Harford County, Maryland, tells us that within the past month he laid off one attorney out of a staff of 30 lawyers. He would have had to cut more if not for last-minute funding, he says. Meanwhile, in San Francisco, the DA cut three prosecutors in June, and in January eight were laid off in Palm Beach County. Last week, Surprise, Ariz., demoted one city prosecutor and turned two prosecutors into contractors and reduced their salaries.

“All prosecutors and and police departments are extremely nervous about additional cuts,” Scott Burns, executive director of the National District Attorneys Association, told the Law Blog. The problem is that “everybody's already pretty lean and mean. If you can find me a prosecutor…who's playing solitaire, I’d like to know where,” Burns said.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on July 20, 2009 (boomark / email).